WWW.WEDNESDAY

 

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? 12 Months to Live by James Patterson and Mike Lupica. This insanely popular book (according to Goodreads, nearly 3,000 people are reading it right now) introduces us to Jane Smith, "the best criminal attorney in the Hamptons." Maybe after Gatsby I'm just attracted to dark doings along the Atlantic these days. Anyway, just as she's about to embark on a high-stakes, high-profile murder case, she gets a heartbreaking diagnosis. Yes, cancer. 12 months to live. Or maybe less, if she doesn't quit poking around where she's not welcome.

2. What did you recently finish reading?  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I decided to re-read it when it occurred to me that it's nearly 100 years old. Like Gone with the Wind (1936) it remains very popular. So I wondered if, like GWTW, it would hold my interest or if the world had passed it by. I am happy to report that, though thinner than I recalled (less than 200 pages), it's a very substantial book.

 

Gatsby is the titular character and of course he matters. He represents our American belief in self-determination and self-invention. But this time, as I read it for the third time, he's not the one who has captured my imagination. Now I'm struck by what monsters The Buchanans are. They are the dark side of capitalism and the American dream. More = better. Might = privilege. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." It's a gorgeous book and rightfully a classic, but it left me so sad. There's no room for The Golden Rule in the world Fitzgerald described. I hope we're better now, but I'm not so sure.

3. What will you read next? Grudge Match by Mike Lupica.