Gatsby: Sad Eyes

But I --
Ah, sooner would I die
Than see tears in those eyes of my soul.

Stephen Crane, 1871 - 1900
from The Black Riders and Other Lines, #LIII
Original book cover for The Great Gatsby

"It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes
at things upon which you have expended your own
powers of adjustment." (105)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896 - 1940

**********************
Poor Gatsby. The form of his dream is pure, but the content is corrupt. Or is it the other way around?

" 'You can't repeat the past.'

'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!' " (111)

No, you can't.*
**********************
P.S.
Since it's Mardi Gras,
just pretend that the fun fair
pictured at the bottom of the book cover
is New Orleans!

*Similar sentiment:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."
~ Anne Lamott ~ Lily Tomlin ~

**********************

from "Like Pale Gold"
John Green's Crash Course on The Great Gatsby
Dear Heroic Past,

Like champagne poppers, you’re always a little bit underwhelming.

The thing is, Heroic Past, which of our pasts was so heroic?

Was it the part where we owned other human beings?

Was it the part where we fought over the right to own other human beings?

Was it Gatsby’s Jazz Age, with its fast cars, deliciously illegal alcohol and rapidly expanding stock portfolios?

I mean the amazing thing about the Great Gatsby is that Fitzgerald didn’t know the Great Depression was coming, [or did he?] but his book sure reads like prophecy.

The truth, Heroic Past, is that we may think we want to recreate you, but what we actually want to do is we want to recreate you without all the problems we don’t remember.

And that’s how you ruin your life over a girl you dated for a month five years ago.

Best Wishes,

John Green

The Other Vision

Marie Therese Accoundee
by Picasso

**********

For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your
Beautiful eyes. *

Hafiz (1325 – 1389)
14th - Century Persian poet
popular, proverbial, profound

**********

Marie Therese avec une Guirlande
by Picasso

**********

from "Your First Eyes"

A lover has four streams inside,
of water, wine, honey, and milk.
Find those in yourself and pay no attention
to what so-and-so says about such-and-such.

The rose does not care
if someone calls it a thorn, or a jasmine.
Ordinary eyes categorize human beings.
That one is a Zoroastrian. This one is a Muslim.

Walk instead with the other vision given you,
your first eyes.* Bow to the essence
in a human being. Do not be content
with judging people good and bad.
Grow out of that. . . .

Rumi (1297 - 1273)
13th - century Persian poet
philosopher & mystic

**********
*emphasis added

Winter Dreams

"Winter Dreams"
China Pattern by Waechtersbach*
I hope you've had a moment to glance at my recent Fortnightly blog post: "Another Faraway Auld Lang Syne" (December 28, 2010). And I hope you were touched as I and my family have been by William Saroyan's short short story "The Faraway Night." (My talented son Ben actually memorized this entire piece and recited it at a school Declamation program when he was in junior high!)

If you enjoyed Saroyan's reverie, you might also like to take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's story of youthful infatuation and gradual disillusion -- "Winter Dreams" (click for text).

The opening and closing lines caught my imagination long ago and have remained as one of my own winter dreams:

"In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy--it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged sparrows for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless glare.

"In April the winter ceased abruptly. The snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls. Without elation, without an interval of moist glory, the cold was gone. . . .

"As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams.
*******"For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished."



*More Winter Dreams: Years ago, when my sister Peg was living in Germany, she sent me a gorgeous teapot, cups and saucers in the above pattern. I've since acquired a few coffee mugs and dessert plates, perfect for serving a late afternoon pick-me-up by the fire on a cold January day.


Winter Mantel Display

Hope Your Party Is Just the Right Size!

"I like large parties. They're so intimate.
At small parties there isn't any privacy."

from The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

from This Side of Paradise