““I wish I’d done everything on earth with you””
I saw the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's production of The Great Gatsby the other night. It hooked me from the start because the entire trailer was played to the background of Jack White's cover of U2's 'Love is Blindness', which is one of my favourite songs on the planet.
Luhrmann is a genius at the juxtaposition of the old and the new, and using Jay-Z to create the soundtrack to a Jazz Age story? Brilliant. A man who lives, loves and breathes the Big Apple, composing for a story about said city - if nothing else, the music will be magical.
But I am anticipating that more than the music will rock - or as the case may be, Charleston. For Jay Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan are enduring figures in that great conundrum of humankind - the bizarre love triangle. And of course F Scott knew a thing or two himself about that, with his life being not exactly on the conventional side.
I love Fitzgerald's writing. The Great Gatsby is not my favourite of his ouevre - that honour goes to Tender Is The Night, and always has done. Maybe Jay G (as opposed to Jay Z) is just too tortured - or too selfish - for me. Maybe I like Tom too much! But what I love most about Fitzgerald's (anti) heroes is that nobody is remotely perfect. They are all human and frail and weak in their own ways. They are real.
And most of all, they are all willing to love.
Some can only give so much of themselves - but what they can give, they give to the full. Maybe it's that 'we only just survived the war, and we may not survive tomorrow' frenetic fatalism - but they are willing to emote to the best of their ability.
Sometimes I think that in the Age of iPodius, we are so careful with our feelings that we live a half life. We read the words on the page (or screen), and happily requote or repost them - and at the same time, keep a caul around our own hearts for fear of getting hurt.
I feel very grateful that those I care for - and yes, love - are willing to let me know how important I am to them. And unlike many a literary heroine, I don't need public pages of poetry or Shakespearean prose.
For actions often speak louder than proverbial words.
And said actions don't need to be public either.
I'm still grateful for them.
