The Beautiful and Damned (Vintage Classics)

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The Beautiful and Damned (Vintage Classics)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.73 · rating details · 6,663 ratings · 557 reviews

Fitzgerald’s second novel, a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age, is a largely autobiographical depiction of a glamorous, reckless Manhattan couple and their spectacular spiral into tragedy. Published on the heels of This Side of Paradise, the story of the Harvard-educated aesthete Anthony Patch and his willful wife, Gloria, is propelled by Fitzgerald’s in...more

Paperback, 400 pages

Published February 23rd 2011 by Vintage (first published 1920)

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May 31, 2011

Brian rated it

· review of another edition

A deeply flawed book. A good amount of editing would've greatly improved this book. However, Fitzgerald was coming off his huge success with "This Side of Paradise", so the publisher allowed him to publish this very uneven piece of work. This was the final Fitzgerald novel that I have read, and by far the worst.

Yes, Fitzgerald writes beautiful prose. Eloquence for its own sake doesn't make a novel. Indulgent eloquence, uneven pacing, unsympathetic characters, a generally po...more

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Jan 21, 2009

Briynne rated it

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Fitzgerald wasn't joking with that title. These people were completely screwed from the moment they hit the page, and it was fascinating to watch it all disintegrate. As I mentioned in the review I just finished for Tender is the Night, I found Anthony and Gloria to be some of the more unsympathetic characters I've encountered lately. They are both vain and shallow and utterly useless people in terms of anything practical. I can't imagine being friends with these people. This book worked fo...more

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Aug 16, 2007

Ashley rated it

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I didn't like this novel as well as the other Fitzgerald works I've read, though that's not to say that I didn't like it at all. It just seems too preachy and predictable at times. And as a warning, it's kind of heavy. You feel as though you're part of the downward spiral of the main character.

The novel begins by briefly describing Anthony Patch's childhood and youth. As it moves into his time at college, it becomes more elaborate. Interestingly, Anthony does not seem like a cha...more

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Jan 17, 2012

Also, Safety Math rated it

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This book was... heavy. I read it in a couple days, but it's so emotionally and mentally exhausting it was just painful most of the time. Fitzgerald almost viciously pulls the rug out any time there's a slight chance of things getting better for Gloria and Anthony who, rather than confronting their flaws and getting their proverbial shit together, seem to alternate between wallowing and reveling in their self-destructive boredom and self-pity. It's a study in absolute misery. It reminded me more...more

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Mar 19, 2008

Jill rated it

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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,...more

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Feb 20, 2008

Elena rated it

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I found this book fascinating and also really problematic. Fitzgerald's class prejudices and racism are on parade, and it's a horrifying parade. It's much less censored than in *Gatsby*, and in that sense it's more interesting. Fitzgerald surveys and mocks different "types," social and racial, and in that catalog we glimpse what moves and terrifies *his* kind. So when his hero and heroine start to come apart, we understand that it's bigger than Anthony's alcoholism or Gloria's spending...more

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May 27, 2007

Julia rated it

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Fitzgerald left me gasping for breath, depressed at the end of the novel. The demise of Gloria and Anthony Patch and their ill-fated relationship incredibly drawn out. But the intricacies of each character is highly developed. I thought I was actually friends with these characters. It's an excellent read though it's not the most action-packed. I loved the dense descriptives, and the way he portrays Gloria's vanity: "Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved -- to be harvested care...more

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Jun 27, 2007

Afshi rated it

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Shelves: amazing

It’s easy to dismiss this book as one of Fitzgerald’s lesser novels, but it’s actually a gem and I like it much more than The Great Gatsby. This follows the lives of two characters as they come together in a time filled with drinking and dancing, and fall apart when vanity and alcoholism take over in later years. The story is extremely descriptive written with meticulous attention to detail, and often moves between being manic; brilliant and exciting, to being depressive with illustrations of ch...more

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Jan 04, 2012

Melinda rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm going to be honest, I was kind of hoping this was a book about vampires... ;) No such luck there, and really by the end of this thing every question I had was unresolved, so many plot holes, so many characters to hate, so much...ugh. So I read The Great Gatsby a couple weeks ago, and I was slightly disappointed. It wasn't as mind blowing as I remember it to be in high school. This book, while flowery and pretty, made my mind hurt. Maybe I'm just not deep enough, maybe I'm expecting too much ...moreI'm going to be honest, I was kind of hoping this was a book about vampires... ;) No such luck there, and really by the end of this thing every question I had was unresolved, so many plot holes, so many characters to hate, so much...ugh. So I read The Great Gatsby a couple weeks ago, and I was slightly disappointed. It wasn't as mind blowing as I remember it to be in high school. This book, while flowery and pretty, made my mind hurt. Maybe I'm just not deep enough, maybe I'm expecting too much (you know, for a story to make sense, have a moral, anything!), maybe I don't understand the writing from back then.

Here's where my spoiler starts: questions I had about the story that made absolutely no sense whatsoever:

1-what the crap was the thing about Beauty and the Voice? Why did he bring that up and never go back to it? Why would you introduce that and then not end it with her death? Why did they say she would get 15 years, but in the story Gloria is at least 31? Isn't Gloria supposed to be Beauty? p.s. They said that beauty was both with looks and how beautiful her soul was, Gloria did NOT have a beautiful soul.

2-Why did she act all mad and irritated with Anthony when he kissed her, saying she never wanted to get married, and then all of a sudden they're madly in love? There's no explanation, theres no reason for her to love him any differently than the HUNDREDS of other men she's had at her fingers. Its so dumb.

3- If his grandfather is all about reforming people, why doesn't he want to help Anthony? And I don't mean with money, I mean he doesn't try to really help him at all, just judges him. And if you had ONE grandson and NO other family, and 40 MILLION dollars, don't you think you would leave him a little TINY something? I kept hoping that if Gloria and Anthony would change their ways there would be some stipulation in the will and they would get some money (of course we would never know that, since they never changed...).

4- Why did y=he talk about the problems Anthony was having with Maury and never explain WHY they weren't friend anymore, why hint at it and not explain?

5- Was Gloria pregnant or not? Why say she's sick in bed, and hint at it, and not tell?!

6- Why did he say that her cousin Dick was upset with her about Gloria saying she had no intention of reading his book and then leave it at that, he made it sound like Dick was going to take Gloria for a drive before the trial to talk about his issue (actually he made it sound like Dick was going to murder Gloria...), but no, just stick something in there for no reason once again.

7-Why would he take these seemingly lively, full of life characters, drag them through the mud, break their spirits, and NEVER have them learn their lesson? Why in the end, when he's taken everything away from them, would he all of a sudden give them 30 million dollars? WHY? Is the reader supposed to learn anything? Was the story supposed to have any purpose at all? I just don't get it!!

Okay, I think thats it. :)(less)

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Sep 11, 2011

Max rated it

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Shelves: 12th-grade

The Beautiful and Damned was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald before he wrote The Great Gatsby. The book gives very good in site into Fitzgerald's personal life through the main characters Anthony Patch and his wife Gloria. Anthony's and Gloria's relationship is very trying on both of them, although they both come from rich families and are accustomed to lavished life styles, they have very little money as inheritance and Anthony has to struggle as a writer (a job he loathes) to make ends meet. An...more

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Aug 24, 2011

Sophia rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I decided to try another Fitzgerald novel after feeling disappointed with The Great Gatsby. I found The Beautiful and Damned much more profound and compelling because of its portrayal of two incredibly flawed protagonists: Anthony and Gloria Patch. It's a love story punctuated by obsessions with money and decadence. Anthony Patch is lazy and complacent, merely waiting for his inheritance to fly in. His redeeming quality was his love for Gloria; a beautiful lady affected with vanity and selfishne...more

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Jul 01, 2011

Steve rated it

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I gave it a fair chance, a hundred pages, before deciding this was not a book for me. The good part, main character Anthony is convincingly and well made. The problems? As a person, I find Anthony so superficial, as intended, that I not only feel no connection to him, but extraordinarily rarely for me, I find him so thoroughly unlikeable that I haven’t the smallest desire to find out what happens to him. Which brings me to another complaint. I’m not an action fanatic, but in a hundred pages...more

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Jun 30, 2011

Kimberly added it · review of another edition

So... The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thought I needed something "easy" after War and Peace. It is certainly an uncomplicated story and unfolds as most in a series of predictable and regular problems. It's deeply American from the "Now that you're here you ought to do something... accomplish something." To the, "She would be twnety-nine in February. The month assumed an ominous and inescapale significance-making her wonder, through these nebulous half-...more

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Jun 27, 2011

Marigold rated it

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Shelves: most-unattractive-characters-ever, classic

I love, love, love Fitzgerald - it's official - even though I almost always loathe his characters! Also, I'm often fascinated by books set in times of transition, such as this novel, set at the end of World War I. There was a time before, and a time after. Anthony & Gloria are of the time before. They are beautiful, idle, useless people who believe they will live forever off their family investments & an expected inheritance from Anthony's grandfather. Between the two of them, they dabble in the...moreI love, love, love Fitzgerald - it's official - even though I almost always loathe his characters! Also, I'm often fascinated by books set in times of transition, such as this novel, set at the end of World War I. There was a time before, and a time after. Anthony & Gloria are of the time before. They are beautiful, idle, useless people who believe they will live forever off their family investments & an expected inheritance from Anthony's grandfather. Between the two of them, they dabble in the arts, go to parties, go shopping, & drink a lot. The fascination of this book is watching their inevitable slide into tragedy. They are horrible, horrible people - but Fitzgerald somehow succeeds in making you feel some sympathy for them. Yes, you will find yourself hoping that these idle rich kids get their money before it's too late!

So - deeply unattractive characters; somewhat slow; depressing as hell - like watching a slow motion train wreck - & every few pages I would think, "why am I reading about these people?" - and THEN Fitzgerald grabs hold of my soul with something like this:

"With her fork she would tantalize the heart of an adoring artichoke, while her escort served himself up in the thick, dripping sentences of an enraptured man."

Or - "I grew up then, into this land of jazz, and fell immediately into a state of almost audible confusion. Life stood over me like an immoral schoolmistress, editing my ordered thoughts."

Or - "Spring is a lean old plough horse with its ribs showing - it's a pile of refuse in a field, parched by the sun to an ominous cleanliness....nature, slovenly old hag."

Or - "He was nine out of ten people that one passes on a city street - and he was a hairless ape with two dozen tricks. He was the hero of a thousand romances of life and art - and he was a virtual moron."

Seriously, I always have to keep on reading Fitzgerald just so I can get to sentences like these & drool over them. Take your Hemingway & move on. Give me F. Scott any day.

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Apr 12, 2011

Rory rated it

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I love love love Fitzgerald... I feel compelled to put that out there before writing any sort of review. Just being honest about where the love lies here. And with that out of the way--

I loved this book.

One of the things I really do love about his work is the way Fitzgerald pokes fun at the idea of entitlement even as he shows how entitlement is an end result of success. The characters in this novel each struggle with the idea of what to do with one's self when there is no "...more

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Feb 17, 2011

Starry rated it

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Shelves: brilliant

This is my equal favourite book of all time (tied with Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray) these are excellent companion books based on theme, and offer the most pertinent moral lessons for myself, as I am prone to be like the characters, alas!
Unfortunately I am too much like Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair, and a little too like Anthony Patch from the Beautiful and Damned.

One of my great disappointments in life is that Fitzgerald's other novels, especially The Great Gatsby,...more

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Jan 06, 2011

Richard Bon rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 05, 2011

jenn rated it

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Shelves: 2011

What a freakin' trainwreck! Reading Fitzgerald always makes me want to pick up a bunch of highly sensational Fitzgerald biographies. Ultimately, I don't, so as not to spoil the plots of the novels.

Anyway, this book. I can see why people hate it. The main characters are hateable in the extreme, though - and feel free to mock me for this - I really thought Gloria was ultimately the more sympathetic of the two. Ironic, because I love a good cocktail? Speaking of which, Fitzgerald su...more

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Jul 10, 2010

Laura rated it

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Shelves: literary-canon

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Fitzgerald needed a more involved editor in this book. Book jacket's synopsis convinced me that I might become immersed into a world as psychological and memorable as The Great Gatsby (published 3 years later). With a blaring title like The Beautiful and Damned conjectures about the narrative seemed promising.

Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert occupy the majority of the scenes. When you despise the main protagonists and can only emphasize with old Anthony Patch whose participation i...moreFitzgerald needed a more involved editor in this book. Book jacket's synopsis convinced me that I might become immersed into a world as psychological and memorable as The Great Gatsby (published 3 years later). With a blaring title like The Beautiful and Damned conjectures about the narrative seemed promising.

Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert occupy the majority of the scenes. When you despise the main protagonists and can only emphasize with old Anthony Patch whose participation is minimal, you hope that Fitzgerald's supreme command of character reads and motivations will redeem the precipitous decline of these youthful wastrels. The namesake Patch's sole ambition is to acquire Gloria. Neither work or ambition register as significant. In cynically viewing life as pointless, he prefers to leisurely spend his time on earth. Initially, Gloria reaffirms this philosophy. Furthering this anti-Protestantism work ethic is the belief that Grandpa Patch's millions will become Anthony's since he is sole direct heir. Grandpa Patch had crushed business men by the age of 25 then used his extensive fortunes to support charitable endeavors. Fitzgerald is quoting the ever popular reputation revamping J.P. Morgan, Walter Annenberg (later), and Andrew Carnegie among other industrial tyrants followed. As the reader, you expect Grandpa Patch to punish the idlers and spendthrifts in proper fashion via no gravy train upon his death.

Vapid and gorgeous Gloria relies upon her beauty, wilting at all times, to sustain her sense of self. She cares not for anyone else nor does she invest in an inner exploration. She moves from party to party and male admiration to brief love affairs with pure indifference. Even in a miraculously bizarre surprise, she accepts Anthony's marriage proposal. Can gallivanting around be enough? Clearly, no.

There are passages where Fitzgerald asserts his specialty in observation that are to be studied by every aspiring writer, but then, you also have a plot divergence with World War I and Anthony's forced enlistment. Once he travels south, the momentum and intellectual banter and possible challenges from his Princeton peers cease. These chapters are not astutely conceived. Many biographical connections weave into Fitzgerald's novel which would make for a profound book had he not desperately tried to wrap the ending into a potential film screenplay in its irony. Friend of Anthony's and cousin to Gloria, Richard Caramel is a harbinger for the author's own falsehood to great prose following a grand debut. Eventually Fitzgerald's impetus for writing and working for film studios is motivated by money which fuel his alcoholic tendencies and decadence.

I should have purchased and invested in This Side of Paradise. (less)

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Oct 13, 2009

Karen rated it

· review of another edition

As with all of Fitzgerald's books, I'm amazed at how timeless the characters are. Any of these people could be living today. It is also fun to read about an old New York that seems very familiar. My favorite passage, about fully jaded, hard drinking 30 something year olds:

As the conversation continued in stilted commas, Anthony wondered that to him and Bloeckman both this girl had once been the most stimulating, the most tonic personality they had ever known - and now the three sat ...more

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May 31, 2011

Lis rated it

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Shelves: 2011-reads

it didn't start with a bang. in fact, i started liking it when a conversation suddenly became a script. it was cute, in a way.

he's an heir to a fortune, he just doesn't have it quite yet, but his grandfather's old. she's beautiful, and she knows it. she's never met anyone as beautiful as herself. they're a couple many people would dream of being or at least would envy, even if secretly. he doesn't want to work. ever. she is selfish. they both admit it. when you're rich and beautiful...more

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Feb 25, 2011

A. S. rated it

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This book could have been at least 150 pages shorter and I think I might have given it a better rating.

I've always preferred Fitzgerald to Hemingway, mostly because Hemingway adds a turd frosting of misogyny to Fitzgerald's cake of racial and class prejudices, and because while they both write some condemnable characters, only Fitzgerald actually takes the time to y'know, condemn them. It is no different in The Beautiful and the Damned. Anthony and Gloria Patch are spoiled, lazy, a...more

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Aug 21, 2010

Beth Anne rated it

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Dec 21, 2011

Andrada rated it

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The Beautiful and Damned is a novel laced with irony and cynicism. Its characters are not admirable or easy to relate to. They do have a few occasional moments of weakness which makes them not completely despicable. The style reminded me to a certain extent of Thackeray and the cynical British writers of the 19th century and I felt that it captured perfectly the way of thinking of young American intellectuals who suffer from the same ironic affectations to this day. It is remarkable how little t...more

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Nov 20, 2009

Kelly rated it

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This is the third novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that I am embarking on and I hope it is a charm! I absolutely LOVED The Great Gatsby but was somewhat disappointed with Tender is the Night, so I cross my fingers and hope...

I am done and I am pleasently surprised. Although Gatsby still remains on top as far as my favorite Fitzgerald novel, I was able to obtain interest in this book from start to finish.
The most pleasurable element in this work is not the story itself or the chara...more

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Jun 28, 2007

Krista rated it

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I can't help but compare a bit to Gatsby - TB&D certainly paints a darker picture of the times. The characters here are less naive, more deliberate, making them less likeable. Nonetheless I loved the progression (or regression) of this disdainful pair and how their story unfolded. Gloria and Anthony are so blinded by the idea of themselves, they end up with nothing but false hope and lots of champagne, which makes for a fantastically fabulous tragedy.

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Nov 05, 2010

Ryan rated it

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I keep going back and forth with what I think of this book – do I give it 2 stars because it was a slog, it was boring, and nothing ever happens; or do I give it 3 because he does technically develop his theme, it has its place in history, and it’s psychological literature and not Twilight?

You can tell from the first page that Fitzgerald’s style with this novel is different than his others. With Gatsby he demonstrates total economy of language: tight, accurate, slightly ambiguous, a...moreI keep going back and forth with what I think of this book – do I give it 2 stars because it was a slog, it was boring, and nothing ever happens; or do I give it 3 because he does technically develop his theme, it has its place in history, and it’s psychological literature and not Twilight?

You can tell from the first page that Fitzgerald’s style with this novel is different than his others. With Gatsby he demonstrates total economy of language: tight, accurate, slightly ambiguous, and always moving forward. Here, I’m thinking that he decided with his second book – following This Side of Paradise and perhaps some criticism that his material and language was “too collegiate” – that he was going to blow away the world with his depth of material and language. The effort shows. Sentences seem clunky because they’re too full of words no one really says. (Or maybe in the ‘20s they did; maybe I’m just the pompous asshole, it’s happened before… Funny how my criticism with the last book I read with The Kite Runner was that the language was boring and plain… ) And his material – the entire story is about the decay of a marriage. Ok, I can handle dark material, but in this marriage there is really nothing to identify with. The characters don’t have to be likeable, but even in Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road I felt that I could identify with each of the characters’ hesitations, fears, moments of tenderness, and hopes; here I feel like these two characters have nothing to relate to. They never work, they just socialize, throw parties, drink excessively, hate each other after two years, etc. I know Fitzgerald gets his recognition with portraying the Roaring Twenties, and his favorite metaphor is this character-type (of himself!) of the rich who do nothing and drink themselves to death. But his theme is shown much more clearly and deeply in Gatsby and Tender is the Night. I guess you could think of this as a warm-up for his bigger and better things, but if you’ve read those two you needn’t read this.

I think it’s really funny to see Fitzgerald write so psychologically, so penetratingly into problems that are really just his own. How could he write about the destruction of a person, a marriage, portray a drinking problem so honestly and brutally, admitting that the male character sometimes “hates” his wife, showing the characters swallowed up by greed, destroyed and empty at the end – yet Fitzgerald either made no real effort to save himself or was unable to confront the problems in his own life that he was so apt at psychologically portraying in his literature…. The greatest tragic figure of all his work is himself.
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Oct 16, 2010

Daveski rated it

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Shelves: 52-in-2010, favorites

A portrait of a young couple living in the Jazz Age, from their initial meeting to their inevitable downward spiral brought on by their years of excess and luxury. Fitzgerald pulls a neat trick in that he makes his characters likeable, even sympathetic, even though they are shallow and weak and petty. I often felt bad for Gloria and Anthony, even though they brought all of their problems on themselves.

Beautifully written, and full of great little asides and witticisms, this was a rea...more

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Aug 10, 2010

Terri rated it

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I love the Roaring 20s!!
I took a small break from this book and finally finished it today!

I cannot believe they plan to create a Hollywood movie on this book - but based on Fitzgerald's real wife, Zelda (keira Knightley!) Yet the book isn't about Zelda at all.. weird!

*************************

People invariably chose inimitable people to imitate. (page 71)

Considered one of Fitzgerald's least known novels - I would still consider this...moreI love the Roaring 20s!!
I took a small break from this book and finally finished it today!

I cannot believe they plan to create a Hollywood movie on this book - but based on Fitzgerald's real wife, Zelda (keira Knightley!) Yet the book isn't about Zelda at all.. weird!

*************************

People invariably chose inimitable people to imitate. (page 71)

Considered one of Fitzgerald's least known novels - I would still consider this book to be worth the read!

Set in the 1920s era, the author performs with elegant details the hustle and bustle of a thriving NYC and the wild night life! This is totally my kind of story! Fitzgerald has done as excellent job in his eloquent story-telling - from details of physical scenery all the way to character personalities and emotions. For those who enjoy reading graceful details by FSF, this is definitely the book to read.

Anthony Patch, the main character attempts to pursue the popular party-goer Gloria - while dealing with financial and family issues with his famous and affluent grandfather. Aside from the extravagant scenes of fine architecture, soirees, and exorbitant spending, the characters also engage in excessive alcoholism. These elements all parallel with the notion that wealth affects humans in all sorts of ways.

Gloria and Anthony does eventually wed yet they struggle both personally and financially in their later years. The part in which Anthony successfully obtains Gloria and eventually ends up in a rocky marriage reminds me of "Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser. It is said both of these authors, Dreiser and Fitzgerald, are considered to be social critics through their novels with themes of bringing down the American dream. In Fitzgerald's novel, this is a result of the decadent age - overlooking the past (just like how Anthony disregards his grandfather until he needed the inheritance), and living the high-life in the present and not being aware of the importance in the future.

Fitzgerald's novels generally relate to the 1920's Jazz Age as a revolutionary period in which the "young" knew not about social morals and circumstances. Essentially, life is meaningless and devoid of purpose, especially after each drunk nights of partying and outings. The downfall of the main character at the end of the story represents the end of the American dream, because of the poor choices made and influences of the 1920's society.

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Jul 01, 2010

Madeline rated it

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As you may know, Reader, I struggled to get through George Eliot's masterpiece (cue massive eyeroll) Middlemarch. Refer to my review for a detailed explanation, or just read the next sentence of this one. It was boring, basically. There isn't really a plot, it's just a description of some people going about their daily lives with nothing very dramatic ever happening. The same can be said of the plot (term is used loosely here) of The Beautiful and Damned: rich people are miserable, make poor mar...moreAs you may know, Reader, I struggled to get through George Eliot's masterpiece (cue massive eyeroll) Middlemarch. Refer to my review for a detailed explanation, or just read the next sentence of this one. It was boring, basically. There isn't really a plot, it's just a description of some people going about their daily lives with nothing very dramatic ever happening. The same can be said of the plot (term is used loosely here) of The Beautiful and Damned: rich people are miserable, make poor marriage and life choices, continue to be miserable, the end. (I can't say with authority that that's how Middlemarch ends because I didn't finish it, but that's what happened in the first 500 pages) So, logically, I should have hated this book as much as I hated Eliot's. But I didn't, and I think I know why: Fitzgerald's characters are interesting, and their self-destruction is a lot more fascinating than the people at Middlemarch. In that one, Dodo and company were more like unsuspecting tourists wandering too close to the edge of a cliff, about to tumble over without ever knowing what hit them. Anthony and Gloria, the main characters in this book, take a different approach: they run, roaring drunk and screaming, right for the cliff's edge and never look back. It's much more compelling and amazing and sad, and I'm still going to be mean and give the book just three stars because I am adamant that good books should have plots, dammit.

Also, I'm just going to say this and then hide from the Eliot fans' scorn and fury: Fitzgerald is a better writer. And he's funnier. Before you start flaming me in the comments about how I don't know what I'm talking about (well, DUH), I will present the following quotes from The Beautiful and Damned to support my claim:

"A stout woman upholstered in velvet, her flabby cheeks too much massaged, swirled by with her poodle straining at its leash - the effect being given of a tug bringing in an ocean liner. Just behind them a man in a striped blue suit, walking slue-footed in white-spattered feet, grinned at the sight and catching Anthony's eye, winked through the glass. Anthony laughed, thrown immediately into that humor in which men and women were graceless and absurd phantasms, grotesquely curved and rounded in a rectangular world of their own building. They inspired the same sensations in him as did those strange and monstrous fish who inhabit the esoteric world of green in the aquarium."

"In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual "There!" - yet at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage. As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honor and slightly mad, a shameful and obscene thinness glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond, these occupations being varied, of course, with those in which he thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows. ...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. Until the time came for this effort he would be Anthony Patch - not a portrait of a man but a distinct and dynamic personality, opinionated, contemptuous, functioning from within outward - a man who was aware that there could be no honor and yet had honor, who knew the sophistry of courage and yet was brave." (less)

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About F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works have been seen as evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he himself allegedly coined. He is regarded as one of the greatest twentieth century writers. Fitzgerald was of the self-styled "Lost Generation," Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fi...more

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The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Trivia About The Beautiful and...

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Quotes from The Beautiful and Damned

“Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.” — 283 people liked it

“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, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.” — 208 people liked it

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The Beautiful and Damned (Vintage Classics)

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