"The High-Bouncing Lover," or Gatsby

What if F. Scott Fitzgerald had named The Great Gatsby "The High-Bouncing Lover?" -- one of his alternative choices? Good thing Max Perkins was around.

Today in literary history: The Great Gatsby was published -- April 10, 1925.

*

This remains my absolute favorite novel. I think I like Gatsby so much because I can play most everything else off of it -- other books I read, music, film, the visual arts, affairs of life and of the heart ... all of it. And then the "everything" seems to make a bit of sense.

My writing hat is off to Gatsby, and this definitely deserves a Guinness and perhaps a shot of Jameson for writing strength today. (Please drink responsibly! It's said that Fitzgerald preferred gin. The "bathtub gin" period during Prohibition wasn't called that because of some fancy bubble bath.)

*

ON BRILLIANCE:
We each have a Gatsby inside us. (Call your Gatsby by another name, that's fine.) So it is our "responsibility" as artists, in whatever our medium, to work hard and long enough to find the gem, polish it up, and show it off to the world. But never discount "Hope." Hope is a driving force all its own, and people tend to forget this. Without hope, we are doomed.

*

"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald