In my younger and more vulnerable years, like when I was in high school, I, like every other high school student in America, read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I recall that I liked the novel at the time, liked it a lot, but in retrospect, I realize that at the age of 16 or 17, I really would have had no idea as to what the novel was really about. I have just finished rereading this classic work for probably the third or fourth time since those high school days. With each rereading, and with the wisdom (?) that I have gained from living life for the past fifty plus years, I can conclude that The Great Gatsby is "about" many things, and I can glean something new from it with each reading. In 2026, how can one read The Great Gatsby and NOT think about a billion dollar ballroom, tacky gold leaf decorations from Home Depot all over the Nation's Capital, and a UFC arena being constructed on the lawn of the White House. But I digress. The point is, that some things are timeless and should be experienced multiple times over the course of a lifetime, and The Great Gatsby is one of them.
As an aside, that F. Scott Fitzgerald could really turn a phrase. Several times while reading this, I had to go to the dictionary to look up a word. (Example: "pasquinade"; I'll let you look it up for yourself.) I once read a critic say that the reason none of the movie versions of this book have ever been all the great is because no Hollywood screenwriter could possibly capture Fitzgerald's phrasings. I believe it.
I will turn 75 years young later this year, so I wonder if there is another re-reading of The Great Gatsby is in store for me. So if or until that occurs, we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
(Did you see what I did, twice, in this post?)
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