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The Beautiful and Damned
632 pages
A glittering, slow-motion trainwreck of a marriage drowning in champagne and squandered potential.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like attending an endless, opulent party that slowly turns into a nightmare as the champagne goes flat and the dawn breaks. It is a leisurely, glittering descent into ruin, carried by prose that is breathtakingly lyrical yet laced with a biting, cynical edge. The atmosphere is thick with the restless energy of the Jazz Age, but beneath the silk shirts and jazz records lies a suffocating sense of doom. You watch, mesmerized, as two beautiful, entitled people slowly destroy each other and themselves through sheer inertia and greed. It is a perfect read for those who crave gorgeous, melancholic sentences and are fascinated by the tragic, hollow core of American glamour and the devastating cost of wild ambition.
- Mood
- decadent
- glittering
- suffocating
- doomed
- Tone
- cynical
- melancholic
- satirical
- glamorous
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- marital decay · squandered potential · hollowness of wealth · destructive entitlement · the illusion of youth
- The writing
- Lyrical, ornate, and sharply observant, dripping with both romanticism and biting irony.
- The arc
- From glittering, arrogant optimism to a slow, suffocating descent into bitter disillusionment and ruin.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love gorgeous sentences masking ugly truths, and those fascinated by the tragic glamour of the 1920s.
Content notes
- alcoholism
- emotional abuse
- infidelity
- mental deterioration
About the book
First published in 1922, The Beautiful and Damned followed Fitzgerald's impeccable debut, This Side of Paradise, thus securing his place in the tradition of great American novelists. Embellished with the author's lyrical prose, here is the story of Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria. As they await the inheritance of his grandfather's fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice. A devastating look at the nouveau riche, and the New York nightlife, as well as the ruinous effects of wild ambition, The Beautiful and the Damned achieved stature as one of Fitzgerald's most accomplished novels. Its distinction as a classic endures to this day. Pocket Book's Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. Special features include critical perspectives, suggestions for further read, and a unique visual essay composed of period photographs that help bring every word to life.
Description from Open Library.
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