“What you about to witness is my thoughts / Right or wrong / Just what I was feeling at the time” – Jay-Z, “The Ruler’s Back”
It’s 2008 and I’m in the middle of a long, hot summer. School’s out and life’s possibilities still seem endless. I spend my days obsessing over The Dark Knight, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool and an early 20th century novel called The Great Gatsby.
The book was an English Literature assignment, except it wasn’t for my class. I borrowed it from a friend who said that all the excitement I felt lacking in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, I would find reading about the life and times of Jay Gatsby.
My friend was right. The Great Gatsby had drama, intrigue and passages that etched onto the depths of your soul. The glamorous parties held by its protagonist, along with the undercurrent of corruption and violence, reminded me of the gangster movies that I was too young to watch but saw anyway growing up: Goodfellas, Casino, Scarface. Morality tales dressed up as capitalist fantasies.
It’s 2011 and I’m far away from home, in the middle of another long, hot summer. Life’s possibilities seem a lot narrower now.
I’m at the back of a line waiting to watch the final instalment of the Harry Potter series on opening night. I strike up a conversation with the woman standing right next to me. We talk about our favorite books and both land on The Great Gatsby. We end up becoming good friends that potentially could have been something more but, to quote André 3000, that’s a story for another chapter.
It’s 2018 and I’m half-living the dream. Working a 9-to-5 by day, moonlighting as a writer by night.
I see somebody post on Twitter about Haruki Murakami and Hunter S. Thompson rewriting The Great Gatsby in order to prepare themselves for their magnum opus (Norwegian Wood and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas respectively). I promise myself to follow this rite of passage when it’s time to embark on my own literary debut.
Summer is a faint memory and had neither the heat nor length of previous years. I read The Great Gatsby again but, this time, I focus on its lush language and dreamy descriptions of a doomed romance. Having had my fair share of unrequited love, I connect with the novel on a deeper level and write about its thematic similarities to the works of Christopher Francis Ocean and Vincent Jamal Staples. I call the piece ‘Eternal Summer’.
It’s 2024, and contrary to the Childish Gambino song, it doesn’t feel like summer.
I read about certain books providing a spark which, subsequently, inspires me to write this piece. I think about how few cultural artifacts stick with you till the end of time and long to find something like that again.
I press send, hoping that what I have written resonates, passing the spark on to next person.
Further Reading
[1] Andrei Atanasov, The Spark, The Books That Made Us
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Hey John, I dig this read a lot. I like how you moved through out the years and grew with the novel. Or the novel grew with you. How art, is living, as it grows with the collective it is part of. I only read it once, but, its lush language is one thing I remember enjoying a lot. Also, Lupe’s the Cool, that is a dope album, does that still follow you to day? Have you written a similar piece but with an album or song?
Beautiful and brilliant piece! Thank you for writing about the beauty and power that comes from reading the great gatsby. Like you I’ve reread the book a few times now. With each reading I’ll learn something new, something that rings true and touches my heart. Fitzgerald’s words shine like a light in my memory. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us…” That final paragraph tears me up every time (I memorized it back in school.) I love how you’ve created a written collage of your various readings over time, “borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Some books just light up in our minds like spark; I agree with you that Gatsby is one of those stories. I’m grateful for the spark inside your brilliant writing. And thank you for mentioning me in your kind note. I loved reading your glowing tribute to the beloved story of Gatsby.