"so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Gatsby and Fitzgerald
After a discussion with Ashleigh I think it is worth opening up a debate about where Fitzgerlad fits in, and who the characters represent: is Gatsby America and it's dream? Who is Nick?
I carry the place around the world in my heart but sometimes i try to shake it off in my dreams. America's greatest promise is that something is going to happen, and after a while you get tired of waiting because nothing happens to people except they grow old, and nothing happens to American art because America is the story that never rose... The young people in America are brilliant with second-hand sophistication inherited from their betters of the war generation who to some extent worked things out for themselves. They are brave, shallow, cynical, impatient, turbulent and empty. I like them not... America is so decadent that its brilliant children are damned almost before they are born".
I carry the place around the world in my heart but sometimes i try to shake it off in my dreams. America's greatest promise is that something is going to happen, and after a while you get tired of waiting because nothing happens to people except they grow old, and nothing happens to American art because America is the story that never rose...
ReplyDeleteThe young people in America are brilliant with second-hand sophistication inherited from their betters of the war generation who to some extent worked things out for themselves.
They are brave, shallow, cynical, impatient, turbulent and empty.
I like them not...
America is so decadent that its brilliant children are damned almost before they are born".
This is a letter written by Fitzgerald.
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