jesus' son. denis johnson

denis johnson's "jesus' son" is a flavorpill 30 before 30 book.  i had heard of it prior to my reading because of the film based on it starring billy crudup but never saw it or thought to read the book.

and since thirty is a week away, i ordered it on abebooks.com (for some odd reason the library did not have a copy) and read it in about two days (due to the quick-paced momentum of the stories).  "jesus' son" is a collection of stories told by the same narrator, a small town junkie.  there is an epigraph at the begging quoting lou reed's "heroin", "when i'm rushing on my run and i feel just like a jesus' son", which is where the collection gets its name.

to be honest, "jesus' son" wasn't for me.  flavorpill said that it would knock you down regardless of your age.  and yes johnson's writing is amazing.  it's just that the content wasn't for me.  i grew up and currently live in a small town (which is how i knew even before the narrator said it that his "work" would be stealing copper wire from buildings and selling it, people actually do this in delano) and don't like the druggies here so reading about one similar to them was of no interest to me.  i think individuals like the narrator are what is wrong with the world today and so i spent most of my time disgusted by what i read.

and i get it.  if i read "jesus' son" back in 92 (more like 99, i was only 9 in 92), it probably would have knocked my socks off.  i did read "trainspotting" when i was in high school circa 00/01 and that knocked my socks off back then.  but whereas i enjoyed reading about mark, sickboy and the gang, i was repulsed by the narrator of "jesus' son".

i tried googling to find an analysis to help me better understand my disapproval

of the content and found a quote in a new york times article:

The narrator "lives in a random world, a certain part of America where wildness is actually expressed rather than depicted," Mr. Johnson said. "Some of us go to the movies to see everybody shooting each other, and then there's another bunch who actually shoot each other." 

and perhaps this is it.  maybe i am

just tired of the lowlives in delano to have the openmindness to find this profound.  i just have no sympathy for people with drug addictions, its not a sickness, cancer and luekemia are.  and to clairfy,  i did grow up in an extremely sheltered househoild and do not know any actual junkies in real life.  but i did lose an uncle (that i never met) to heroin and perhaps that is where my prejudice against junkies comes from?  and due to these prejudices, though johnson didn't intent it to be, i read "jesus' son" as romanticising addiction.

but as i mentioned before denis johnson is a wonderful writer, it was just his subject matter that turned me off.  he did  have many beautiful lines.

"[the bartender] poured doubles like an angel, right up to the lip of a cocktail glass, no measuring. . . . you had to go down to them like a hummingbird over a blossom."

"she wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother."

and though i didn't approve of the stories told, johnson is a wonderful storyteller. i loved the inconsistency of it all, the memories of the narrator were all jumbled just like a junkie.  but it's hard to appreciate good writing when you can't stomach the narrator.  however, i do plan on reading johnson's other works, "jesus' son" just wasn't for me.

life after life. kate atkinson. (112)

i had never heard of kate atkinson before but both amazon and barnes and nobles sent out emails promoting her new book "life after life" the week it came out.  since the premise sounded interesting, a woman, ursula todd dies numerous times but is always reborn, i decided to check it out.

i wasn't sure what to expect but i really enjoyed "life after life" like five stars on goodreads.com enjoy.  as the cover informed me, author gillian flynn called it "one of the best novels [she's] read this century", which initially sounded impressive but after realizing that we are only 13 years into this century, i can agree with her.  

"life after life" was enthralling, i had to find out how urusla's lives would turn out and what she would alter or how fate would alter it for her.  though i will admit there was a period when i did get a bit bored with her life (after she purposely killed herself for the first time) but it was

mostly because she lost her psyhic-esque powers.  also i couldn't put it down because i had to find out how it ended!  the book opens with an event that takes place in germany in 1930 and given the time and the place it is foreshadowed that hitler was assassinated!  this kept me reading and searching because i had to find out how would ursula's lives got to that point?

the novel is filled with great characters.  ursula is a wonderful protagonist that the reader becomes invested in.  one of her lives was extremely dark and was difficult to read.  as i read, all i could think about was how i hope she died soon so that she would be taken out of her misery. also i adored her family, her mother sylvie and all of her literary allusions, her sister pamela and their correspondence and of course her brother teddy since everyone adored him.  i also loved her aunt izzie.  she was a wild one but i loved izzie's crazy lifestyle and all of the colorful things she said plus she was alway there when her niece needed help.

atkinson's writing was beautiful.  her characters were poetic and as a result so is her novel.  it is filled with beautiful descriptions.  and as i mentioned before her characters are very literary and the novel is filled with allusions to keats, dante, the brönte sisters, austen and even dickens.  i loved her description of an elderly izzie as "a dipsomaniac miss havisham" (which could be an apt description for me when i get old.)

(spoiler alert:  wait to read this section until you read it!)

i do feel there were one gap i found in the novel.  for example, when ursula did kill herself, she didn't have any recollection of her previous lives yet she still went to the psychologist.  this did not make sense because the reason ursula went to the psychologist was because of peculiar  déjà vu bouts as a kid but if she had no recollection why did she go to the psychologist?  though the novel

did show some things were bound to happen regardless of ursula intervening.  (spoiler alert!!) i was also surprised as to how ursula never went back to the life in which she became a mother.  i guess she was never really one for motherhood and i am just projecting my personal choice on to her but i would have had the kid but gotten out of germany.  another  challenging part was because of the rebirths, characters were introduced before their importance was none so it was difficult to keep track of everyone.

(spoiler alert!)

i appreciated how in the end ursula could not completely alter history.  some things were meant to be a certain way regardless of ursula's interventions. and alas that is life.  people will always wish that events in history, like the rise of hitler and the holocaust never occurred but unfortunately there is no way to change things.  and instead of dwelling on "what if's", people should learn from it and prevent history from repeating itself.  ursula and pamela's son had a similar discussion to this effect. the world (or if you believe in him god) works in mysterious ways and instead of dwelling on the negative you have to continue on living.  

i find it interesting that i read "life after life" just after having read "the great gatsby" because both novel feature individuals trapped by their past. gatsby wants to go back and relive his life the way it should

have been while ursula is thrown back to relive hers.  it seems like ursula has the upper hand because she can do something gatsby can not.  however, even though ursula has the ability to go back into the past and change things, she still does not have complete control over the course of life.  life did not follow one path for ursula.  it is not like the "choose your own adventure" books of my youth in which it follows the same path and all that alters is your choice.  instead different occurrences caused things to change and some to remain the same so you never know what will occur, you can only make a choice that you think is the best and hope that it is.  this is demonstrated in the novel as ursula is often faced multiple times with the same events.  and again this is life, you have to hope your actions are for the best.

as i have gotten older, i have been dwelling on the past and what i would change if i could go back in time.  yes, i am content with my life so far, i have a wonderful set of friends, a supportive family and random adventures (i recently wrote these things down for a simmons class as to what i was grateful for.) but there are things i would change if i could be reborn as myself: i wouldn't have wasted time on certain guys, i would have study aboard, i would have taken spanish class more seriously in high school, lost my virginity at an earlier age, been a better sister/daughter/friend at times, never quit dance when i was young, did more interning, and became an art history major.  but i have no serious regrets.  and there are definitely some mistakes in my life that i would do over again because it has made the person i am today.  there are also mistakes i made that were worth it do there is that too.  

for those you that know me i am

not one for religion and do not believe in an afterlife because living for etenity sounds tedious and draining.  however, i have always found the idea of reincarnation intriguing but not coming back as different things but as the same person.  it's odd because i have thought of this before reading this book.  i could believe in a universe in which existence is a series of cycles, we get one life and we come back and relive it for all of etenity.  and sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we make

the wrong ones but life just goes

on and on in a continual circle or a cyhper that keeps moving like a rolling stone (erykah badu reference).  so if there is a faith that believes in that sign me

up! i like the idea of life after life, just like i liked the book.  

(sorry that was so cheesy but wanted to end this post but was unsure how!  lol)

books featuring the art of jon klassen. (108-110)

one of the things i enjoy about subbing at albany park school is when the kids have reading time with mrs. perigo.  she used to the school librarian and now goes once a month to read classes for a half an hour.

one day she brought in jon klassman's new book "this is not my hat" by jon klassman because it won the 2013 caldecott medal for its illustrations.  i knew of klassman's first book "i want my hat back" but decided to check it out along with his new book.  i also saw he illustrated a book for lemony snicket and checked it out too.

"i want my hat back" is the story of a bear who can not find his hat.  he asks a handful of animals who have not seen it.  he even asked the rabbit who took it (but he didn't notice).  the bear eventually get his hat back by sitting on the rabbit.  lol

my auntie always tells me if people mess with me, i can just sit on them. so i liked the bear's style:

in "this is not my hat" a tiny fish is swimming around in a hat that is not his. but who is the owner?!?! turns out to be quite a large fish that eats the thief.  

"the dark" was written by lemon snicket and is the perfect story for a child that is afraid of the dark.  the dark beckons the little boy throughout the dark, dark house to the dark, dark basement . . . to give him a lightblub!  how friendly the dark actually is!

i also loved how the book was filled darkness (not scary things but actual dark) as seen in the photos below.

i really enjoy klassman's art.  a gallery in so cal featured his art.  i also found a website that sells birthday cards designed by him.   i might get some for decor when i finally move into an apt.

but I'd you have a kid, you should check out these books.  and if you like art, you should check them out too.

eyes wide shut.

i was 16 when "eyes wide shut" came out in theaters and i remember all of the controversy about it due to the sex.  back then i had no desire to see it, it wasn't the type of film i would see. i probably would have never saw it but since the lacma has their kubrick exhibit so i finally watched it.

and i know it was critically acclaim and all but i wasn't impressed by it.  i wouldn't even place it in kubrick's top 5.  its called a erotic thriller but there was nothing too suspenseful about it, not like "the shining" suspenseful.  other than maybe expecting nicole kidman to be revealed as the masked woman.  the orgy didn't shocking for me.  maybe it's because i knew what to expect or maybe our media is so sex driven that what was controversial in 1999 is kid's play in 2013.  also i am not surprised that the super rich engage in things like orgy, i mean with all the money, time and power they have, of course they would have some weird sex fetishes.

"eyes wide shut" was based on (just like all of kubrick's work) a literay work, arthur schnitzler's novella "dream story" which was written in 1926.  it did raise an interesting discussion of gender roles and sex and of course the repression and denial of female sexuality.  but again being in 2013 versus 1999 and a woman raised by "sex and the city" and catchy commercials about birth control, i feel i am free to have sex as i want and on my own terms.  i am not saying that prejudices do not exist but i am not affected by them; i do not need to conform to society's views of female sexuality.  it's like being samantha from sex and the city.

the film did not have any wonderful shots or scenes like kubrick's other films.  though all the naked ladies did remind me of "a clockwork orange".  the lighting especially with the christmas lights did remind me of "barry lyndon".  but other than that nothing really stood out.  i did appreciate the inclusion of the prostitute with HIV, with all of the sex in that film, there did need to be a cautionary tale of AIDS/HIV.  and i also wonder if tom cruise being called gay in the film was kubrick poking fun at rumors about cruise's sexuality.  and alan cummings was great as the hotel clerk, the perfect element of weirdness, reminiscent of peter sellers. i will add, i could have done without cruise and kidman, cruise was fine but i do not find kidman attractive and so seeing her naked and during sex scenes was more gross than sensual.

though the film was ho-hum, i will say i loved all the conspiracy theories about the illumanti killing kubrick. i mean would the world really pay attention if kubrick revealed their secret.  also kubrick is one man, it seems impossible for him to actually topple the illumanti.  but while looking up articles about kubrick's death and all of the illumanti signs in his films, I came across gawker's comprehensive guide to the illumanti, enjoy!  lol

beloved. toni morrison. (111)

i read toni morrison's "beloved" because it is on flavorpill's 30 before 30 list.  i have to admit, at first i was weary because of the ghost and supernatural occurances in 124.  i am not one for ghost stories but it turned out to be a tragic yet beautiful story of endurance. 

"beloved" is the tale of a family and community coping with a tragedy and the appearance of a mystery woman.  the tragic event was when slaveowners found escaped slave sethe (the protagonist) to return her to the farm and in an attempt to keep her children safe, she kills her infant daughter.  sethe is jailed and the slaveowner frightened by the sight leaves her alone.  this infant daughter haunts her house and the community and then comes back in the form of an actual person, beloved.  

infanticide is a horrible crime yet is justifiable considering the horrors of slavery.  i might sound like a horrible person but i understand why sethe killed her baby.  better for that baby to die at the hands of her mother than later in life by her slaveowner or the clan.  also better to avoid a life of abuse and treatment like an animal.  actually as demonstrated in paul d's (an old friend of sethe who becomes her lover) story about how he was jealous of a rooster when he realized it was more free than him.  its horrible to imagine any situation in which a human is treated less than an animal but sadly this was how the american institution of slavery was.

in my post for art spiegelman's "maus", i discussed how "maus" allows readers to truly understand a part of history that one would only know due to history books but not as a human experience.  the same can be said for "beloved".  in school, we learn about slavery yet we have have no idea what it was really like.  in history books there are excerpts from slave narratives but unless you read one it's can not grasp the full experience of a slave.  furthermore, i would assume american textbooks present slaveflaw oils not be complete honesty about slavery and present it in a sympathetic light because american society would not want its student to see its country negatively.  to get a honest perspective one has to look elsewhere. "beloved" allows the reader to do just that, it puts things into perspective.  

for example, i knew that slaves were separated from their family members; families torn apart because they were viewed as property but it was different when i read about it in "beloved".  reading about baby suggs, sethe's mother-in-law, trying to find out which farms her children were taken to or how paul d was  amazed and envious when he met generations of black families that were able to stay together, framed it in a ways i could relate.  but the best example was paul d thought that sethe love for her daughter denver was "risky":

for a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much is dangerous . . . the best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit; everything, just a bit, so when they broke it back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.

it sad to imagine a world in which affection and love for your child was

dangerous because at any moment they could be taken away from you.  and yes all parents fear losing a child but for slaves it was a fact of life. furthermore, imagine your family bonds not being respected because you were not viewed as a person.  family relations were ignored because slaves were not viewed as having them because they were property.

another aspect of "beloved" that left an impression on me was the hopelessness of slavery and how individuals coped with it.  all the characters had to deal with it but i believe baby suggs was the best example because she was free and yet did not find happiness.  her son, sethe's husband, had bought her freedom but even than it did not result in peace for her. baby suggs was a spiritual leader but after the tragedy with sethe, her spirit was broken.  like she told her friend stamp when he asked why she didn't preach anymore and accused her of punishing god, she replied "not like He punish me".  it's hard to believe in a god that does not stop the suffering in one's life.  i have always said that i could never be job so i undertstand baby sugg's frustration with god.  as a result of her hopelessness, baby suggs went to bed and stayed there, her "wish was to consider what in the world was harmless" and she did that by thinking about colors because they never harmed anyone.  it was sad but beautiful how she found comfort in colors, she still had hope even if she didn't have faith in god.

another example of this hopelessness was the chain gang that paul d worked on.  it was explained that the gang would sing as they worked:

singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head.  more than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on.  making them think the next sunrise would be worth it . . .

morrison's analogy of life as a flirt is quite clever though sad.  it's one thing to not have faith in god but quite another to not have faith in life.  

though "beloved" demonstrated the horrors of slavery, the lesson to be learn is to not hold on to the past.  (this is also the same lesson of "the great gatsby" which is also on the 30 before 30 list. hmmmm).  as explained before, sethe's dead daughter comes back to life as beloved and at first sethe is happy because it gives her the opportunity to right her wrong.  however, even though sethe wa regretful and tried to give beloved the love she needed, in the end, beloved destroyed her.  and that is how it is in life, if you cling to the past it will ruin you (like seen in "gatsby").  instead one must accept their past, mistakes and all, and continue to life on.  one can not let tragedy stop them.  an individual must learn to endure the pain that life can be at times.

i wonder if this is the one of the overall lesson of the flavorpill list?  so far two books about not holding onto the past.  but regardless, "beloved" was a wonderful novel and should be read regardless of your age.

the great gatsby. movie version.

i never get to say this about film adaption of books so excited to write this: this was a wonderful adaption of "the great gatsby". most films based on books leave me upset because they normally ruin stories that i love or cut out my favorite parts or lines but this was great. kudos to the screenplay writer/adapter.

there were two incidents at the beginning which let me know the film was going to do the novel justice: the green light shining across the bay and when toby maguire described gatsby as being as sensitive as an earthquake machine (one of my favorite lines). i loved that most of the great lines of the novel were included in the movie like daisy's quote about a girl being a fool, and jordan's large parties quote. i think most of the quotes i listed in my post about the novel were included in the film.

i was also impressed with so many of the events in the book finding moments in the film. the scene when nick first enters the room with daisy and jordan in it was just like the novel with the exception of jordan sitting like a statue but the billowing curtains were spot on. i was surprised by the inclusion of the clock incident when daisy and gatsby meet for the first time and of course the scene when gatsby and nick cross the bridge with the white driver and the black people partying (this was also one of my favorite music scenes). these little details proved that everyone working on the film actually read the novel. though i will add that the scene at the party in the library would have been better if the man talked about how the books were real and he had gone to the library to sober up because he had been drinking for three days straight. but other than that a wonderful adaption.

the movie even helped me understand some parts of the story better. for example, i never got tom's reference to drugstores when they switch cars until the movie. also the film did a lovely job of showing how gatsby could not grasp that love is fluid. that though daisy did not love tom at that moment, it didn't mean that she had never loved him. gatsby was so insistent on daisy's love being only for him but sadly that is not how the world
works. we have different degrees of love for people in our lives and though we may fall out of love with someone we never truly stop loving them because you can not erase the past. it was heartbreaking to see his lack of depth when it came to love when it seemed that his whole life was driven by his love for daisy.

i think the casting was great. leonardo did an excellent job as gatsby (though a little old). my favorite scene was when he was so nervous about meeting daisy. i also loved how well he played gatsby's need to impress daisy, there was a slight desperation to his gatsby that is seen throughout the book. i thought that carey mulligan did lovely as daisy, she did the voice described in the novel justice. but i will add that i couldn't handle her hair long in the flashback scenes. also my inner modest reader did not read daisy's blossoming as her "blossoming" but i guess it was. lol.

and the fashion was amazing!!!! i wanted jordan baker's hat from the first scene party scene. and of course daisy's crystal dress!!! and all of her headpieces. i already looked on etsy, a headpiece like that will cost me $200 (#poorgirlproblems).

and those parties! where do i get a giant champagne bottle that shoots out confetti!!! i really missed out not being around for the 1920/30's.

last but not least the "eyes of god" billboard was perfection.

but even with all of this gushing, i can not give "the great gatsby" my stamp of approval. the reason being the one thing that i was certain was going to be amazing ended up sucking, and that was the soundtrack. baz luhrmann has utilized some amazing songs for his movies "kissing you" in "romeo and juliet" or "roxanne" and "like a virgin" in "moulin rouge". granted "moulin rouge" is a musical, i was expecting gatsby parties to have a great soundtrack like the "because we can can can" of moulin rouge but everything was lame. i should have known it was going to suck when i heard that awful cover of amy winehouse's "back to black" with beyonce and andre 3000. i liked the part in the apt with myrtle and the scene on the bridge but everything else was ho-hum. the lana del ray song was good but used too much. the first party song was such a snoozefest. and between the gerswhins and cole porter, lurhmann could have put together some good covers or mash ups. but nada. the soundtrack was a serious letdown and i thought it was going to blow my mind. oh well, i can't get to judge-y because at least he didn't destroy this "the great gatsby".

all in all, "moulin rouge" is still my favorite of his but at least he didn't kill gatsby well figuratively speaking.

the alphabet from a to y with bonus letter z! steve martin and rozchast. (107)

i fell in love with steve martin the author before i fell for him as an actor. i didn't grow up watching him on snl or any of his early films so it wasn't until "its complicated" that i discovered how drool worthy he is.

i have read all of his books with the exception of his autobiography which is on my to-read list. so when i stumbled across this children's book i was super excited. but it wasn't that good. i expect wit and just got bizarre.

i mean the greatest line was for w:

as you can see, the illustrations are great it's just that steve did not provide lines to match. also the book had a lot of big words for kids and no real context to help learn them or understand them:

amiable
gravlax
gallant
oboe
kumquat
vainglorious
amibidextrous

good to broaden kids' vocabulary but still did not make the book funnier.

it wasn't even cool in like a meant for adult way either. the only part i found cool or funny was the inside cover:

if the book was as clever as these illustrations, i would have loved it like his others works. but it didn't do will stick to steve martin's adult books.

the great gatsby. f. scott fitzgerald.

before i start, seriously how tender is the dedication page. it's about as tender as night is.

so as i explained in my previous post i wasn't impressed with my initial reading of "the great gatsby". looking back, it's probably because instead of getting a great love story between daisy and gatsby, i got a lesson on how one should leave the past in the past. and since i was looking for love and came up empty handed, i reacted like the cold hearted person i am, indifferent. it wasn't bad but it didn't make leave a lasting impression on me. plus "the great gatsby" is always always claimed as an important american classic but i didn't seem that great to me.

however, on my second read i had a greater appreciation for "the great gatsby". i am embarrassed that on my first reading, i neglected fitzgerald's beautiful prose. i remember finding so many great lines in "this side of paradise" (which was my second fitzgerald read) but didn't find any lines interesting on my first read, but that definitely changed on my second. maybe it's because i have become a more avid reader of the classics and also have read more of fitzgerald's works so am now more qualified to identify great lines. here are some of my favorite:

“if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life, as if he related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away."

“i hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

“and I like large parties. they’re so intimate. at small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

“i wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”

“let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”

"it was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.”

“in his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

“thirty--the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
(god, it sucks getting old).

and of course with this more careful reading, i realized how great of a novel
"the great gatsby" is.  the story line had so many twist and turns. first there is the mystery and suspense of "who is gatsby". my favorite tale was of the girl who ripped her dress at his party and how he sent her a replacement. then, of course the story of love lost then found. and last but not least the surprising ending of gatsby and the demonstration of how horrible and cruel people can be. unfortunately, gatsby's ending was for the best because as horrible as tom was, daisy would have never left him. and loke i said before it is so sad how daisy and tom ruined people's lives and then just moved on with their own.

in my usual fashion with love stories (see: anna karenina, wuthering heights) i could not indulge in gatsby's love for daisy. instead of finding it romantic, i found it pathetic. yes, i believe that everyone has one great love in their life but if life doesn't work out for you than that person was not your true great love. trust me, i spent years pining after one person in my twenties and realize now that i was not in love with that person but in love with the idea of him. and that is what happen with gatsby, he wasn't in love with daisy but the memory of her. daisy was no longer the young girl from louisville, gatsby fell in love with but he couldn't grasp that. gatsby's inability to understand this is because he got stuck in a moment (to quote U2). and that is the saddest part of the book, even more sad than his death. whereas daisy went on with her life: got married, had a kid and lived; gatsby stayed trapped by his love for her. he spent 5 years trying to impress her, some may call this romance but i call it a waste of time.

but of course, it's unhappy ending is what makes it more true. i know i hated it at first but in actuality it is what makes the story great. and my sincerest apologies to f. scott, it is great but still think it would have been more compelling if i read it at an earlier age.

ps. flavorpill had an article about reading "the great gatsby" for the first time at 37 article about reading "the great gatsby" for the first time at the age of 37. it best describes why one should read it at an earlier age though it is good at any age.

re-reading the great gatsby.

since baz luhrmann's film adaptation of "the great gatsby" is coming out tomorrow, i thought i would do a quick rereading before i see the film. (and quick, right now i'm in the middle of "beloved" and need to finish that because i just got a new novel about zelda fitzgerald at the library.)

so before i start my reread, though i would jot down my initial impression of the book before i do my rereading.

so i have to admit that in my humble opinion it should have been called "the not so great gatsby" or "the decent gatsby". my life was not altered after reading it for the first time. though i will admit that it could have been due to my age. i read it when i was 28 instead of the usual early twenties. i remember talking to my cousin jonathan who was/is 8 years younger than me and it seemed to have left a bigger impression on him than me.

and don't get me wrong, jay gatsby's character is great and deserving of that title. his unwavering love for daisy is swoon worthy though the stalking aka buying a house near her, and the scheming, aka throwing lavish parties to get her attention, was creepy. wait i take that back, i want a man that will throw lavish parties with lots and lots of champagne to get my attention. and talk about great parties!!!

sidenote on the parties: so the fitzgeralds are notorious for their partying and i really feel that if i was alive during their era we would have been BFFs. i am an exotic mix, they would have invited me to add some color.

but other than the novel didn't move me. i hated the fact that daisy went back to her husband. and in the end the two of them come out of the horrible messes they made unscathed. they ruined people's lives and then went back to their marriage as though nothing was wrong. daisy especially since she was responsible for the end of myrtle and jay. i guess that is what i didn't like, is that she doesn't suffer the consequences of her actions. granted she had to live the rest of her life with her horrid husband who probably continued to cheat on her but at least she is alive. daisy didn't deserve a love like gatsby and maybe that is why i didn't enjoy the novel. i don't know. we'll see how i feel after this second rereading.