READ THIS: A GORGEOUS REISSUE OF AN AMERICAN CLASSIC THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED by F. Scott Fitzgerald –With an all new introduction by Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III–Given Whom You Know's Highest Recommendation Our Coverage Sponsored by Stribling and Associates
For over 30 years, Stribling and Associates has represented high-end residential real estate, specializing in the sale and rental of townhouses, condos, co-ops, and lofts throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, and around the globe. Stribling has more than 200 professional brokers who use their respected expertise to provide personalized service to buyers and sellers at all price levels. A separate division, Stribling Private Brokerage, discreetly markets properties over $5 million, and commands a significant market share in this rarified sector of residential real estate. Stribling is the exclusive New York City affiliate of Savills, a leading global real estate advisor with over 200 office in 48 countries.
Check out their listings:
& their most recent State of the Market:
Whom You Know Congratulates their new President, Elizabeth Ann Stribling-Kivlan:
***
As you know, you cannot repeat the past and we light the end of our dock green for Gatsby and Daisy, and raise our glass of Macallan to Scribner for republishing this superb classic by our favorite, the one and only F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby movie comes out today-we have not seen this incarnation-but we do suspect that when something is one-of-a-kind perfection like the book, which is Peachy's favorite book of all time since she read it in 11th grade at the suggestion of Mover and Shaker Rennie McQuilkin, you cannot repeat the past. However, you can read it again and again! We do precisely that.
Though not as good as The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned is a quintessential New York classic that you all must read. Nobody does America better, and Fitzgerald originally published this work prior to The Great Gatsby on March 4, 1922. It would have been incredible if he had had the opportunity to turn each of these into a movie himself as that is the industry he was poised to enter at the time of his untimely death; his last work not totally finished was afterall The Last Tycoon.
The introduction by West serves the book well: we didn't know that plagiarism began at home so said Zelda! Learning about the $2,500 movie rights to Warner Brothers was also interesting as well as the name changes in the title. And West hits the nail on the head about Fitzgerald when he says:
"Anthony and Gloria represent a stage through which American society must pass from time to time; their lives provide cautionary lessons about the emptiness of wealth and glamour. Fitzgerald was not a public moralist, but he did understand that money alone could not give shape and direction to a life. A vocation was needed, a goal toward which to direct one's efforts, a way of giving purpose to one's hours and days."
Appendix One gives you a glimpse of the eyeglasses watching over in Gatsby...and the annotations in the back are a complete must.
As the Beautiful and Damned begins, you'll befriend Anthony Patch, a truly likable fellow who is telling his coming-of-age tale in old New York. Be sure to eat with gumdrops, or you'll be wishing you did! From the first page, the masterpiece descriptions by Fitzgerald hypnotize the reader:
"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 halfway between death and immortality."
No one else can write like this, living or dead.
You'll meet such superlative characters such as the Chevalier O'Keefe (susceptible to all sorts and conditions of women), and Maury the Connecticut Lifesaver: the human nutmeg. The first time we read this book-when we were even more the Farmover type (page 77)- we thought 27 was old (see page 46). Now Peachy's first copy is old and 27 is young. The Beautiful and Damned does glorify youth and by today's standards it is startling to consider 30 as being middle-aged-isn't 60 the new 40? Not that we are THAT OLD. We have seen BBC's Bleak House by Dickens since reading Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned, and parts of this reminded us of that now.
Fitzgerald understands the human condition and states it most eloquently:
"I suppose that at one time I could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervor. God! And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it-but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone." (320).
And no one can do New York quite like Fitzgerald:
"Broadway was a riot of light, thronged as he had never seen it with a carnival crowd which swept its glittering way through scraps of paper, piled ankle-deep on the sidewalks....The great rich nation had made triumphant war, suffered enough for the poignancy but not enough for bitterness-hence the carnival, the feasting, the triumph." (333).
If you are interested in literary perfection, The Beautiful and the Damned is for you. We give it along with everything Fitzgerald ever put his pen on our absolute highest recommendation.
***
One of the most influential figures in the literary canon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, his life, and his work are always a topic of conversation. As the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby looms near (in theatres 5/10/13), Gatsby-mania is reaching its peak and, with it, demand for all things Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s second novel THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED (Scribner; On-Sale 3/12/13) is no exception. The beloved writer’s most successful work during his lifetime, THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED remains a favorite, and this reissue with a new introduction by prominent Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III makes it a valuable addition to the Fitzgerald library.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED is a satiric portrait of the excess, disillusionment, and spectacle of the Jazz Age. It is a social commentary and meditation on over-indulgence, marriage, wealth, life purpose, and the necessity for a calling or vocation. Many of these themes are universal and continue to resonate. Truly the chronicler of his generation, in The Beautiful and Damned Fitzgerald introduces Anthony Patch, his wife Gloria, their excessive and destructive lifestyle, and their social circle, a world that often seems to mirror F. Scott Fitzgerald’s own, and his relationship with his wife Zelda.
In THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED, Harvard-educated aspiring aesthete Anthony Comstock Patch falls hopelessly in love with the elusive, carefree Gloria and the two recklessly marry. Together, they continue to spend beyond their means, impatiently waiting for the inheritance they will receive upon Anthony’s grandfather’s death. Scraping through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes, first in hilarity, then in despair, the Patches represent a devastating portrait of the nouveaux riches in 1920’s New York.
With his introduction, Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University and well-known scholar of Fitzgerald and William Styron, James L. W. West III offers context to THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED by exploring Fitzgerald’s career, discussing the themes of the book, and examining the writing, editing and publishing process. The first edition of THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED ever to be published with an introduction, this reissue is an invaluable resource for Fitzgerald fans, whether they are reading it for a class or for pleasure.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, attended Princeton University, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. That same year he married Zelda Sayre, and the couple divided their time between New York, Paris, and the Riviera, becoming a part of the American expatriate circle that included Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos. Fitzgerald was a major new literary voice, and his masterpieces include The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. He died of a heart attack in 1940 at the age of forty-four, while working on The Love of the Last Tycoon. For his sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism, Fitzgerald stands as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.
James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. He is a biographer, literary historian, and scholarly editor. His most recent two books are William Styron: A Life (1998) and The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King (2005). West has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has held Fulbright appointments at Cambridge University in England and at the Université de Liège in Belgium, and he has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome.
TITLE: BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED
AUTHOR: F. Scott Fitzgerald
PUBLICATION DATE: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 9781476733425
PRICE: $16.00, Paperback
ABOUT SCRIBNER
Scribner is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., part of the CBS Corporation. Simon & Schuster is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic and multi-media formats. Its divisions include the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Digital, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.
