I have to come clean - I picked up The Great Gatsby recently because of Baz Luhrmann's sure-to-be-epic upcoming film. Although I've read it in the past, along with almost anyone in grade school in New York City, I didn't really remember the plot so much as my general appreciation for Fitzgerald's distinctive turns of phrase.
The well-known tale didn't disappoint; but what has stayed with me the most, as in prior readings, are Fitzgerald's beautiful, uncomplicated observations of human nature.
Describing a Manhattan night spent with a group of new acquaintances and a shared bottle of whiskey, he writes:
"...high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
Just as revealing a description now as ever before, his universal ideas and sweeping prose continue to resonate with me.
A true classic.
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