I’ll probably find myself stealing some time to throw a few more pennies into this cyber fountain of mine, but for the next week or so I’ll be pretty much under house arrest.
If it isn’t a Sociology essay, it’ll be a Social Work report. And besides all of that, I need to start studying for end of year exams. Bleh.
Follow my ramblings on Twitter (@NkhensaniManabe), and pray that I make it to the other side of exams in one piece!
For now, here’s part two of the The Beautiful and Damned “review”.
The next 3 years of their lives together are turbulent at the best of times. They struggle with how to live together (where, off of whose money), Gloria worries about how she might have left a man who had ambition, money and true adoration for her, in favour of one who can only provide her with the most sentimental of the 3. Anthony begins to question who he is at his core- a writer, a good husband, or a patriotic citizen?- and this leads him to pen an inconsequential series for a few papers, try his best to appease Gloria in small ways until he can figure out what she really wants, and eventually to join the army- only to leave again at the most critical moment in the war.
In the midst of all this, the 2 are contesting Anthony’s father’s will, from which they were excluded the minute old Adam Patch walked in on one of Anthony’s and Gloria’s wilder “house parties”.
Anthony had to know that his dream of inheriting enough to allow him and his wife to live large twice over would remain exactly that once his father found out that his only son stood for everything he was so firmly against.
Their dreams of extravagant lives were fostered by Anthony’s and Gloria’s shamelessly debaucherous (or “Bacchanalian” as Fitzgerald described it) lifestyle, and old Mr. Patch was a prohibitionist and philanthropist who never did accept that his son went in a different direction in his life. The deplorable scene at Anthony’s house just gave old Adam Patch the reason he’d long been looking for to disinherit his son, in my opinion.
After the promise of inheritance is taken away from them, and they begin to realize (though they dare not admit, even fully to themselves) that their lives are going nowhere, they both seem to turn back to what they used to be before: the marriage fails as Gloria laments how age is taking away her beauty, and by acting depressed by this fact annoys Anthony no end, draining the life out of him and driving him, ultimately to alcoholism.
They are fighting with each other, because they are disappointed in themselves for not living up to the grand dreams they had for themselves.
Gloria finally gives up on dreams of being a film star and begins to live wholly within herself, though she still clings to her favourite (beautiful, expensive, bright), coat as if trying to preserve that part of her life. Anthony has an affair with a foolish, gullible girl that he meets at one of the bases he’s sent to, but soon gives up this new ‘adventure’ – right at the time that the girl is falling dangerously in love with him- in favour of what he knows: Gloria, and alcohol.
He drives himself crazy- actually insane by the end of the novel, and is an unrecognizable shadow of the man he fancied himself to be in what now seems like a previous life.
All this because they chose to live in their dreams, instead of living them out.
Don’t miss me too much! 😉 Also: try not to take complete lose your mind and go off with some other blogger that you don’t really love, just to try and fill the emptiness- a la Gloria Gilbert.
Until we meet again…
Nkhensani Manabe 
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Hi there! This will sound a bit strange. (as its completely random and from so far away) This is Niranjan. I'm a 27 y/o guy from India and I really like reading your blog.Keep up the good work.. (there I go, calling it work!)… keep the writing going! 🙂
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