To say that this is one of my favourite books is an understatement. Nine years in the making, revised endless times, Fitzgerald himself considered it his best work. My own battered copy dating from goodness, so I must have read it for the first time when I was quite a bit younger than Rosemary, no wonder I found it so shocking! It has been with me for thirty-two years now, across nine moves to a different country, fourteen house moves, my own first marriage break down, through my own darkest days of depression, through my greatest personal triumphs and it has witnessed two children growing up to be nearly the age I was when I first laid eyes on it.
But I had not reread it cover to cover in oh-so-many years now. Would it disappoint? Not exactly, but nor did it delight me quite so much as before. One critic commented that anyone who loved Gatsby would end up loving this novel even more. I used to prefer it to The Great Gatsby , but I am no longer sure that is the case.
Gatsby is concise and leaves a lot to the imagination. It is the subject of myth and speculation. The style feels much less in control, even repetitive at times. Some of the characters feel a bit extraneous, although each one contributes to the atmosphere around the gilded couple. I remembered very clearly the French Riviera and Paris locations, but had forgotten about Lausanne and Vevey, so it was rather charming to read about the locations that are now so close to me.
Some of the scenes that I remembered very clearly were still there, glittering like gems of absurdity and yet extremely poignant: the anecdote about trying to cut a waiter with a musical saw, the ridiculous duel which neither participant really wants, what Mrs. McKisko witnesses in the bathroomβ¦. In fact, Rosemary seemed to me already tainted with the allure of fame and the artificiality of the film world.
Yet I still understood her youthful hero-worship of Dick Diver, and her ultimate disappointment. Finally, what struck me is how F. Scott Fitzgerald is so aware of the deadly consequences of privilege, how he mocks both those born with money and those chasing after it or fame , how relentlessly self-aware he is in his work⦠and yet in his real life he could never escape the siren call of this very world he professes to despise.
