To Aspire to Greatness

Some people- generally people who don't actually read- believe that for a book to be good, it must have likable characters. This, however, is only true for "good" books. It is true for those fluffy, summer (or winter, spring, or fall) books that are nice to read but would never have a term paper written about them. While I am certainly not trying to insult these books- I do enjoy them, really- today, I am going to talk about the not those books books.

The not those books books are classics. They have successfully mounted symbolism, vaulted over plot, and won the battle of the "signpost". They are books like Jane Eyre (spoiler: he kept a WIFE in the ATTIC), The Grapes of Wrath (what, are there three nice characters?), and The Great Gatsby. 

I do not really like any of the characters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic. Nick is much too passive, Jordan only a little less so, Tom is violent and unfaithful, Daisy betrays both her husband and Gatsby, and lets Gatsby take the blame for Myrtle's death. Even Gatsby- while wonderfully romantic- is obsessive, wanting Daisy to tell Tom she NEVER loved him. He is, as Nick says, worth the whole lot of them. That lot, though, is not much to measure up to.

So why do I love The Great Gatsby so terribly much? Because F. Scott Fitzgerald was a wonderful writer. The novel is well written and tragic, entertaining and full of symbolism. He gives us a novel full of terrible people, and makes us root for them.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between a great author and a good one. They may not give unappealing characters every time; that would be much too predictable. But they can write those characters. They can make girls fall in love with Gatsby.

Somewhere There's a Party

Let us all celebrate! This is my 201st post! Here's a few lovelies to celebrate with:

Everyone loves puppies and books, correct?



A lovely song by Ingrid Michaelson here.

A few classic book recommendations...

1. "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. "Anna Karenina", by Leo Tolstoy
3. "Fahrenheit 451", by Ray Bradbury

And this list of the top one hundred teen novels.

Enjoy!

Stuck in My Head

"Young and Beautiful", a song on "The Great Gatsby" soundtrack by Lana Del Rey.

Coppola and Luhrman

This will be a sort of review, and a sort of venting post. It's a subject I feel rather strongly about, strangely enough, and after trying in vain to explain it to a friend, I thought I'd have a go here. I recently watched the movie "Marie Antoinette", directed by Sofia Coppola (of recent "The Bling Ring" fame). It was a movie with awkward blackouts and strange shots, and entire scenes with no dialogue at all. It was light on action and heavy on beautiful sets, and somehow, the picture was altogether very sad.

Even so, I think that overall I liked it, and this is why: the characters were vapid and greedy, but you saw their vulnerabilities and understood them. Hollywood characters are so often black and white, good and evil, and people in real life are not that way. Marie Antoinette spent France away, but you understood what it was like to be in her high-heeled, fur-lined shoes. The entire picture is overwhelmingly sad, with the lives that can only be describe as "pomp an circumstance". Even so, the last image is a single room inside of Versailles, wrecked almost beyond recognition, and you think that maybe Marie and her husband were people after all.

No one could glorify them into heroes, and Coppola didn't even try it. The characters were deeply flawed, but this made them seem real. It reminded me, honestly, of Baz Luhrman's recent release "The Great Gatsby". No one will say that Daisy or Nick or Tom or even Gatsby are good, but they also aren't evil.

So while the beautiful costumes and sets of "Marie Antoinette" didn't overshadow the rough edits, the beautifully and realistically woven characters certainly did.

The Eclectic Authoress Recommends....

19. "The Offshore Pirate", by F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. "The Popular Girl", by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Both of these are short stories by the Lost Generation author of "The Great Gatsby" and "The Beautiful and the Damned".

A New Tune to Hum

"The Great Gatsby" soundtrack has been recently released. I must recommend a good listen.

The Saying Should be Nick and "Jordan", Thank You Very Much

"The Great Gatsby" film is readily approaching, and literary lovers everywhere have been pondering the big question for months: will the movie live up to the book's almost unbeatable precedent? We shall have to wait and see...

The Eclectic Authoress Recommends....

15. "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald