Reviews

I feel like if you enjoyed Cleopatra and Frankenstein you would enjoy this. It's a love story without a happily ever after, where temptations of infidelity are explored, and the idea of 'true love' is explored through the portrayal of a 'mature' relationship. It also dives into themes of mental illness and how they should be approached, alcoholism, and women's infantilisation. I get a sense that Fitzgerald was much ahead of his time.

In true Fitzgerald fashion, the book is laced with decadence and set in some of Europe's most romantic locations: the South of France, Paris and Switzerland. His writing exudes luxury, decadence and scandal.

The book prompted a few questions for me: How many loves can you have in a lifetime? When is it time to persevere in a relationship and when to call it quits? Do actions just fall into habit or is it done out of love and care for a person in a long-term relationship? Does love only exist if you're still together with someone or can you still love a past lover?

thotfitzgerald's review against another edition

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3.0

I love Fitzgerald. But he is unnecessarily long-winded in this noval, more than usual, making it a struggle to get through at times.

joshburtwistle's review against another edition

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3.0

Large parts of this have not aged well. It's problematic in pretty much every way you could imagine.

But putting that aside for a moment, there's so much to unpack in this novel. Indeed, Richard Godden's introduction to my edition makes much of economic history embodied in its events.

I was more impressed, however, by the emotional description. Every feeling, no matter how unpleasant, irrational, damaging, maddening is laid out smoothly, poetically. If it doesn't inspire sympathy (and in many cases, it shouldn't) it will at least inspire a kind of understanding. There's beauty in it. That's what pulled me through.