Ladies, bob your hair, slip on a shapeless dress that shows plenty of shin, and top it off with a cloche. Gentleman, put on that pin-stripe suit, snap on suspenders, and add spats to your shoes.
It’s time to party like it’s 1925 because “The Great Gatsby” is turning 100 years old.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel of the Jazz Age published on April 10, 1925, and it captured the glitz, glamor, and excess of the Roaring 20s.
“The Great Gatsby” is my favorite novel of all time. It’s beautifully written and layered with meaning.
For the uninitiated, the tale tells the story of Jay Gatsby, who is a self-made millionaire, as he pursues Daisy Buchanan. She is a rich young woman Gatsby loved in his youth. The novel takes place in 1920s New York, and it is narrated by Nick Carraway, who moves to the fictional West Egg on Long Island. He ends up living next to Gatsby, and he happens to be Daisy’s cousin. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, but that doesn’t stop Daisy and Gatsby from embarking on a passionate affair. Tom shouldn’t be able to protest his wife’s dalliance since he is having an affair of his own with Myrtle Wilson, but when he finds out about the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, his reaction sets into motion a dramatic and fatal chain of events.
The story has everything — sex, murder and mayhem, Prohibition-era speakeasies and bootlegging, crime and corruption, raucous parties, wealth and excess, and so much more.
Baz Luhrmann’s silver screen adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” does a fantastic job of depicting this, especially the glitz and glamor of the parties and the wealth.
Still, the novel is superior, even though it was a commercial failure when it first debuted.
This is because of the layers of meaning I mentioned. Without getting too deep into a literary analysis, the novel discusses themes such as the American Dream, race, class, and gender. It provides fascinating insight into our country’s history as it emerged from World War I.
Furthermore, it symbolizes longing and striving for the unattainable, even for those who seemingly have it all.
Even with all his wealth, Gatsby is never satisfied. He always wants more.
That’s something most people can relate to.
Now, I could go on and on about the symbolic components of the novel — the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the unblinking and all-seeing eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, the ideas and people of the times represented by characters such as Meyer Wolfsheim and Jordan Baker, the cover artwork from 1924 by Spanish painter Francis Cugat titled “Celestial Eyes,” and so on.
But I’ll spare you my nerdiness.
Instead, I want to encourage you to read “The Great Gatsby” this month in honor of its 100th birthday. Whether you’ve read it before or not, it is worth diving into. It’s an easy read, and it’s relatively short, only being around 47,000 words long, which is about 200 pages or so.
Those few pages are packed with entertaining and thought-provoking prose. You won’t be disappointed.
And if you really love it like I do, you can seek out other works related to the story. Since “The Great Gatsby” entered the public domain in 2021, several reimaginings have been written. I particularly liked “Nick” by Michael Farris Smith, which is a prequel to “The Great Gatsby” that imagines Nick Carraway’s life before he became Gatsby’s neighbor.
If nothing else, though, use the novel’s centennial as an excuse to throw a lavish party. It would make Gatsby proud.
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is a native of Canton, a resident of McPherson County, and an assistant professor of media at Sterling College. He can be contacted with questions or comments via his website at www.toddvogts.com.
