Literarily Obsessed: The Great Gatsby

Since 1926, a year after F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, was published, film-makers have been trying to immortalize the characters of the book into a movie. According to director and screenwriter, Baz Luhrmann, none have succeeded.

In late 2010, when I was in ninth grade, I heard that my favorite actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, would be starring in a film-adaptation of the novel, The Great Gatsby. I had heard of the book before, and my affection towards the actor made me go straight to the school's library and check it out.

A while later, after several chapter re-readings and lots of skull-scratching, I finally finished the 218 page book and loved it. Maybe it was because I always pictured DiCaprio as the title character, Jay Gatsby, but I also thought that the 1920's style writing was really interesting. I decided to read it again, and again, and a fourth, fifth, and sixth time.

Narrated by Nick Carraway, the novel follows him after he moves into a new house next to the party-throwing, mysterious millionaire Gatsby. What Nick doesn't know is that he's more connected to his neighbor than he knows, and as Gatsby's past unravels, Nick finds himself stuck in the middle of it all.

Each time I read it, I picked up something that I hadn't before. Like the first four times I read it, I thought that Gatsby was alive for a bit after Wilson had shot him (you can't be angry if I just spoiled the ending for you; this book has been out for more than eighty years). Then I realized that Gatsby died immediately from the wound and when Nick had described him as lying in the bed protesting to him, “Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to try hard. I can’t go through this alone.” it was more metaphoric than literal. Quite a difference, no?

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book it that it doesn't really have a set genre. There's some romance, some mystery, a little violence, and a pinch of historical fiction.

Filming for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby began on September 5, 2011 and continued into the early months of the next year.

So in the summer of 2012, when I practically had the book memorized by heart and had been counting down the days until the movie was released (on Christmas day), and I heard that The Great Gatsby's release date had been pushed back to the summer of 2013, I was completely crushed. Like, you don't understand.

Imagine being pregnant: the deal is that the baby will be born in nine months and that the burden will be lifted off your shoulders then, no matter how good or bad the birth is. But seven months in, the doctor tell you that, instead of just nine months, you'll be pregnant for an additional three months because of some “complications”. It sucks, right? And I had been looking forward to my baby for two years, almost the amount of time I've been in this hell hole they call “high school”. Can you see now why I was heart-broken?

And now I'm being made to wait another nine months to see what Baz Luhrmann has accomplished and it totally sucks ass.