October 2011 Guest Editor Philippa Gregory on F. Scott Fitzgerald...
I have just re-read this and constantly admired the economy of Fitzgerald. He can write poignant paragraphs that come out of almost nothing, as a reader you can hardly tell what he is doing, but you emerge from the novel feeling emotionally wrung. It’s the story of the most glamorous couple on the French Riviera, and slowly you understand that much of their beauty is a façade, and that even their passion is something that will pass. It is loosely based on Fitzgerald’s own marriage to Zelda who is an interesting character in her own right and too often “written off” by biographers as the unstable wife to a genius. As this novel hints, perhaps it was far more complicated and interesting than that.
The magnificent attitude of not giving a damn ... and to seek the moment's happiness as fervently and persistently as possible.
It's New York during the Jazz Age. Anthony and Gloria Patch are a rich and beautiful couple who drink and dance away their days in glorious decadence as they wait for an inheritance to materialize. Gloria has always relied on her beauty to get her everything she wants (including a wealthy husband), while Anthony is Harvard-educated with a yen for the finer things of life. Blinded by the notion of future wealth, they push the boat out further and further until they find themselves far from shore and baling fast.
This is a brilliant study of a marriage that begins to reel under the effects of too much booze as the doomed couple fall into indolence and out of love. First published in 1922, The Beautiful and Damned drew heavily on F. Scott Fitzgerald's own life and helped established his reputation as one of the great American novelists.
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