Many of today’s billionaires are as paranoid as Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby.”
Tag Archives: Great Gatsby
The Super Rich: Great Gatsby Redux
To Know Gatsby Is to Know America
“The Great Gatsby” is about fantasizing. Baz Luhrmann’s new film appears to understand this well.
Lit Titles as Cocktails (“The Wasteland”)
NPR’s Studio 360 sponsored a “literary cocktail” contest. We share here some of the highlights.
Santorum as Gatsby?! Okay, Humor Me
Think of the 2012 Republican primaries as “The Great Gatsby,” with Romney as Tom Buchanan and Santorum as Gatsby.
America Encourages the Vagabond Self
Looking at the United States from the vantage point of Iran, Nafisi writes that it was America’s vagrant nature that she connected to. She writes that America “somehow encourages this vagabond self.”
Gatsby in Iran: A Dream Betrayed
The Iranian authorities allowed Nafisi to teach “The Great Gatsby” because they regarded it as an expose of American materialism and decadence. And certainly it has that dimension. But Nafisi focused more on how the work explores the betrayal of dreams. Both countries have experience with that betrayal.