The 1920's and Today....

In The Great Gatsby you could rent a summer house on Long Island Sound for around $12,000. This was for the “the season” which typically was understood as July and August. Now, in Vanity Fair’s July Issue (my favorite magazine/could not live without) you can rent a quaint little summer place from Vincent and Louise Camuto for $950,000. Or, you might want to contact the Noel’s and rent their vacation home for $350,000 for July and $375,000 for August. According to Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jane Gill, “ I had one client who demanded $125,000 for August. An oceanfront house with pool. I got a customer who offered $90,000. The owner balked: ‘My husband says we can’t take less than $120,000.’ Finally, after a week, she said O.K.. By then the customer was irked. ‘My new offer is $69,000,’ he said. ‘Throw that at them.’ Now you may be asking yourself ‘how can we mere mortals get such spectacular deals?’ The economy, economy, economy! It is a predators market for those who have disposable means to swoop in and grab up elite properties at all time lows (let me get my checkbook).


Why are these ultra wealthy people not using their vacation homes this summer? They all have one thing (yes I said ‘thing’) in common, Bernie Madoff. If you don’t know about Madoff and his bogus Ponzi Scheme, that he somehow managed to pull off for years without being caught, you must check out the series of articles in the last few issues of Vanity Fair. It really is the epitome of corruption, avarice beyond description and sums up with the greatest efficiency the current banking/lending/investment nightmare.

“The crisis was triggered by the crash of US-based Lehman Brothers -- the 158-year-old firm that survived the American Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War and 9/11 but not the sub-prime mortgage bubble. Based on historical precedent that in America property markets had never ever declined by more than 5 per cent, the firm had thrown the dice.”
http://news.in.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3225082
Essentially everyone was involved in lending money without the capital to back the loans (sub prime lending practices) and taking investment money without the capital to back payoffs. And, the government still has no laws as of yet to regulate this nightmare!!

Just as the rich prospered in the 1920’s before Black Tuesday, the rich of today partied until the end. Madoff actually knew his jig was up, and had his supposedly innocent wife withdraw millions in funds in the days before he was arrested. Then he threw a Christmas bash for his employees who would find out the next day that they had, along with thousands of others, been scammed by a major con-artist (MERRY CHRISTMAS!). Now, most of the public has no sympathy for these Madoff people because they are still affluent; hower, some lost their life savings. Comparatively people in the 1930’s wanted to crucify the Captains of Industry. Groups of employees protested outside of Woolworth’s while Barbara Hutton, who knew nothing of the business her grandfather created and hadn’t worked a day in her life, cried in her silk covered bed, “Why do these people hate me?”

Who is Charles Ponzi?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi

June Issue Vanity Fair Letter to the Editor
PORTFOLIO OF LIES
I AM TIRED of listening to investors who supposedly “lost everything” with Bernie Madoff didn’t take and spend all their money; he paid most of it back to them in annual payouts at the rate of 10 to 12 percent a year. Some of his investors funded charities with their returns. Many lived extravagantly for years off these annual payouts, and many have recouped their original investment and become even richer. Now they demand a U.S. taxpayer bailout. They were blinded by greed and seduced by high returns, and want me to reimburse them for their lack of proper due diligence. Ask anyone who has invested in Citibank, G.M., Bear Sterns, or Lehman Brothers over the last couple of years how their investments are doing. I’ll take Bernie’s returns any day.
Timothy Corsini
London, England

A Post From Padfoot and Prongs/The List

Comment:  Padfoot and Prongs - Good Books Inc. said...


What an excellent book!! And we love your site...this is a fantastic idea! Although...we prefer the reader's choice of 100 best novels...but the board's list is still great!

Response:  Thanks for commenting!  Yes, I looked at both lists and considered which to use.  I have read Ayn Rand books but felt that obviously readers (die hard Rand and Hubbard fans) voted numerous times to get their choices high on the list (kind of like calling in for your favorite on American Idol contestent numerous times).  I don't have anything against Rand or Hubbard but believe the books are more about philosophical beliefs and promoting those beliefs than literature.  I decided to go with the Random House List, even though I wanted to read some of my favs on the readers list, because it included books I have not read but believe to be some of the greatest books ever written.  So thanks for contributing...........

Fitzgerald's Characters........

Fitzgerald’s eloquence of writing is unsurpassed. His mastery of words on paper are equivalent to Renoir’s mastery of light on canvas. One can be engaged in foretelling the next scene and then it is laid bare in the most artful way. It could not exist or be written in any other way by any other person.

A Look at the Characters……..

Nick Carroway: A oddity in the sense that he is a man who reserves judgment and therefore can see more clearly into peoples motives, desires and insecurities. “I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.” He is from the mid-west. He is a sensible guy not prone to the fancies of the rich but is able to mingle in their presence without feeling inferior. Nick is well educated and is a bonds trader at a large firm in New York. He becomes a New York denizen for the excitement and vitality that life will bring. Nick dipsticks into the lives of Gatsby, Tom and Daisy by accompany them on journeys most would not I.e. traveling with Tom as he goes to visit his mistress. He hangs out all night with a ragtag crew passing a bottle, taking in the different personalities and situations until Tom’s mistress Myrtle gets her nose busted. Some of Nick’s best descriptions are of Tom Buchanan. “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind.”

Tom Buchanan is described as a strapping dark and handsome man from a wealthy family. A man who can carry off a riding suit without looking ridiculous. He is well educated, cultured and worldly. He has the way of the wealthy, feeling comfortable to spout off details of this or that which having nothing to do with the conversation at hand. “Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ , by this man Goddard? Well, these books are all scientific. This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” Another time, he informatively tells his company that he has read that the earth is heating up; the sun is getting hotter (hmmm).
Tom has the means to indulge his whims. He has a mansion, an appropriate wife, his first child, a mistress and believes that all of these things are fitting of a man of his stature. He goes slumming with his mistress and then goes home to socialize with the upper echelon who wouldn’t even contemplate giving his mistress the dignity of a disgusted grunt. When he discovers his wife’s indiscretion with Gatsby, his world is momentarily cracked. “Things get out of order: Self control…I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out…Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.”
In the end, by sheer magnetism and the unequivocal belief that he is superior to Gatsby in every way possible he takes control of his indulgent childish wife.
Daisy is the epitome of the wealthy society woman of the 1920’s. She purposefully appears to be in a constant daydream and says ridiculous things only someone of her station could get away with. I can imagine a dust soaked Okie saying “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year then miss it?” She is described as intentionally speaking in a soft whisper so those around her would have to lean in. She knows of her husbands affair and talks about it like she’s retelling the details of an afternoon picnic. She has her brief affair with Gatsby and then the tragic accident. After, seemingly without regret, she scuttles back into her safe glided cocoon, needing Tom to take control and leaving the carnage behind for others.

Jay Gatsby, handsome and mysterious comes off in a lot of ways as a bore. Fitzgerald over emphasizes Gatsby’s careful self programming, his ardent self discipline to be someone he is not. Gatsby’s “I say Ol’ Chap” umpteen times, leaves one saying, “I’ll Ol’ Chap you in a minute!!” He seems to use it even more as his façade crumbles, desperately grabbing onto those so carefully learned expressions and affectations. He is almost robotic in his descriptions of his past as though he is reading the information off a mental cue card. Nick describes his stories as “threadbare”, again Fitzgerald precision. “I talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say.” And, it continues that way throughout the book. Fitzgerald describes his past in a narrative style; it isn’t told by Gatsby himself. His obsession with Daisy is more about himself than of any real love for her. He is from a poor simple background. “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people-his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.”
It is suggested that his fortune came from scandalous business (possibly bootlegging). He has no real friends and maybe I’m way off but he seems to be a bit sociopathic in his interpretations of the world and his inability to connect with people in a genuine way. After the tragic accident, which is quite brutal, he is only concerned whether he gets his prize. He is at that point pathetic, sniveling, desperate and entirely delusional. He is a sad character and maybe embodies Fitzgerald’s rise and fall within high society in the form of a person, Jay Gatsby.

THE GREAT GATSBY

The Great Gatsby (a book I read as a freshmen in high school, which literally makes no sense contextually to a fifteen year old) is a book that can be read in an afternoon. It personifies the Jazz Era in which Fitzgerald belonged. And, if one is a lover of this era as I am, Fitzgerald makes tangible all the embodiments that made the time fabulous. Of course this was the time period when 2.3% of Americans held around 70% of the wealth and others toiled in sweatshops all day with neither health insurance nor labor rights. I recall my grandmother telling me the story of her father’s struggle to survive, both his parents died in the 1918 influenza outbreak. He was in his early teens and went to live in the woods preparing meals and being a general servant to all the lumberjacks who worked in the Maine woods sending huge logs down the rivers to paper mills. It was a harsher time for the disenfranchised and when he married my great-grandmother in the 1920’s and became ill with children to support he sought help with an Uncle who promptly told him to go “beg to the town or cry to church.” So, it wasn’t all “Yes, we have no bananas today!” for everyone. And that is something to be kept in mind as one is envisioning all the glory that was the “Roaring Twenties”.

People generally know this story, have read the book or saw the pitiful (1974)movie with Robert Redford playing Jay Gatsby (appropriate), Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan (talk about melodrama), Bruce Dern acting as an incongruent Seinfeld Kramer/Tom Buchanan. Who was the casting director??? Sam Waterston chosen to play Nick Carraway and joined Redford as the only other successfully cast actor. And, Karen (Crazy Eyes) Black as Tom’s mistress Myrtle Wilson. There were also two other versions produced in 1926 and 1949. The first thing I had to do was obliterate these faces (except Redford of course) as I began the book. It took a few chapters before they ceremoniously disappeared. That is always a problem when seeing a movie and then reading the book.

A quick review of the story line (because it is available everywhere, see link to the right) Jay Gatsby, man of mystery moves to West Egg on Long Island Sound. He purposefully has no friends, only acquaintances. No one knows how he became ultra wealthy and rumors swirl as to his background. Nick Carroway (the narrator) lives in a little dump next to Gatsby ostentatious mansion where weekly parties last for days on end. Nick’s second-cousin Daisy and her husband Tom (picture Clark Gable not Brue Dern) live in East Egg (the more fashionable side of Long Island Sound). Rich New Yorkers escape the heat of the city and travel to their estates to socialize with the crème de le crème of society. Gatsby, once the beau many years ago of Daisy, secretly pines away for her across the bay. Everything he does is to recreate the past and hopefully reunite with Daisy. The story involves affairs, murders, unrequited love, scandal, and abandonment.

The Great Gatsby was dedicated to Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda who suffered from schizophrenia, this combined with Fitzgerald’s alcoholism caused tragic ends. I think in commenting on this book over the next couple days the focus will be more on the parallels between Fitzgerald’s life and his books versus a rehashing of a very well known and well read book. Fitzgerald’s life is very present in his writings as someone who lived among the upper crust but often did not have the means to do so. He understood being the toast of the town and he knew when the party was over.

THE END OF ULYSSES

The end of Ulysses was like finishing that statistics class, the one holding you back from your degree. At times I thought "Hey, this stuff is kind of interesting" but most of the time I dreaded it! The characters in Ulysses, Stephen, Mr. Bloom, Bloom's wife, etc. were characters I definitely were interested in. I suppose if I was a literature professor at Harvard, I would gobble this up with a spoon. But Alas, I am but a lowly high school teacher, who has not read the Odyssey or other Joyce works leaving me eating my peas with one chop stick. It is telling that I could find only one guide for sale explaining Ulysses (that being the one by Gilbert last put out in the 50's). I'm afraid Ulysses will not be part of Oprah’s book club this year and you won't see Mr. James Joyce on her program anytime soon saying "I'm sorry I said the book was true; no I've never hallucinated about my mother's dead corpse while soliciting prostitutes.”

So far I have yet to find anyone I know who has read Ulysses. I'd brag but no-one would know what in the hell I was talking about. Does that say something about the company I keep? Hmmmm.

The religious component, the relationship between the characters and who they were interested me. Guessing the scene, the hour, the art, the symbol, the technique, exhausted me! Some of the inner dialogue droned on endlessly leaving me glassy eyed and needing a drink! (Ulysses Turns Woman Into Alcoholic! That might get me on Oprah) Honestly, it was just too hard sometimes to figure out what the (explicative) was happening. Maybe like trying to go to work while on LSD, not that I know anything about that (I really don't, feel free to share).

For example, the brothel scene has Mr. Bloom hallucinating (I don't know why he is hallucinating) that he is a woman who is now being violated and has a fetus??? Stephen is dancing around with a bunch of hookers while the dead stinking corpse of his mother flies around??? All this is suppose to represent something and have parallels galore but I couldn't tell you what nor care to find out.

The simplest description of the book would be the father and son relationship between Stephen ( Christian) and Mr. Bloom ( Jewish). In Judaism they await the return of the son of God while in Christianity the son returns to his father. Stephen rejects his real father and Mr. Bloom's son died young. Moreover, Mr. Bloom discovered his own father post suicide and Stephen is horrified by his mother's death.

All three characters, Stephen, Mr. Bloom and Mrs. Bloom dream about the far east and its exotic offerings maybe as a juxtaposition to life in Dublin or as a file in which they stow away all their fetishes and desires. Mr Bloom describes his wife as having Spanish, Jewish and Moorish descent, which encompasses a matrix of intertwined beliefs and symbolism.

In the end, Stephen and Mr. Bloom come to recognize their counter point in each other. I don't think the relationship lasts; It is a fleeting moment recognized by both as being a defining moment in their existences.

The End……

I HATE EXCUSES!

I'm turning into an excuse mess.  Although I have kept up with reading and am done with Ulysses, circumstances have kept me from keeping up with my blog.  First, had to give notice at our current house because they are putting it back on the market.  We own a home in Maine but rent here in Hawaii.  However, we had already invited about 40 people for a huge bbq Friday night so continued with that with some friends spending the weekend.  Lastly, our landlords (who are very "particular" informed us that they want to go through the place with a fine tooth comb by tomorrow!!!!  ARGHHHH!  Usually, this is not the practice.  But there is no point in arguing or it will turn into a nasty battle.  We have kept the place immaculate, so hopefully it will go down without too much fanfare.  We;ll see.  I hate being subject to others rules and regs.  "I am a rock; I am an island."  Yeah, right! 

Getting There.....

Okay, so not really doing what I should be with Ulysses.  I need to be done by tomorrow and I want to look at the religious component of the book and the relationship between the two main characters obviously, but then it's time to move on.  So hopefully I will having something more indepth to write tomorrow.  Today, my 9 year old was taking a shower in his room.  I walked into my bathroom with sewer pouring out from under the flush and the shower because the water was backing up.  The floor had about an inch of standing muck that smelled like the devil's bowels (honestly, it is the grossest thing I've ever encountered!!)  So I may have ecolli, and if not the gallon of bleach I had to use definitely burnt out half my brain cells.  The upside is if I don't die from ecolli and just have a semi nasty case of it, I might drop 20lbs.  Anything in the pursuit of weight loss!  Yes, I am shallow.  Or if I can't finish all 100 books, I can blame it on brain damage. A man (who has a stronger stomach than mine) came out and "SNAKED" it and now everything is back in working order.  He was also kind enough to tell me the things he finds in other peoples' septic systems.....Use your imagination!  All I could think of was  the movie Christmas Vacation, Randy Quade outside his RV in his  robe and underwear, when the yuppie neighbors come out horrified.  He's got that long tube from his septic tank going into the street.  "Don't mind me" he says, "Just emptying the shitter!" 
Oh, and the "SNAKE GUY" said only use Scott single ply T.P. 
Ever Onward.....