Review: The Beautiful and Damned

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald—Book Review

Oliver Adelson

I first encountered the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald where nearly every American does: High School English Class. It is hardly necessary to say which novel of his we read, for there is only one that is taught in the classroom.

I loved everything about The Great Gatsby, from the elegant character descriptions with countless clauses to the lurid green light that one can never attain, though one may try. The last line of the novel, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” is closer to poetry than to prose and has remained etched in my memory since I read it. (I bring all this up in a review of The Beautiful and Damned simply because any modern reading of anything written by Fitzgerald is done, explicitly or implicitly, with The Great Gatsby in mind.)

The Beautiful and Damned was first released in 1922, three years before the publication of The Great Gatsby. It chronicles the lives of Anthony Patch, a recent Harvard graduate and grandson of the multi-millionaire Adam Patch, and Gloria Gilbert, the first cousin of Anthony’s friend Dick. The novel shows the reader the rise and fall of their relationship, from Anthony’s courting Gloria to the financial troubles they face when they are conspicuously left out of Adam Patch’s will. More than anything, it is a story of tragic love and material excess—the two throw lavish parties even when doing so requires that they sell bonds, and Anthony develops a rather problematic affinity for alcohol.

In my estimation, what makes The Beautiful and Damned a compelling novel is not its plot. Indeed, there are whole sections of the book where practically nothing of consequence occurs. Rather, it is the beautiful writing and incredibly real characters that keep the reader engaged. Fitzgerald’s ability to create witty, engaging sentences is consistently demonstrated throughout the novel, perhaps more so than in The Great Gatsby. Entertaining descriptions such as the following can be found in great number: “‘Cra-a-azy!’ she murmured pleasantly, using the clumsy rope-ladder with which she bridged all gaps and climbed after her mental superiors. Subconsciously she felt that it eliminated distances and brought the person whose imagination had eluded her back within range.” (It is worth noting that the character in the quotation is not Anthony’s wife, Gloria. If there is anyone climbing rope-ladders after mental superiors in their relationship, it is Anthony.)

I should probably qualify the last claim by saying that Gloria’s intelligence shines only during part of the story. Although Fitzgerald initially portrays Gloria as witty and unique, she becomes markedly less compelling toward the end of the novel. The story initially seems to be centered on her, but as financial problems mount for the two, she gets fewer lines of dialogue, and her character becomes almost bland. Conversely, Anthony changes from an amorphous character defined by his pursuit of Gloria to a man almost possessing a personality.

Many readers of The Beautiful and Damned have speculated that the novel is at least partially autobiographical. If this is true, we are left asking many questions about Fitzgerald himself, not least of which is whether he had a general antipathy toward Jews. As is true in The Great Gatsby, the Jews in The Beautiful and Damned seem less like people than like stereotypes inserted by Fitzgerald to advance the plot. The Jewish movie producer Mr. Bloeckman first tries to marry Gloria and later refuses to help her when she is running out of money—he is one of the only people in the entire novel with zero redeeming characteristics.

Despite the novel’s occasionally wandering plot and hints of anti-Semitism, it is a beautiful depiction of love and decay during a fascinating part of America’s history. The novel displays Fitzgerald’s writing at its finest, and there are countless lines that could stand on their own as quotations, e.g., “Over in Europe the usual number of children had swollen stomachs from starvation, and the diplomats were at their customary business of making the world safe for new wars.” Readers who enjoy The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s work more generally would certainly find much to admire in The Beautiful and Damned.