. . . your niece is less than ten feet away and while she's standing directly over you on the sea wall shouting "Uncle! Uncle Matthew!" you're so engrossed you can't hear a thing. Consider this the highest recommendation you can get from me."And the green light at the end of the dock symbolizes hope." I think it was first semester senior year in high school when everyone in my English class decided to end every paper we had to write on anything, from Herzog to Paradise Lost, with the words "And the green light at the end of the dock symbolizes hope." And if we didn't, we should have. It was the one parrotable truth about The Great Gatsby which turned that modern tragedy about the secret sin at the heart of America (class) into the cheapest of meaningless allegories. In this country, we see the green light, not the future that year by year recedes before us, nor the dark current that bears us ceaselessly back into the past . . .
And speaking of Jay Gatz. Nobody ended up in the swimming pool, though there was a moment Saturday night when the Gatz who got ten stitches in his head that Christmas years ago made a brief guest appearance, thanks to a case of Budweiser. The SparkNotes version sould be up later . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment