old sport

I didn’t think I’d need to read The Great Gatsby to know I was going to love it. Having spent the majority of my childhood glued to the Turner Classic Movies channel, I knew enough about the roaring twenties to confidently expect that I would deeply enjoy that decade’s crowning literary achievement. 

I didn’t rush to read it though— partially because I absolutely hated reading until I was in my mid twenties, and partially because I knew it would show up on my English class syllabus at some point or another. 

Sure enough, that time came when I was eighteen at a boarding school in Asheville (coincidentally where Scott spent a significant amount of time recuperating from tuberculosis, and where Zelda died a fiery death in a mental hospital in the ‘40’s). Asheville School is known for its particularly strong humanities program: English and history classes are taught in sync with each other. Whatever piece of literature we read in the former was selected to correspond to the chapter of history we were studying in the latter. Twice a week, the classes would be combined and taught collaboratively by both teachers, often on a subject that was neither literature nor history, but rather art, music, poetry, film, even the architecture of the time. It was a holistic view of the cultural epoch we were focusing on, and I was fortunate to be able to examine both European and American studies through this kaleidoscopic lens.

For the 1920’s unit of American Studies, Asheville School has a little tradition. We’d read The Great Gatsby, learn how to swing dance and do the Charleston, dress up in our most flapper/dapper attire, and kick up our heels at the Grove Park Inn for an evening of dancing to a live jazz band.

This wasn’t even our prom— it was just a fun senior tradition. And as someone obsessed with all things roaring twenties, it lived up to the hype and remains one of the highlights of my senior year. 

However, upon actually reading the novel, I remember being surprised by how sad and tragic it was. Wasn’t life supposed to be a nonstop party during this era? How could anything so dazzling be so disappointing? Even the language of the book felt lost on me. I was vaguely disappointed in the story and in the utter lack of a happily ever after, or even of justice. I held on to my copy of the book, mostly because it was part of my image more than anything else— I was the 1920’s girl, so of course I loved Gatsby by default.

Inwardly, though, I didn’t particularly get the hype. But, at the suggestion of my history teacher, I resolved to give the book one more shot at a very specific point in the future.

In the novel, Nick Carraway narrates the doomed affair between his cousin Daisy Buchanan and his next-door neighbor, the enigmatic Jay Gatsby. It’s the summer of 1922 on Long Island, and the gaiety, the radiance, the glittering glamouring revelry doesn’t ever seem to sleep. 

At the close of the climactic scene wherein Tom realizes that his wife is in love with another man, Nick had a startling revelation of his own. He had completely forgotten that it was his 30th birthday. With that realization, he found his lifestyle choices utterly reframed by his entrance into a new decade of life, whether he liked it or not. 

“I would encourage you all,” my history teacher said to my class back in 2011, “to consider revisiting this story when you turn 30, and see how you like it at that age compared to now at 18.”

Waiting twelve years to re-read it seemed like a reasonable suggestion to me. I resolved to take her up on it. 

Over that interval of time, I remember upgrading my copy of the book not once, but twice— first from my used school paperback to a new hard cover, then to a patent leather-bound edition, embossed with gold. 

I remember feeling thrilled when they announced the 2013 adaptation of the book for the big screen, and I remember being satisfied with the production upon seeing it in theaters. 

I remember continuing to idolize the 1920’s, feeling like I had been personally given permission to fantasize about it by Woody Allen after watching Midnight in Paris about 50 times.

I remember seeking out all of the best speakeasies in Austin and making a point to know which ones to go to in New York. I remember spending more money than I had on art deco decorations, books, a wardrobe for a Riviera trip, real crystal champagne flutes and coupes for birthday parties. 

I remember trips to New York to catch decadent circus performances, indulging in the whirlwind lifestyle that I imagined in all of my old Hollywood glamour fantasies. At one point, I even pursued an acting career in service of these fantasies.

And when the pandemic struck, I mourned the loss of all of those days. I was 27, and I felt robbed of the last three years of my own personal roaring twenties. 

A year ago for my own thirtieth birthday (I am not one to forget my birthday), I had a Gatsby-themed party at a speakeasy-esque absinthe bar, followed by a poker game at the top of my high-rise apartment building. 

I remembered vaguely thinking that I should probably dust off my copy of Gatsby and queue it up for a reread. I promptly forgot.

And then that age, the big three-oh, ended up being the most humbling year of my life to date. 

As I was packing up that beautiful apartment, I came across my copy of the book again. I put it in the small pile that was destined to come with me to the house I now share with two other girls. 

I knew it was getting down to the wire to keep the commitment I made to myself all those years ago.

With thirteen more years of life under my belt, the book did indeed hit differently the second time around. 

Gatsby’s fantastical longing for the girl he thought he knew five years earlier— I’ve lived that chapter. Several, in fact. 

I’ve had my Gatsby’s, my Toms, my Daisies… the fair weather friends who carelessly flit through life with no material awareness of the destruction they leave in their wake. 

I have played those roles in the lives of others. 

However, what most profoundly struck me was not the ease with which I can now identify with the characters in the book, noticing where their arcs might parallel pieces of my own. 

It was this one particular line in an exchange between Nick and Jordan Baker:

“I’m thirty,” [Nick] said. “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.”

I am now six years too old for that.