The Legacy of GATSBY

When I was sixteen, I read The Great Gatsby for the first time in 11th grade English.  Most people (for some reason I still can't decipher) said that Of Mice and Men was their favorite assigned book that year.  But for me Gatsby's characters, themes, and glitz were the only thing good about the school day.

For those who haven't had the chance to read (or see) Gatsby please stop reading now.  

The Great Gatsby is a story of reinvention.
During summer in 1922, Nick Carroway rents a guest cottage next to the gargantuan mansion of a mysterious man named Gatsby on West Egg Long Island.  Nick and his cousin Daisy (and her husband Tom) are all old money, seasoned with years of privilege and entitlement.  Gatsby, we learn, came from nothing and piece by piece built himself into Jay Gatsby (formerly James Gatz).  Through some questionable (perhaps unsavory...) practices he became a self-made millionaire with all the trappings of new money.  Gatsby's lavish, decadent parties are often the first thing one thinks of when they think of The Great Gatsby.  Across the bay from his love from many years earlier (Daisy), Gatsby throws open-door parties constantly, all the while hoping that (the now married) Daisy will wander in and see all that he has built for her.  Sadly, Daisy could not be less deserving of this great love as she turns out to have little backbone (if any) and lets Gatsby throw himself under the bus on her behalf.  This ultimately leads to Gatsby's death and Daisy leaves New York (it seems) with little consideration of his sacrifice or for his memory.

The American Dream at it's best can be encouragement for those without hope to go on to do great things, at it's worst it's a toxic idea that creates a desire for "things" while letting the real value of life become an afterthought.  I grew up in a generation where our parents told us, we could be anything we wanted to be.  As I grew older I found this idea less and less likely.  A person with a terrible voice is unlikely to be a respected, Grammy-winning vocalist.  A person who's bad at math is unlikely to be a Mathematician, no matter how much they might want it.  Of course there are exceptions to this idea, but  in my most cynical moments I thought, "So many parents tell their kids they are special and they'll go on to do great things, but there are MILLIONS of people in this world.  We can't all actually turn out to be special, right?"  It's this kind of cynicism that Gatsby breaks through and actually makes him one in a million.  As a reader, I found myself caring very little about how Gatsby got where he was only that he actually kicked life's ass and did it.  It may be implied that Gatsby is a criminal, but his determination and perseverance makes him my favorite literary role model of the past century.

Cut to 1974 where Robert Redford and Mia Farrow star in The Great Gatsby.  I may not have been alive in 1974, but this is the first film adaptation I saw and I wanted to bang my head against the wall.  I don't want to harp on what I found to be a bad film, but ultimately my thought was that they didn't get it.  They didn't get the tone, they didn't get the themes- they just didn't get it.  A glitzy, edgy story became a mopey, soapy snooze fest.  BLEGH.

That brings us to 2013. Baz Luhrman brings us Gatsby's story of excess with a splashy, big budget, 3D spectacle.   Every one's reactions to the Oscar-worthy trailer were that of either awe or eye rolling.  Many literary types watched the hype with trepidation while a new generation looked at Gatsby for the first time and actually got excited.  Kids were walking into bookstores and buying the book without it even being assigned.

This new Gatsby is unprecedented with its modern soundtrack including everything from Lana Del Rey to Jay-Z.  But you know what?  Criticisms aside, this is the perfect adaptation to keep The Great Gatsby alive and kicking (and most importantly, cool) for a generation that values all things big, expensive, and public.  Furthermore, despite the visual decadence running the risk of the plot being lost (which I personally believe it wasn't), this film version captured the story's tone of opulence and recklessness that the 1974 film lacked.

That's not to say I didn't have the occasional qualm with the film; I was split 50/50 on Nick telling the story from a sanitarium and was more than a little annoyed that the final shot of Gatsby's body was pretty much an exact copycat of 1950's Sunset Boulevard's opening and closing scenes. But when all is said and done- it's still the best film adaptation we have of this luminous book that I have no doubt will continue to live on regardless of whether or not it remains required school reading for the masses.