The Automatik

I’d sacrifice it all for just one kiss.

It’s been a long time since I read The Great Gatsby. Back then, I was too young to understand the mysteries of such complex, adult themes. I remember also being unimpressed by the film version starring Robert Redford, and still not comprehending what all the fuss was about.

In fact, it took a bit of time for me to become interested in the latest film adaptation, currently showing on A&E, but I’m glad I watched it.

Now I have to wonder: do I know anyone like Tom and Daisy, those types who just blow through one’s life like a tornado, never staying long enough to clean up or even care about the wreckage but who manage to charm everyone anyway? (Actually, I already know that I do.) Or what about Gatsby himself? Nick said he didn’t like him, yet he claimed to be one of Gatsby’s closest friends. And he probably was in the end, if only because he could recognize that Gatsby lived his life just for Daisy because he felt things, he hoped for a future, he had a soul. Even if he was a criminal, he was more real than all the old money crowd.

These are the confusions and contradictions that I could never fully understand as a child, the ones that I don’t want to understand as an adult. I sometimes feel, like Nick, that my capacity for wonder has ended, and like Gatsby’s green light, that my dream was over before it began.