The Beautiful and Damned

    

 

Loved It. 

     I loved F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned. Very good, though the characters were not very likable... I don't think I truly liked a single character in the book! But the novel was written well, the language was poetic and even though I could not like the characters, I was drawn into their lives, hoping the best for them... and wanting to like them.

   The Beautiful and Damned is similar to Great Gatsby in terms of some of the themes: obsessive love, the life of the party, and the rise and fall in the eyes of society. Both have tragic endings, though Great Gatsby's is more conventional (ending in death), while The Beautiful and Damned ends with madness, wealth, and a loss of integrity ("cleanness"... a recurrent idea throughout the novel). 

   My book club's discussion of the book also included a very Gloria-ish meal (Gloria being the female protagonist): tomato & cream-cheese sandwiches (crust-less) and pink lemonade.

   Our next book is Michael Ondaatje's new The Cat's Table. Hopefully it is as enjoyable! I picked it up from Chapter's last week, but have loaned it out to some of the other members while I read a Charles de Lint novel (an author I discovered from an earlier book club read). One of my favourite things about book-club has been getting to try so many new and different works. For those of you interested in keeping up with us, I'll post a list of the books we've read as a seperate page. November seems a very book-ish month: between the darkness and the chilliness, snuggling up with a book and blanket sounds like the perfect idea :)

Happy reading!

-J.L.