Gatsby? What Gatsby?

First off, I apologize for not being on regularly. I'm spearheading on a school club project which requires all my time, energy, sanity, and strength. By May 6th it should all be over. Then May 7th is my sister's birthday, and May 10 is...

THE GREAT GATSBY! :)

I am so looking forward to the movie. I read the book more than a year ago now, and of course the movie was to be released this past Christmas but got pre-empted to May 10th.

I've been following TGG on Google + (against my better judgment because I hate to use any kind of social media besides InfiniteMind) but the sets and pictures they release almost daily are extravagant, frivolous, and nothing short of stunning. If only real life was that way...

The soundtrack I was very hesitant about, since the book is about the 'Jazz Age', and this is rap and hip-hop, which I totally hate because I can't understand it and besides, songs shouldn't have any more than 3 cussing words. Just my two cents.

But the soundtrack sampler (which I'll have as the music/video of the week) is just brilliant. The songs, while they may be hip hop, are actually very swing-type and jazzy, like something Fitzgerald would have wanted to write about. (Side note: At Gatsby's party, the orchestra plays "Jazz History of the World" by Vladimir Tostoff. The composer and song are fake. But Fitzgerald was trying to show that jazz was crazy and insane, and that people would be completely presumptuous as to create a "history of the world" using jazz. It'd be like today, Eminem or Jay-Z or what have you decided to create a Hip-Hop History of Da World (or sth like that.) For us classical lovers, doesn't that sound presumptuous? Same principle.)

Now to literature notes. I compare myself a lot to Gatsby, or at least I like to. We both had "grand visions for his life since he was a boy," to use Nick's term. (For the record, I think Nick was a little too interested in Gatsby, but that's a matter for another time.)

Of course, I have no intention to go off chasing a girl I met for a month 5 years ago and trying to get her to marry me the way it should have been done 5 years ago. Poor Gatsby. For all the techniques he use to get the completely-not-worth-it Daisy Buchanan, he was very innocent. A bootlegger who was involved in cover-ups and murders, even, he was very naive to think that Daisy would just instantly go with him. And that's my take on the story.

One last thing: I think it's important to note that that 'dream' that Gatsby was chasing, the American Dream, was regarded as impossible by Fitzgerald. He has most of the characters want something, and it never comes to pass. (Nick wants to live in the East, Myrtle Wilson wants to go out West, Gatsby and Daisy are some examples.

Despite the fact that The American Dream can and does exist for many people, I think Fitzgerald was trying to prove that the dream wouldn't last and just fade away. The Twenties did, unfortunately, and we all know how that ended out. Fitzgerald sure knew how to prove a point and foreshadow the end of an era with his flowery, awesome language. Brilliant.

-Rob