Gatsby redux

(One of my Sunday morning newspaper columns from some time or another)

One day several of my Creative Writing students suggested that I see the new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

            But I was determined not to like it for a couple of reasons.  First, Scott Fitzgerald’s book, widely considered one of the best two or three American novels, is one of my favorites, and I’m almost always disappointed with efforts to translate beautifully written stories to the screen. Especially ones like Gatsby, which relies so heavily on the poetic descriptions and observations of the narrator.

And second, I had seen the trailer, a flashing assemblage of frantic images set to horrendously loud music, a pulsating kaleidoscope far, far removed from the insightful novel I had read and taught and loved.

            So I was dead set against having anything to do with it.  But there was one insurmountable obstacle:  my wife decreed that we were going.

             And once I saw it, I had some crow to eat. 

            The fact is that everything in that newest cinematic take on Fitzgerald’s great work – direction, editing, costumes, set decoration, and all the rest – came together perfectly to capture the bittersweet tale of star-crossed lovers set in the razzle-dazzle of the Jazz Age, a perfect marriage of the thing and the bigger thing.   If any of the blaring music I remembered from the trailer was there, I was so completely captivated that I tuned it out. 

Leonardo DiCaprio’s and Carey Mulligan’s Gatsby and Daisy made quick work of at least equaling Robert Redford’s and Mia Farrow’s turns in an earlier film and Alan Ladd’s and Betty Field’s in one before that. 

But for my money it was Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway that stole the show.  And I’ll bet Scott Fitzgerald would have concurred.  In the book Nick tells the story in first person and has been, since its publication in 1925, one of the best examples in literature of the peripheral narrator, a minor character in a larger story who, as an outsider looking in, learns things as the reader tags along. Maguire is absolutely spot-on as Nick, from the wide-eyed innocence of his first fresh-faced grin at the beginning to the sad truths he discovers at the conclusion. 

The true genius of the new take on this classic is the inclusion of voiceover narrations by Nick, thereby letting Fitzgerald’s amazing wordsmithing carry the story, just as it does in the book.

I have a new rule:  Whatever new versions of Gatsby that come along in my lifetime, if any, will get a fair assessment by yours truly.  Because that story would be hard to ruin, and will always be worth a new visit.

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s memoir about his early years in Paris, he recounts an unpleasant road trip with Fitzgerald, having to suffer his whining, caustic comments, and mood swings.  By the time they got back to Paris, he was ready to brush him off and never see him again.  Then Hadley, Hemingway’s wife at the time, told him he’d gotten a package from Max Perkins, Fitzgerald’s and his editor at Scribner’s in New York.  It was a new manuscript of a soon to be published novel. Here’s what Hemingway wrote:

When I finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could and try to be a good friend.  He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew.  But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one.

Unfortunately, Papa was mistaken.  Fitzgerald would go on to write more books and short stories, but none, at least in my opinion, would hold a candle to his masterpiece.  Maybe it was because he had to deal with not only his own demons but those of his wife Zelda, who went insane.  Maybe he drank his talent away.

Or maybe Gatsby was just so great that it couldn’t be bettered.