York World), who often hosted such luminaries as circle of shallow friends for what they truly are, “a
the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Dorothy Parker, rotten bunch,” “careless people [who] smashed up
and, of course, the Fitzgeralds. things and creatures and then retreated back into
The Fitzgeralds’ stay in Great Neck, though their money or their vast carelessness or whatever
brief, offered a taste of the wild and extravagant it was that kept them together, and let other people
lifestyle of their opulently wealthy neighbors, so clean up the mess they had made.” Such misplaced
much so that the lavish parties—especially the heavy efforts and so many wasted lives—a valley of ashes,
drinking--soon became a serious distraction to the indeed.
author’s literary productivity. In the spring of 1924, Also of interest are some of the novel’s de-
the couple escaped to France so that Fitzgerald could tails that parallel those in the author’s own life.
focus on his work; that summer and fall he wrote Nick Carraway, who emerges as Fitzgerald’s moral
The Great Gatsby, then moved to Italy, where he consciousness, comes from Minnesota (birthplace
completed the final revisions. Published in April of the author), is educated at an Ivy League school
1925, the novel received positive reviews, but sales (Nick went to Yale, Fitzgerald Princeton), and, like
were lower than expected. Stage and movie rights, Fitzgerald, moves to New York after the Great War.
however, brought in additional income. The play opened in February 1926 Jay Gatsby, also like Fitzgerald, is obsessed with a beautiful young woman
at the Ambassador Theatre in New York; that same year, Herbert Brenon he meets while stationed at a military camp in the South; when the author
directed the first film, which has was stationed at Camp Sheridan,
since been followed by three ad- in Montgomery, Alabama, he fell
ditional versions-- 1949, 1974 madly in love with the wild sev-
and, most recently, 2001. enteen-year-old beauty, Zelda
Set in the 1920s, The Great Sayre, who refused to marry
Gatsby is the story of the mysteri- him until he became a financial
ous Jay Gatsby, as seen through success and drove him toward
the eyes of Nick Carraway, a everything he detested.
young Midwesterner newly ar- In many ways, The Great
rived on the east coast intent on Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s attempt
learning the bond business. Liv- to reconcile his simultaneous
ing next door to Gatsby’s luxu- attraction to and revulsion for
rious West Egg mansion that’s the unrestrained materialism of
nestled among the nouveau riche the times. Though the author
(and emblematic of the owner’s found the lifestyle of the rich and
clandestine rags-to-riches story), famous seductive and exciting,
our narrator soon discovers that he despised the moral emptiness
Gatsby purchased the property of a pedigreed crowd that reeked
as a way to reenter the life of his of hypocrisy. In our own age of
lost love, Daisy Fay Buchanan, glitz, glam, and Madoff greed,
Nick’s cousin. Living directly we would do well to reread
across the bay in the old-money this American classic, not only
community of East Egg, Daisy is for the sheer pleasure of it, but
now married to Tom, who is hav- as a way of reexamining our
ing an affair with Muriel, who is own definition of the American
married to George Wilson. The Dream. We might begin by
plot is all too familiar to recount. paying attention to the novel’s
Suffice it to recall “a profusion closing lines, calling to mind
of champagne,” “the valley of that, “for a transitory enchanted
ashes,” “the eyes of Doctor T. moment man must have held
J. Eckleburg,” Muriel’s broken his breath in the presence of
nose and a senseless hit-and-run this continent, compelled into
that results in the legendary love an aesthetic contemplation he
story, thwarted and pitiful as it neither understood nor desired,
is. face to face for the last time in
What is worth revisiting is Gatsby’s obsessive desire for Daisy, a force history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” If only
so blinding that “. . .when he first picked out the green light at the end of we could recapture that dream.
Daisy’s dock . . . .his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly
fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” Gatsby’s Dr. Anna Katsavos, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies for over 20
hubris is his unrealistic wish to recapture his past, exactly as he wished years, is currently retired and facilitating writing workshops and book discus-
it had played out. “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should sion groups in NYC and on Long Island. She continues to work on her memoir,
go to Tom and say ‘I never loved you. “’ Ah, what fools we mortals be! The Kitchen and the Church: Notes of a Good Greek Girl Gone Bad. Email her
Even more pathetic is Gatsby’s inability to see the Buchanans and their at bookchats@gmail.com.
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