The book for September is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic
passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel
begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an
impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves
overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom
Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit
of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts
to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly,
in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made,
Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician
East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear.
When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a
Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as
chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline
prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.
This month our meeting night is at 7:45 at Jamie's House on Tuesday September 25th. It's a costume party! Come dressed in the 1920's era while we discuss the book and eat good food!
