Episode 7–All that Jazz: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Great American Novel

In our seventh episode we explore a Great American Novel that's so ubiquitous it's almost hard to believe there was a time when the media wasn't full of contrast, random references to The Great Gatsby. The story of a mysterious millionaire who turns up on Long Island, throwing lavish parties and spinning fables as transparently invented as they are enthralling, captures something essential about the promise of America. We explore why the term used for that something---the American dream---falls flat in this day and age, and what exactly we can still learn about class boundaries in a democracy that promises prosperity and affluence for anyone willing to work for it. The Great Gatsby is an easy book to take for granted: there are so many movie versions, so many theatre and opera and ballet adaptations, that we can forget just how beautiful F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose can ring out if we stop to listen to it. We dive deep into the novel's own mythic backstory, in which a young and successful author aims for high art only to discover the public would rather he stick with formulaic romance stories. Jay Gatsby remains one of the most indelible creations in American literary history: a version of Stephen Foster's beautiful dreamer, a self-fabulist who fools nobody but himself and yet intrigues everyone.