The Beautiful and Damned

Pages: 361 📖

Year Published: 1922 🕰️

Days to Complete: 22

Author:

While F. Scott Fitzgerald is a name that most people know, some of the finer details of his life are lesser-known. He was born in Minnesota and was in love with a girl from Lake Forest, Illinois prior to his time in the army and New York City. After his wife Zelda and he were married and he had found some success as an author with his first novel This Side of Paradise, they lived quite similarly to how the main characters in this book lived, financially and socially reckless, fully embracing the hedonistic culture of the 1920s. When Fitzgerald was successful, life was great. When he wasn’t, he was hopelessly depressed. Francis and Zelda had a pretty turbulent marriage but raised their daughter Frances Scott “Scottie” Fitzgerald with the help of Fitzgerald’s agent and his wife. After his career declined, he attempted to become a screenwriter in Hollywood while Zelda was resigned to mental hospitals on the east coast. Fitzgerald died at the age of 44 in LA from a heart attack.

Learn More about F. Scott Fitzgerald

Three words to describe this read:

Upsetting- While the main characters aren’t perfect, I tended to like them and want the best for them. Unfortunately, the story shows their slow and steady unraveling. Some of it came naturally with age, but a lot of it was self-inflicted.

Distracting- The main conflict of the story was based on whether or not the two main characters were going to get “their money” but by the end, you find that it doesn’t matter as much as they are convinced that it does. In a way, what is supposed to be the main conflict actually distracts the reader from the more important moral of the story.

Classist- Anthony, the main character, rides the line of wealthy throughout the whole story. He and his friends seem to have definite opinions about people they consider wealthy and people they consider not.

Quote:

“There was nothing, she had said, that she wanted, except to be young and beautiful for a long time, to be gay and happy, and to have money and love. She wanted what most women want, but she wanted it much more fiercely and passionately.”

This reminds me of a line from a Lorde’s song “Million Dollar Bills”, “There’s nothing I want but money and time”. I like the idea that women all generally want the same things, because I feel that for the most part, it’s true.