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January 04, 2007

GONE READING

Trimal1 We're enjoying ourselves far too much with our annual return to Gatsby to post anything today other than this magnificent sequence from Chapter One in which Nick first enters the Buchanan home.  It's an image that we carry burned into our mind's-eye to this day, perfectly remembered from the first reading.  And it's a reminder of why we do what we do.  Enjoy it.  More posts tomorrow ...

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

Gatsby7fc The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

Eggs At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

GgfI looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

Posted by TEV at 12:01 AM in Worthy Titles |

Comments

Wowsers. Just wowsers!
Thanks.

Posted by: Jody Tresidder | January 04, 2007 at 08:21 AM

Let me know when you're done, I'll come back then.


/me grumbles about being the only person on earth who hates Fitzgerald...

Posted by: August | January 04, 2007 at 08:34 AM

Yeah, the dude can write. Wait'll you get to the big eyeglasses once again.

Posted by: John Shannon | January 04, 2007 at 10:28 AM

Awwwwh. In the middle of working on something, but this is a very nice distraction. "Come to your own mother that loves you..."
Just cracks me up sometimes, how we like exactly the same stuff. I'm due for a reread too. Enjoy.

Posted by: genevieve | January 04, 2007 at 06:02 PM

That description of Daisy is one of my favorites. It was one of the first passages from a book I remember copying. Fitzgerald wrote prose with such crystaline grace...I guess this means I'm due to reread Gatsby, too.

Posted by: Rich | January 07, 2007 at 08:30 AM

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