100 years since The Great Gatsby was published, why it still resonates with readers
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel has inspired social movements and a Leonardo DiCaprio film. The author’s hometown is marking its centenary
Is The Great Gatsby really all that great? A year’s worth of events, a slew of new books and a bunch of teenagers in Scotland say “Yes”.
Non-profit organisation The Friends of the St. Paul Library, in St. Paul, in the US state of Minnesota, has already begun a year of events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gatsby.
The book has been in the “great American novel” conversation for eight decades, and Friends’ Alayne Hopkins says organisation members are interested in why people never stop talking about it.
St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is about a millionaire named Jay Gatsby who engages in a doomed romance with Daisy Buchanan, runs afoul of her husband, Tom, and leads the antics of his reckless Jazz Age buddies.
“It’s looking at class and social inequality. Racism, certainly, is addressed in the novel, along with that kind of associated ‘otherness’. And the position that women had in society,” says Hopkins, senior director of programmes and services for the Friends. “All of those sorts of questions exist today.”
That is probably why Gatsby seems to be everywhere – along with the fact that it came into the public domain a few years ago, meaning it is open season on its story and characters.
