F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Beautiful and Damned
eBook
(Dead Dodo Vintage March 30, 2012)
, 1st Edition
This Dead Dodo Vintage edition of The Beautiful and Damned is published specifically for Kindle and includes fully functioning menus throughout. The edition also includes a Kindle-viewable exclusive image gallery showcasing rare images of the legend that is F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Beautiful and Damned is at once a morality tale, a meditation on love, money and decadence, and a social document. This thematic dualism is created and sustained by an overarching consistency of tone and delivery. There exists a rare balance between Anthony's poetic commentary and immediate circumstances, and the wider context of the novel, creating two equally significant levels to the text that complement each other synergistically. Were it not for the intensity of Anthony and Gloria's fall we would not find ourselves sufficiently discouraged from complacency, and moral laxity as for the novel to have any great effect; were it not for the all-encompassing despondency—the sheer breadth of depravity exposed in the novel—we would not be able to comprehend the extent to which a society may be steeped in such a transparent vice.
Ultimately, it becomes apparent that the novel concerns the lurches of a lethargic society, trying desperately to find a cause for which to progress. Indeed, it is significant that the only diligent reformer of the novel—the only man who has found a cause to which he may commit—is Anthony's grandfather, who belongs to the previous generation, which has now been replaced by the present directionless one. Equally, and on a more personal level, the novel is about the ephemerality of all life. It concerns characters' disproportionate appreciation of their past; an inaccuracy of interpretation that invariably consumes them in the present.
The novel concerns itself with the question of vocation—what does one do with oneself when one has nothing to do?—writes Fitzgerald critic West. He says that Fitzgerald was concerned with the question of vocation for men as well as for women. In the novel, Fitzgerald presents Gloria as woman whose vocation is nothing more than to catch a husband. After her marriage to Anthony, Gloria's sole vocation is to slide into indolence and alcoholism; her husband's sole vocation is to wait for his inheritance.
The Beautiful and Damned is at once a morality tale, a meditation on love, money and decadence, and a social document. This thematic dualism is created and sustained by an overarching consistency of tone and delivery. There exists a rare balance between Anthony's poetic commentary and immediate circumstances, and the wider context of the novel, creating two equally significant levels to the text that complement each other synergistically. Were it not for the intensity of Anthony and Gloria's fall we would not find ourselves sufficiently discouraged from complacency, and moral laxity as for the novel to have any great effect; were it not for the all-encompassing despondency—the sheer breadth of depravity exposed in the novel—we would not be able to comprehend the extent to which a society may be steeped in such a transparent vice.
Ultimately, it becomes apparent that the novel concerns the lurches of a lethargic society, trying desperately to find a cause for which to progress. Indeed, it is significant that the only diligent reformer of the novel—the only man who has found a cause to which he may commit—is Anthony's grandfather, who belongs to the previous generation, which has now been replaced by the present directionless one. Equally, and on a more personal level, the novel is about the ephemerality of all life. It concerns characters' disproportionate appreciation of their past; an inaccuracy of interpretation that invariably consumes them in the present.
The novel concerns itself with the question of vocation—what does one do with oneself when one has nothing to do?—writes Fitzgerald critic West. He says that Fitzgerald was concerned with the question of vocation for men as well as for women. In the novel, Fitzgerald presents Gloria as woman whose vocation is nothing more than to catch a husband. After her marriage to Anthony, Gloria's sole vocation is to slide into indolence and alcoholism; her husband's sole vocation is to wait for his inheritance.
- Pages
- 198
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