beautiful fools. r. clifton spargo. (118)

after reading "z", i discovered a handful of novels dedicated to zelda fitzgerald have been published recently (i am assuming) to run on the coat tails of baz lurhman's "the great gatsby" release.  and of course, adoring zelda as i do, decided to read all of them.  the second one i chose was "beautiful fools" by r. clifton spargo.

"beautiful fools" as it said on the cover is about the last of affair of zelda and f. scott fitzgerald.  as i learned in "zelda", the fitzgeralds took a trip to cuba  (after zelda did not go on the institution's cuba trip),and  though they did not know it at the time, it would be their last trip together.  this novel is a fictional tale about that trip, though the complexity of their relationship was based on truth.  and of course the title, is from "the great gatsby", words scott took from zelda's lips at scottie's birth and put them on daisy's lips.  and though it was zelda's wish for scottie to be a beautiful fool, it's safe to say that both zelda and scott were beautiful fools so the title is appropriate.

the trip to cuba is disastrous from the start.  zelda saw it as an opportunity to save their marriage by proving she was well, while scott used it as a means to escape his life in hollywood and his mistress.  spargo created a handful of incidents that exasperated their already strained relationship.  scott meets some shady characters and puts zelda and him in some sticky situations, i won't spoil it but lets just say there is a barroom brawl and some cockfightings. but zelda does create a handful of awkward situations herself, including a trip to a clairvoyant.  however, regardless of the events that occur, scott and zelda would have had a troubling time regardless due to their relationship woe.

as i discussed in the post for "z", fowler discussed how people are divided into camp zelda or camp scott, however, spargo did an excellent job in "beautiful fools" of demonstrating how scott and zelda were both guilty of ruining their marriage.  as i read i was frustrated with zelda's neediness and erratic behavior and scott's drinking and money-wasting.  they were both on self-destruct mode.  as wonderful as they started off in their youth, they both had an equal hand in their demise.  which again reminded me of my very own zelda-scott relationship, i once had a disastrous trip to mexico with the same friend i talked about in the "zelda" post.  just like scott and zelda, drinking added a lot of drama to our trip. after the trip, we both spent time convincing ourself the other was responsible for the drama that occurred but looking back, we really were both to blame.  oddly enough, we did manage to scrape our trip together by putting aside our differences.  and even though i though it was the end of our friendship, it survived it.  (though only for a year or so after).  but even with all of its drama, i can look back at the trip and not be bitter and recognize it as experience that occurred at no fault of anyone but just the way life went.

the trip ends with zelda (though thought of as fragile because of her condition) taking charge and taking care of scott and the mess he gets them in.  and i guess that is what i admired about the fitzgeralds in this story. they were not perfect but they managed because they truly loved each other.  as scott in the novel said, "she was the only thing he truly loved in the world but his love was twisted and wounded  and he could never again make it a simple, straightforward thing."  and that is what happens with love sometimes, it gets injured but does not seize to exist.  and at our lowest points that love will be strong enough to help us endure.

i enjoyed "beautiful fools" more than "z" because spargo is the better writer.  while fowler's zelda felt forced, spargo's zelda was as colorful as i assumed the real one would be based on all i have read so far.  my only critique is that i got tired of all the war and fascist talk but i mean those topics were probably on the tips of everyone tongues during that time.  but all in all, a novel, i would assume scott and zelda would not be ashamed to appear in.

z: a novel of zelda fitzgerald. therese anne fowler. (113)

of course with the release of the latest film version of "the great gatsby", there would be a resurgence of interest in the fitzgeralds.  so when i heard about "z" by therese anne fowler, a novel about zelda fitzgerald, i had to check it out!

my interest in the fitzgeralds came via woody allen's "midnight in paris". the fitzgeralds especially zelda with her "lets go i am bored" demands were a delight.  and of course, all the myths about their partying intrigued me.  as a result, i read his novels (except the last tycoon) and hers plus a handful of their short stories.  and as a result of that read their wikipedia page to find out what was true in their books and it seemed like their novels were pretty autobiographical.  though intrigued by their life, i never picked up a bio or a book of their letters.  but i wish i had.

if i had read a bio, i would not have spent the whole novel thinking, did this really happen? i mean i know it is a novel but i hadn't realized zelda had called off their engagement though "this side of paradise" alludes to that.  i also didn't realize that the housekeeper from "the beautiful and the damned" was real.  also the squirrel coat really existed too!  or that the actress from "tender is the night" was based on lois moran, i knew the novel's affair was based on a real affair but didn't realize it was based on an actual actress that young (i had to google her, and she will only be famous for her literary counterpart).  i wanted to read nancy milford's bio of zelda which has been sitting on my bookshelf but since "z" is due back at the library on thursday didn't think i had the time.  oh well, this has sparked my need to read that, reread "save me the waltz" and another novel called "beautiful fools" about scott's last affair.

so back to "z", though interesting, i will admit that at times i did get a bit bored.  i mean i got it, scott was an alcoholic and as a result was a horrible husband.  in an afterword, fowler discussed how there are two camps "team scott" or "team zelda" when it comes to who was the victim in their destructive relationship.  i have always been team zelda, i mean, have you read a "tender is the night" and "save me the waltz"?!?! both novels discuss the same period in their life and i read scott as the destructive one.  sure nicole and alabama were instituationlized but its known some women were instituationlized for having "crazy" thought of independence and rejecting the cult of domesticity versus actual

illness.  

this point of view of zelda's bouts in mental institutions was interested and i appreciated fowler's presentation of it as such.  as i read about z's (i'll use z for the character in the book and zelda for the real zelda) time in institutions it demonstrated how she was not crazy but just rejected the traditional female roles society forced upon her.  she didn't want to stay at home and live a life of leisure.  she wanted to participate in the social sphere.  in addition to that,  she wanted to be seen as an individual from her husband.  and what did scott expect? the very spirit and personality he fell in love with was the same one he tried to mute later in life.  and plus with all the alcohol involved plus the partying its no surprised they had issues (see:  my life 2007-10).  also it was sad to see how writing was good therapy for z but she was not allowed to do it.  

in the afterword, fowler also mentioned zelda was probably misdiagnosed and today would be diagnosed as bipolar.  also her meds harmed her more than help.  though i think it was the time period that was against her versus any mental illness, it reminded me of the book "girl interrupted", these women were not crazy only had too progressive thoughts for the time period. z's "illness" was really just an unwillingness to conform to female gender roles.

though i did appreciate fowler's painting of z's institutionalization, there were some things i could have done without.  one being all the hemingway nonsense. i get that hemingway and zelda hated each other but that scene when hem made a pass at z was way too graphic for my liking.  z had her outlandish moments but that seemed really out of character.   also i did not enjoy all the fairy talk.  i know cole porter was questationable (i did see "de-lovely" and fairy or not he is one of my favorite songwriters) but did people really question ernest and scott's relationship?!?  and then the scene with scott's moaning?  i think that was all done in poor taste.

[author's note:  so i just finished reading in nancy milford's biography,"zelda", that the moaning incident did occur.  and there was talk of hemingway and fitzgerald being faires!]

and my last critique is that fowler's "z" wasn't as colorful as the real zelda.  zelda's works are always filled with clever little lines and musings but there wasn't too much of that in "z".  i mean fowler tried but didn't succeed.  also i got tried of z interrupting awkward moments with a comment about dancing.  though i guess she was the epitome of the flapper girl.

all in all, glad i read it since it sparked a new interest in the fitzgeralds.  but left me wondering what really went on.  and as a result,  i plan on reading alot more about f. scott and zelda.

ps i totally forgot.  so the book is divided into parts and have an epigraph.  all of them were quite delightful:

always be drunk:

thought this quite clever since scott was a wordsmith:

and of course how great was the dedication page:

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)

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 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.