That Green Light...

So, it's the opening weekend of Baz Luhrman's version of The Great Gatsby

I'm so excited. I mean, this is the man behind Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, the staples of romance and handsome men during high school and college.

I don't necessarily expect this film to capture the depth and subtle longings that F. Scott Fitzgerald created, but I do expect it to be the visual and audio embodiment of what the roaring 20's felt like.

I've been listening to the soundtrack for the last two days straight, and I absolutely love it. There's a beautiful blending of 20's jazz and swing with contemporary hip hop and rap. It captures the feeling of the music, the feeling of being at Gatsby's parties, with the music and the cocktails and the dresses and the feeling of living like a roman candle. If you haven't heard it, NPR is/was streaming it.

All this Gatsby had me thinking about the first time I read the novel. It was for high school, and before anybody thinks that reading great literature in high school ruins great literature because teenagers simply don't have the scope of life to appreciate it, I wasn't the average teenager. I devoured books and though I maybe wasn't able to relate to the lives and trials of the characters, I loved their stories.

So, the first time I read Gatsby, I was a senior in high school. I was in an advanced literature class (naturally). F. Scott Fitzgerald was a big deal in Minnesota schools, because he's from St. Paul Minnesota, and reached literary greatness and genius.

I remember finishing the book and having the feeling that there was some great message, some great meaning, that I had missed. I felt just on the edge of understanding something big and important, but I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Ten years later and here we are. I'm still thinking about the meaning, the themes, the lives. And I'm thinking maybe my 17 year old self wasn't so far off the mark, maybe I didn't miss anything.

(*literary discussion alert*)

John Green has several videos in a book discussion style of The Great Gatsby. Definitely worth watching and thinking over.

Jay Gatsby, the exact definition of a self-made man. He spent his entire life searching for things he thought would make him happy, creating this man that was adored and revered by the top tiers of society. A man that would live on in legend, but never really finding what he was honestly searching for. He wanted the gold and the glitter and the shine of other people's lives, but failed to realize the tragic price they came with. He was trying to grasp something be and important and wonderful, and couldn't quite get there.

I know there's more about the "American dream" and "all that glitters is not gold", morals to be seen in Daisy's life and Gatsby's Icarian flight and fall from the sun. Cautionary tales in Tom's infidelity and the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg seeing everything and not being able to do a thing.

I think in all of us, there is a desire to understand something big, something grand, to have a life that will be remembered. The desire that just that one thing, that one distant thing, will bring us everything we think we want. We want the glitter and gold without the cost. It's easy to see the surface of someone's life and never know it's the painted shell of an egg.

Gatsby is all of these things and more. The characters are each of us and all of us. The desires and dreams and failings and struggles. So, yeah, maybe at 17 I didn't have the perspective to appreciate all of that, I hadn't set myself out into the world yet, but it stayed with me.

Truths in books will do that.

I can't wait to see how this version of The Great Gatsby stands up and stands apart from the words of Fitzgerald.