I began Jane Eyre while in the airports on the China trip, but I just couldn't seem to read it while poolside once I returned home...far too many distractions, and it was simply too hot. One must get to know Jane, I think, when snow is blowing outside.
Gatsby, Nick, Daisy, and the rest, though -- I could read about them on the hottest of days. Their passions, shallow though many of them are, run as hot as passions can. I first read The Great Gatsby in my high school junior English class, and I remember standing in awe of it. After seeing previews of the new Gatsby movie coming out this December, I knew I needed to reread it to prepare myself. To remind myself. To see if I still fell into it the way I remembered I did so many years ago.
I did. I couldn't put it down.
As I told friends that I was rereading it, a handful threw their hands in the air, rolled their eyes, and exclaimed, "Ugh, I hated Gatsby!" I have no desire to hear about the problems of the rich." I kid you not, every one of them who insisted that Fitzgerald's work is atrocious sited the lack of relevancy in their lives based on financial differences. And yet, when I read it this time, I could see nothing but connections between these people and my generation. They wanted it all, and they thought all of it, together, collectively, would make their lives complete. Happy. Full. But the more they stacked up, the more they accumulated -- money, houses, furniture, clothes, cars, drinks, people -- the faster the significance of it all diminished. As a mathematician, I see it as inversely proportional: as one increases, the other decreases, and vice-verse. All of this could be plucked out of the 1920s and dropped anywhere in 2012, and it would fit in as snugly as if it had always been there. These are not only the distorted dreams of the Roaring Twenty's wealthy; they are the distorted dreams of so many people today, wealthy or not. Money is not a prerequisite of being materialistic or delusional. This theme hasn't left our culture in the last 90+ years -- it's still running rampant through tv, movies, books, and magazines, so it must still resonate with someone. Don't get me wrong; I don't like the Buchanans and their lot. I agree with Nick that they were "a rotten crowd," and I felt he summed them up well toward the end of the book:
"It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."
If this doesn't remind you of people in our era, then I'm happy for you. But because we're clearly still seeing signs of this mindset in our society today, regardless of just how much money the people in question have, I maintain that Gatsby is still a relevant read.
Gatsby, I think, was a non-traditional materialist: he didn't think all the riches would bring him happiness, but he did think they'd bring him Daisy and, therefore, happiness. He was right on the money (bu dum ching!) when it came to Daisy's skewed priorities, but he didn't realize that those same priorities also skewed her love for him. He admitted at one point that "[h]er voice is full of money;" he simply didn't know it was so full that there was no longer space for him. Gatsby was certain he could "repeat the past," another theme that still fills our culture, by showing Daisy he was even more grand than when they first met. I think his obsession with the past is stronger than his actual love for Daisy; he's mixed up the two, or somehow identified them as the same. Fitzgerald makes it clear that we can't live as if time moving forward doesn't change the people and the world around us, and yet he ends the book by reminding us that we also can't live without the past affecting us.
"...tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our our arms farther...And one fine morning --
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
And finally: the green light, because that's quintessentially Gatsby for so many readers. For a while -- I don't know how long -- I had forgotten how blatant Fitzgerald was about the connection between the green light and Daisy. I only remembered that we discussed it in class, and I often wondered if that was one of the great symbols of literature pointed out in class discussions that I never actually identified in textual evidence myself...but to my pleasant surprise, Fitzgerald really spelled out the whole idea for us. Now I see why so many teachers use it to foster understanding of symbols and figurative language.
So if you haven't read it since high school, or heaven forbid you never read it at all, pick it up immediately. It's short, but it holds a massive impact. Then join me when the movie comes out in December.
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Next, I jumped into a more modern book, with far more ancient characters. I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which follows the story of Shadow and his journey and battles with the gods who traveled to America as immigrants along with their immigrant believers. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about different culture's religions, myths, and heroes -- which, according to Gaiman, aren't all the same -- and it always makes me feel intelligent when I understand references to other pieces of literature and art speckled throughout. I feel like I can't share with you much about the plot for fear that I will give too much away; the most minute of details could give you a hint that would ruin the many surprises that unfold as the story moves forward. It wasn't the easiest of reads, though, because of the tangents the story took through certain sections and chapters. I think Gaiman wanted to flesh out the whole idea of multiple gods making their way here, staying with their people as long as they believed in them, but I have a hard time caring about characters who aren't really a part of the plot line. I did enjoy the tangents, though, that described rural Illinois as Shadow drove from Chicago to Cairo ("they call that one Kayro") -- the Culver's fast food restaurant, each tiny town's population sign standing right next to their high school athletic claim to fame. And I liked the rants that Sam, an unexpected friend of Shadow's, provided on all the stuff that we believe in this society, both good and bad, both reasonable and illogical. I recommend it if you like stories with twists, and especially if you like mythology (even if it's just what you've learned from Marvel comics and movies).
***
Most recently, I read Barbra Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, which is unlike any book I've ever read. I choose it for a couple reasons -- I loved her novel The Poisonwood Bible (which I read in high school and was my introduction to literature with multiple narrators), the main character changes her name after traveling through my corner of the world, and a friend of mine from work is also reading it right now. Kingsolver didn't let me down.
The novel follows Taylor in the 1980s as she strikes out on her own, moving from her hometown in Kentucky across the Great Plains and the dessert and finally settling in Tuscon. On her journey, she unexpectedly becomes the guardian of a special little girl named Turtle, and the story focuses on how Taylor grows into this new role.
Taylor is a force to be reckoned with. She leads by example and convinces her new friends in Tuscon that if the world is to improve, we cannot be complacent. "What I'm saying is," she says, "you can't just sit there, you got to get pissed off." She doesn't face the evils of the world as a some super hero, though; she battles frustration and hopelessness just like the rest of us. "Sadness," she says, "is more or less like a head cold -- with patience it passes. Depression is like cancer." But in the end, Taylor's determination to do what she can to improve the lives of those she loves breaks through, and she does remarkable deeds in the face of great risk.
Woven in among the plot and inspiration, Kingsolver made me smile to myself as I connected with some of Taylor's experiences. Not only did she pass through towns I know early on in her journey, but she also spoke in a dialect that made me feel right at home. She even quoted little sayings that I've heard a million times in my parents' and grandparents' homes but had never seen in print before. Like some of my friends who'd rather not live in a place where you can see the horizon countless miles away (which my friends know is something I love), Taylor also developed an intense distaste for the Great Plains and all flat ground:
"The sight of it filled me with despair...I had never imagined that any part of a round earth could be so flat. In Kentucky you could never see too far, since there were always mountains blocking the other side of your view, and it left you the chance to think something good might be just over the next hill. But out there on the plain it was all laid out right in front of you, and no matter how far you looked it didn't get any better."
"I believe that flat places are quieter than hilly ones. The sounds of the cars on the highway seemed to get sucked straight out over the empty fields where there was nothing, not even a silo, to stop them from barreling on forever into the night."
Taylor and Turtle even live with a roommate and her son, which is somewhat similar to my situation. Some of their escapades sounded all too familiar, and the friendship that develops between them undoubtedly did.
Without hesitation, I recommend The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible as well. Kingsolver is an excellent story teller and has a wonderfully unique way with words.
