The photo above is the cover of the book I have read recently – “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a millionaire bootlegger who remakes himself to reunite with his former lover – the society girl Daisy Buchanan. The novel, which the American novelist Fitzgerald is best known and which has been adapted to movies, theaters and musicals many times all around the world, is set on Long Island, New York City in the early 1920s.
Gatsby, a World War I veteran and a former Oxford student who becomes gains wealth after the war, throws big glamorous parties in his mansion with a huge garden and a pool. His magnificent mansion in West Egg on Long Island always glitters with lights and full of people from all walks of life drinking and dancing in crazy live music. In Fitzgerald’s words:
“There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” (from the book ‘The Great Gatsby’)
Gatsby’s gorgeous mansion in the 2013 film “The Great Gatsby” (Photo: theagencyre.com) (By coincidence, the mansion is stated to be ‘a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy‘, Normandy being the subject of my prior post.
Two scenes from the 1974 “The Great Gatsby” film: People coming like ‘moths’, as Fitzgerald refers to in his book, to Gatsby’s famous big parties… (Photos: stylelovely.com)
Young, handsome and mysterious Gatsby always seems alone in the crowd watching around, and waiting for his former lover Daisy he is obsessed with. Daisy and his wealthy husband Tom Buchanan‘s mansion in East Egg is just across Gatsby’s on the other side of the bay. Everything in the book is narrated by Daisy’s cousin Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate working in bond business, who rents a small cottage next to Gatsby’s mansion and is drawn to his lavish lifestyle.
A scene from the 2013 film “The Great Gatsby” (Warner Bros via vulture.com)
West Egg, said to represent ‘new-money‘ (the newly rich), and East Egg, representing the ‘old-money‘, are said to be Cow Neck and Great Neck respectively – two peninsulas that border Manhasset Bay on Long Island. Gatsby, a bootlegger, is ‘new-money’ who made his fortune from illegal sale of alcohol after the war – the source of his lavish parties with lots of alcohol.
A scene from the 2013 film (Photo: Warner Bros via fra.animalia–life.club): Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) and Meyer Wolfsheim (Amitabh Bachchan – Gatsby’s friend, an underworld figure, who helped Gatsby make his fortune through bootlegging during Prohibition in US) in a secret party with alcohol and live jazz music whose entrance is hidden within a barber shop.
The novel is set in “the Jazz Age” – the period between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression (worldwide economic crisis starting with the collapse of US stock prices in 1929) during which jazz became popular. Prohibition (a nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcohol in US) was also effective then and many Americans used to seek refuge in venues that hosted jazz bands. (khanacademy.org)
A jazz orchestra in Texas, 1921 (Photo by Robert Runyon courtesy Wikimedia Commons, via khanacademy.org)
(Harlem’s Cotton Club was one of the famous jazz venues in the heart of Harlem, New York City where both whites and blacks gathered to listen to jazz and dance the Charleston. Duke Ellington had frequently performed at the Cotton Club. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington made their first recordings in 1925.(khanaacademy.org))
The Jazz Age was a term coined by F.Scott Fitzgerald which had first appeared in his 1922 book “Tales of The Jazz Age”. In a 1931 essay Fitzgerald had written of the1920s as follows:
“It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire,” (daily.jstor.org)
Photo: (ggbmagazine.com)
The 1920s was also referred to as “Roaring Twenties“, especially within the United States and other Western countries – a decade of “economic prosperity, rapid social and cultural change, and a mood of exuberant optimism“. There was “unprecedented economic growth and prosperity” in the United States at the time with greater numbers of Americans purchasing automobiles and other consumer products.
F.Scott Fitzgerald is counted among the Lost Generation writers, referring to a group of American writers who came of age during World War I and gained reputation in the 1920s. They were named as lost for their inherited values were no longer relevant after the war. The themes of moral failure and corruption were evident in many of these writers’ works. Some of the other famous Lost Generation writers along with Fitzgerald were Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck, many of whom lived as expatriates in Paris. (britannica.com, khanacademy.org)
Ernest Hemingway in Paris, 1924 (Photo: Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston via euronews.com / A letter of Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway thanking him for his feedback on Gatsby (Photo: parisreview.org)
(Hemingway and Fitzgerald had been good friends. Fitzgerald had offered consolation when Hemingway’s first marriage with Hadley fell apart. He had written to him: “I’m sorry for you and for Hadley … and I hope some way you’ll all be content and things will not seem so hard and bad, … . I can’t tell you how much your friendship has meant to me during this year and a half,”) (Lesley M.M. Blume, theparisreview.org)
Fitzgeralds on a Street in Paris (Photo: Courtesy of Princeton University Library via learner.org) / Fitzgerald with his daughter Scottie and his wife Zelda in Paris in 1925 (Photo: Associated Press via nytimes.com)
Paris was like the center of culture and arts in the 1920s as Woody Allen portrayed very well in his jolly film “Midnight in Paris”, which I had mentioned in my prior post titled “Paris – Always A Good Idea“. Fitzgerald had finished The Great Gatsby in 1925 while he was living in Paris. He had first met Hemingway at the Dingo Bar in Paris in late April in 1925, two weeks after the publication of his Great Gatsby (nytimes.com). The writers and artists used to frequent the cafés of Paris, which I had namely mentioned in my post, during the time.
Paris’ famous Harry’s New York Bar (5 Rue Daunou, Paris), where the Bloody Mary, the Side Car and other cocktails were born, was a favorite hangout of American expats in Paris in the 1920s especially writers including Fitzgerald and Hemingway (Photo: AFP via smh.com.au) / Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston as Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald in the film “Midnight in Paris“(Photo: Sony Pictures Classics via nytimes.com)
It is mentioned in the introduction part of the book I’ve read that ‘Fitzgerald planned The Great Gatsby during the summer of 1922 but wrote it during the summer of 1924 while living on the Riviera and revised the proofs in Rome during January and February‘. (Tony Tanner, Introduction of “The Great Gatsby”, Penguin Books). F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife and muse Zelda Fitzgerald, also an American writer, had lived for many years in Europe, primarily in Paris.
F.Scott Fitzgerald / Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald (Photos: theparisreview.org)
However, the flashy lavish parties in ‘The Great Gatsby’ are probably said to have been based on parties Fitzgerald himself attended when he lived on Long Island in the early 1920s.
The house where F. Scott Fitzgerald lived with his wife Zelda Fitzgerald from October 1922 to April 1924 on 6 Gateway Drive in Great Neck, Kings Point on Long Island, N.Y., early in their marriage (nytimes.com) (Photo by: Joshua Bright for NY Times)
(It is mentioned in the introduction of the book I’ve read that in October 1922, the Fitzgeralds moved to a house in Great Neck, Long Island. The editor tells that “their house was a relatively modest one compared with the opulent summer homes of the seriously rich old American families – the Gugenheims, the Astors, the Van Nostrands, the Pulitzers – on another peninsula across the bay.”)
The mansion of the Buchanans in the 2013 film “The Great Gatsby” / The cottage of Daisy’s cousin Nick in the same film (The scene Gatsby having the cottage filled with flowers for Daisy, which I read shot in Australia) (Photos: Warner Bros. Pictures via wtop.com and hookedonhouses.net)
Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan at his mansion and at a party with his mistress in the 2013 Great Gatsby film (Photos: AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures via wtop.com)
Tony Tanner, the editor of the The Great Gatsby book I have read states: “In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald brilliantly captures disillusion of post-war America and the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status.“
We see the traces of the above concepts as well as the distinguished much talked about era of 1920s either in the book or in the 2013 film adaption “The Great Gatsby” I have recently re-watched starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby: Luxurious automobiles, extreme lifestyles, reckless affairs, bootlegging, and jazz music in the background… Carey Mulligan starring Daisy in the film says about her little daughter in one scene:
“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”, a surprising but an honest remark from a character who values money and luxury above everything else – yet the quote gives us an idea about the social values of the era.
Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan in the 2013 film adaptation (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures/Sportsphoto/Allstar via
theguardian.com)
What drew me to write this post is though, was another feature of the 1920s: the classic beauty of the clothing of the era, which caught me with the cover of the Gatsby book copy I have read, and which is the head image of this post. I have read somewhere the clothing of the 1920s defined as “straight lines, loose waists and tailored suits, … “. As I like ‘classic’ which to me, never disappoints, I loved this style as well.
The cover of Great Gatsby book I’ve read. Both the woman and the man seen dressed in a pleasant and an inspiring classic style – How sophisticated and elegant the woman looks! An effortless chic / A magazine cover following the 1974 film “The Great Gatsby” scripted by Francis Ford Coppola starring Robert Redford as Gatsby (Photos: books.telegraph.co.uk / Getty Images via bbc.com)
Robert Redford and Mia Farrow as Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan in the 1974 Great Gatsby film (Photos: stylelovely.com)
I will also try to watch the 1974 Gatsby film, for Great Gatsby had become a phenomenon especially after it, as also seen in the magazine cover above on which written: “The movie what’s influencing what you wear.”
Two scenes in the 1974 “The Great Gatsby” film (Photos: herald-dispatch.com / zekefilm.org)
Like most artists, Fitzgerald became famous after his death. I have read in an article that the novel had achieved middling sales when first published in 1925 and there were still copies unsold from its second printing by the time of Fitzgerald’s death in 1940. It had become popular in the 1950s and 1960s with the flourishing of the American Dream, and the term ‘Gatsbyesque‘ emerged a few years after the 1974 Great Gatsby film starring Robert Redford. (bbc.com).
Two scenes from the 2013 Great Gatsby film (Photos: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Gatsby-mania re-flamed after the 2013 Great Gatsby film directed by Bay Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby – regarding the clothes, jewelry, the music in the film and much more… People listened to its soundtrack, watched the interviews with the new Gatsby, Leonardo DiCaprio, and they re-read the book. (washingtonpost.com).
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in the 2013 “The Great Gatsby” film (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures via washingtonpost.com)
Gatsby-mania still continues. We see the reprinted copies of the novel in bookstores (as I did recently), come across Gatsby shows or different Gatsby adaptations. “The Great Gatsby: The Immersive Show” which played performances at the Park Central Hotel in New York until end-August had opened with the motto “Come for the party. Stay for the tragedy.” (nytimes.com)
An article in The New York Times says:
“For nearly a century, filmmakers, theater makers, writers, composers, radio producers and merchandisers have reimagined the work. And since the copyright on the novel expired in 2021, the Gatsby frenzy has only increased, …“
Gatsby and Daisy played by Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in the 1974 film, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in the 2013 film (Photos: Alamy via bbc.com)
Gatsby frenzy is not in vain. What Fitzgerald writing about was not of an ordinary time. It was the Roaring Twenties glittering with jazz – the background music of clubs, trendy bars and big parties with fashionable men and women having extraordinary drinks. Like ‘chartreuse‘, ‘gin rickey‘ and ‘mint julep‘: my jolly notes of the drinks mentioned in the book.
It was interesting for me to find out that chartreuse is a French herbal liqueur made from 130 different herbs, plants and flowers initially produced by monks in the early 18th century to fund their monastries.
Chartreuse bottles / ‘Grande Chartreuse’ monastery located in the Chartreuse Mountains in north of Grenoble. Chartreuse, named after this monastery, is produced in its distillery nearby. (Wikimedia)
A scene from the 2013 film ‘The Great Gatsby’: Daisy, Jay, Nick, Tom and Jordan go to The Plaza, New York, a timeless classic hotel mentioned in Fitzgerald’s book and which also appears in my older post “Classic Hotels – Part 2“, to have their cocktails. (Photo: pinterest.ca)
Gin Rickey (a mix of gin, lime and club soda with a little or no sugar) and Mint Julep (a cocktail composed of bourbon, sugar, water, crushed or shaved ice, and fresh mint), two cocktails Fitzgerald mentions in ‘The Great Gatsby’. (Photos: acouplecooks.com / foodnetwork.com)
Fitzgerald has created a term for generations from 1920s and for generations to come and that is “the Gatsby style“, which we hear also today. A Gatsby style bar, decoration, clothing, party or maybe a cocktail…
(Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures via daily.jstor.org)
This is what being immortal must be like… You write book published in 1925, and it is still talked about almost a hundred years later …
There have been many reviews about the book since then, its themes and what Fitzgerald was trying to tell in “The Great Gatsby”. Such reviews continue today which I have also read plenty of. However, Fitzgerald had written to the critic Edmund Wilson (nytimes.com):
“Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about,” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
F.Scott Fitzgerald (Photo: nytimes.com) (It is said that, like his character Jay Gatsby, he also had astonishingly adolescent naïveté and behaviors. (Lesley M. M. Blume, Falling For Fitzgerald, theparisreview.org)) / Poster of the song “Three O’Clock in the Morning“, composed by Argentine composer Julián Robledo. referred to as a waltz of the year in the Gatsby book – among my jolly notes from the book: I listened to the song and did like it.
I live what I write. When I read the book and watched the 2013 film, I thought how such glamorous big parties, which are even rare to come across today, were held so long ago as 1920s. Then suddenly I found myself in a Gatsby style wedding party near the Bosphorus to which my husband and I had been invited to, starting with a wonderful cocktail with a live band music, many drinks and party snacks, and continuing with a wedding dinner in a saloon decorated in Gatsby style with orange flowers and candles taking you a different world, where a celebrity took scene and people danced to the end.
(Photos from the wedding party we have attended. Orange fowers, candles, lights, music, drinks and the soul of the party was reminiscent of Gatsby parties)
The pop star who took scene once said between his songs that everyone there had issues but it was time to forget them all and have fun at that moment. That was it; the Gatsby spirit … . We had so much fun as did many people in the party thinking nothing else but dancing and enjoying the Gatsby ambiance.
I thought then, perhaps among many themes talked upon, Fitzgerald wanted to show us how people had fun when it was time to do so in the 1920s… And how they forgot about things in the big but intimate Gatsby parties…
Jay Gatsby, a romantic bootlegger, was watching over as all the crowd of people attending his parties enjoy the moment – hoping to change the past and restart everything with his former lover Daisy.
I want to finish this post with some lyrics from “Three O’Clock in the Morning“, a waltz song popular in the 1920s:
It’s three o’clock in the morning
We’ve danced the whole night through
And daylight soon will be dawning
Just one more waltz with you
Enjoy the Gatsby spirit!