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Splendid book!!

Page 2:
In this state he considered that he would one day accomplish some quiet subtle thing that the elect would deem worthy and, passing on, would join the dimmer stars in a nebulous, indeterminate heaven half-way between death and immortality.

Page 20:
"A classic," suggested Anthony, "is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity to take the place of its fashion..."

Page 50:
The growth of intimacy is like that, Fisrt one gives off his best picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood and humour. Then more details are required and one paints a second portrait, and a third - before long the best lines cancel out - and the secret is exposed at last...

Page 58:
Happiness, remarked Maury Noble one day, is only the first hour after these alleviation of some especially intense misery.


5* Tender Is the Night
5* The Love of the Last Tycoon
5* The Great Gatsby
4* The Crack-Up
3* The Ice Palace
3* Babylon Revisited and Other Stories
4* The Last Tycoon
1* Thank You for the Light
3* Tales of the Jazz Age
3* Financing Finnegan
2* This Side of Paradise
2* An Alcoholic Case
2* Three hours between planes
4* The Beautiful and Damned
TBR Flappers and Philosophers

I love Fitzgerald. I will always love Fitzgerald. Just not this particular Fitzgerald. That Much, anyway. Aside from occasional genius of word twisting beauty, I feel like this is just This Side of Paradise having its existential midlife crisis and hacking up an alcohol soaked furball of a marriage plot. Short-form Fitz and I need to make a date for a hot and heavy quickie.

Och, man. Beste Fitz, zelfs TSOP, TGG en TITN verbleken hiernaast.

“Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know - because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”

“Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you - it's a wall that an active you runs up against.”

“Art isn't meaningless. (…) It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so.”

“Happiness is only the first hour after the alleviation of some especially intense misery.”

“Marriage was created not to be a background but to need one. Mine is going to be outstanding. It can’t, shan’t be the setting – it’s going to be the performance, the lively, lovely, glamorous performance, and the world shall be the scenery.”

“Everywhere we go and move on and change, something’s lost--something’s left behind. You can’t ever quite repeat anything, and I’ve been so yours, here.”

Published in 1922, this book is set mostly in New York during the Jazz Age. It follows the relationship between Anthony Patch and his girlfriend-wife, Gloria. They are part of New York’s high society and lead a rather dissolute lifestyle. Anthony expects to inherit a fortune from his grandfather, but when he is disowned, their lives take a downturn, and their relationship deteriorates. They appear to have everything – beauty, wealth, intelligence – but it is not enough to keep their lives from falling apart.

I have mixed feelings about this work. On the positive side, the prose is wonderful, and places the reader in the midst of a bygone era. On the negative side, it is difficult to root for these self-centered entitled people. It meanders a bit in the middle sections. It is not my favorite of Fitzgerald’s works, but I am glad to have read it.

A good read. However, two more unlikeable characters would be difficult to find. Anthony a self absorbed waffling wannabe novelist and Gloria his narcissistic wife. Greed, laziness and debauchery. Set between 1910-1920s it is interesting to read about those times and the prohibition jazz age era.

Saying all that I liked the book it grew on me and the ending was unexpected.

I'm really not good at finances, but Anthony dude, even I know that little money + lot of spending = no money

I have listened to it on the Audible. Have enjoyed it. I would consider to re-listen or reread it.

Overall, ⭐⭐⭐ for exceptional writing and evocation of feeling. It is certainly not the masterpiece that The Great Gatsby is, and I wasn't as keen on Fitzgerald's experimental writing style in this one. What I liked:
- the fact that this book was partially autobiographical and gave me more insight into Fitzgerald's life and who he was as a person. It was his second novel, following bestseller This Side of Paradise (which he humorously referenced in one chapter), and there were several timely references to literature, art, and people of the period, giving it the feel of a very personal story for the author. I particularly was a fan of the Ethan Frome reference toward the end of the novel

The Beautiful and Damned was both emotionally draining and utterly fascinating. I think it helped that I was listening to it on the way to and from work so I got it in small bites. That helped break up the story. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book, but I did. I thought I would hate and despise Anthony and Gloria, but I didn't. In fact, I liked them initially. As their world began to crumble, I pitied them. I didn't despise them, though.
I almost would rate this 5 stars except I didn't quite like Gloria. She didn't seem real. She seemed like a man's idea of a beautiful woman. The way she would respond to something or a particular action...it felt off. Not quite right.
Overall, I found this book very satisfying.

There exists a common theme in the three Fitzgerald novels I have read and I would like to use a J. Cole lyric to explain it: "Don't save her, she don't wanna be saved."

I listened to this book via Spotify.

I don't want to say that this is my least favourite book ever, but it genuinely might be my least favourite book ever. This book follows the ever vapid and empty characters of Anthony and Gloria, who are so toxic to one another, and to themselves that they spend most of their time fighting and drinking just to pass the time. I think this book was filled with boring, privileged people doing boring and privileged things. When Anthony's grandfather leaves him off his will after finding Anthony and Gloria hosting a party, Anthony decides to go to court to get some inheritance. During the four year trial, he's sent to "war" or basically just different training camps around the US where he cheats on his wife and is so self-absorbed it's unbelievable. Gloria is no better. Full of herself in every way possible and so internally misogynistic it's unreal. This book was so boring I'm even bored talking about it. I enjoyed Gatsby but this just dragged.

I still think that Fitzgerald is one of the most fantastic writers of the 20th century. His books are romantic and introspective in a way that has been almost completely lost to the contemporary moment. He writes of two people in this book who are almost synonymous with the age they lived in whose story is summed up in the title in a way that is not revealed to the reader until the book's end - The Beautiful and the Damned, a metaphor for the US in the '20s and '30s - a culture at its highest, dropped to its lowest. It is dificult to articulate exactly how this book made me feel. I was elated at the begining, reveling in the beauty of the start and the language by which these aristrats lives are lived - the finery of a life a leisure. But by the end of the book, given the dramatic and unexpected language of these protagonists damnation, I was left deflated and resentful of the author who dropped me so low from such a beautiful height of the elevated language I was provided with earlier. I believe this is the ingenious affect of a brilliant, if not always compelling writer.