109. The Great Gatsby

New York – Brooklyn Bridge (1927), Tavík Frantiơek Ơimon

I.

The Great Gatsby is a hundred years old. If I’m not mistaken, I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel for the first time about twelve years ago. I’ve reread it a few times since; it sits in several editions on my bookshelf. When I picked it up again in the run-up to this anniversary, I was gripped by the story all over again.

The short book is bursting with themes: (unattainable) love, a wealth gap and the (inverted) American Dream. Because history never repeats itself but always rhymes, The Great Gatsby remains relevant. But for me it is above all Fitzgerald’s matchless prose that keeps me glued to the page.

For those who don’t know: The Great Gatsby follows narrator Nick Carraway, who comes to live on Long Island next to a mysterious rich man. The neighbour, Jay Gatsby, throws the most extravagant parties that attract all the most important people — except for the one person Gatsby is trying to reach: his childhood love Daisy Buchanan.

It is the way Fitzgerald describes that opulence and introduces characters with perfectly placed brushstrokes. Like Tom Buchanan, “one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anti-climax”.

Although Gatsby’s enormous mansion is full of partying guests almost every day, almost no one knows him. At the start of the book he is a mysterious figure of whom you only occasionally catch a glimpse, like the monster in a good horror film. One day Carraway spots his neighbour:

“Fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

(
)

But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.”

Gatsby is a larger-than-life figure, utterly absorbed in his own fabricated world. Only when it becomes clear that not everything is for sale do cracks appear and the great tragedy truly begins.

II.

I found it rather quiet on the music front this year. Until this week. A brief music roundup:

  • A truly gorgeous new song appeared from Lana Del Rey: Henry Come On. The single comes from her tenth album, originally due in May, but in a (deleted) Instagram post Del Rey has already indicated she needs more time.

  • Gorillaz has put an old live recording on YouTube: Demon Days Live from the Apollo Theater, Harlem. I still have this performance (from 2006) somewhere on DVD. I still think Demon Days is by far Gorillaz’s best album. What’s beautiful about this show is that you only see the silhouettes of the band members. The focus is on their animated alter egos and the guest musicians (among others MF Doom, De La Soul and Nenah Cherry). Towards the end Damon Albarn does step briefly out of the shadows. It’s no coincidence this show appears online right now: for Record Store Day the recording was released on vinyl.

  • Pulp is getting back together after 24 years to make a new album. The first single, Spike Land, is already out. The video brings photographs from the CD booklet of the album Different Class to life using artificial intelligence. Cocker writes: “The weekend I began work on the video was a strange time: I went out of the house & kept expecting weird transformations of the surrounding environment due to the images the computer had been generating. The experience had marked me. I don’t know whether I’ve recovered yet
..”

  • They’ve been away for three years, but next month Arcade Fire returns with a new album called Pink Elephant. There’s already a first single: Year of the Snake. Sounds good.

  • Bon Iver is back with a new album: SABLE, fABLE. A magnificent record — I was hooked immediately. I may come back to it next week once it’s settled in a bit more.

PS.

A memorial stone for David Lynch has been placed at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. “Night Blooming Jasmine”, it reads. In an interview with AnOther Magazine, the director mentioned that plant. “You know, on a summer’s night, maybe more like a spring night, you could drive to certain places and if you smell that night-blooming jasmine, you can almost see Clark Gable or Gloria Swanson,” he said. “The golden age of Hollywood is still living in some moods here, in the DNA of the city.”

Ryan North is coming to Heroes Dutch Comic Con in Utrecht. I was reading his webcomic Dinosaur Comics when I was a teenager; these days he writes a wonderful run of Fantastic Four for Marvel.

The Atlantic’s website has a handy tool that allows writers to check whether Meta has stolen their books to train AI models. British authors including Richard Osman and Kazuo Ishiguro signed a petition at the end of last month to better protect the work of authors. Now Dutch authors are also making themselves heard.

A trailer for Wes Anderson’s latest film: The Phoenician Scheme. A familiar roster of actors has been assembled and visually it all looks very Wes Anderson. I can’t get enough of it. In cinemas next month!

This was issue NÂș109 of this newsletter. I send new editions to your inbox free every Sunday.