Book Review: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

I could tell you what happens in Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (the first one written by a woman to win, incidentally) in a single, long sentence—New York’s High Society steps out to the Opera, a wealthy young lawyer announces his engagement at a ball, invitations to a dinner are declined, invitations to another are accepted, the lawyer advises his client regarding some family matters, High Society vacations in Florida, a wedding takes place, High Society vacations in Rhode Island, a young woman stands at the end of a pier, an old woman falls sick, a young woman throws a farewell party for her cousin, a wife becomes pregnant, and an old man walks away from a closed window. 

That would tell you the events depicted in the 300-odd pages in the book, and may even pass for an adequate review if I added in a few lines about how I inherited the book from my uncle’s library well over a decade ago, how it came back to my consciousness while watching an episode of Gossip Girl on Netflix, and end by asking whether you, dear reader, have read it as well.

Except that, if I did leave it there, I would fail to point out that within the exquisite elegance of these rather mundane actions lies a story of devastating brutality.

The Age of Innocence, published in 1920, does not contain a hint of physical violence. Not so much as a slap. It is set among the elite of 1870’s New York, among a people ensconced in privilege, lineage and wealth, committed to appearance and manners, ruled by overt politeness and genteel behaviour. Through their polished words and grand homes, their eminently predictable habits and cold respectability, Edith Wharton shows how pain can be inflicted and hopes crushed just as effectively as through the most stark, gory prose that another author might write.

We see the world through the eyes of Newland Archer, a young blue-blooded New Yorker who has just gotten engaged to the lovely ingenue May Welland, a member of the numerous and prestigious Mingott family. The arrival from Europe of May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, fleeing her abusive husband, upends the quiet order of High Society, for rather than hiding her under a proverbial rock, as such fallen women should be, the Mingotts, led by their formidable matriarch, Catherine Mingott, choose instead to parade Ellen at the favourite haunts of the city elite. Archer, who fancies himself a progressive man, questions why Ellen must be ostracised for leaving a husband who was clearly a brute, and announces his engagement to May publicly at a ball hosted by Julius and Regina Beaufort, making sure his family is seen as firmly on the side of the Mingotts. Despite this, when the Mingotts decide to host a formal dinner to re-introduce her grand-daughter to New York, the invitation is declined by every family it is sent to. In response, Archer enlists the ‘big guns’—his aristocratic elderly cousins, the Van Der Luydens—who agree that such an insult should not be tolerated, and host a dinner where Ellen is personally invited. As a Van Der Luyden invitation cannot possibly be declined, the rehabilitation of May’s cousin into New York Society seems to be complete.

However, Ellen Olenska proves to be rather square peg, unwilling to fit neatly into the Upper East Side of Manhattan and its round holes. Vivacious and charming, far too interested in proletarian pursuits, far too disinterested in the shallowness of New York’s prestige-obsessed, anti-intellectual society, shaped by the intellectualism of European courts and boudoirs, she chafes in the shallow, stifling confines of what New York deems ‘proper’ even as she takes solace in its comforting politeness and predictability after the nightmare that was her marriage. As a woman living separated from her husband, she also occupies a precarious position—she cannot marry, but she is too interesting and beautiful to be left alone; and she becomes a target for the attentions of several men, among them the rich but somewhat disreputable Julius Beaufort. 

Archer finds himself drawn to Ellen; her apparent freedom from the conventions and hypocrisies that he is so familiar with, and so tired of; her appreciation for a world beyond the vapid and superficial one he lives in; as well as the mystery surrounding her past makes him question his feelings for May, who represents precisely the vacuous, hypocritical, convention-bound New York Society that he has begun to hate being a part of.

As the novel progresses, we see Archer, Ellen and May each play out their parts, riding conflicts within themselves, their allegiance to society, to conscience and to their own feelings. Jealousy and passion, honour and deceit, play a role, but it is all buried under the veneer of gentle conversation and propriety, whitened out under a blaze of opulence, concealed beneath the ordinariness of the daily routine of the life of the wealthy.

With a soft touch and deft hands, Edith Wharton sinks the knife into the reader’s hearts, spinning and twisting it as she spins and twists this poignant story of love and duty. The emotionally-draining climax, the moving epilogue, all speak to the human condition in ways that resonate across the ages from the time it is set in, to when it was written, to the present day, a century later.

The Age of Innocence is a novel that operates at many levels, and not just because its characters almost never actually say what they mean. A love story it is, and a family drama as well, but it manages to go well beyond that. It shines a harsh light on the injustice perpetrated on men and even more, upon women, in the name of being ‘proper’ in upper-class society, upon the hypocrisy and vacillation of even ‘good’ men like Newland Archer, the indecision and cowardice of women like Ellen Olenska, the vapid cunning of women like May Welland, and the role of High Society women in institutionalising patriarchy upon themselves. 

But it also, somehow, simultaneously, induces a latent sympathy for that same crusty upper-class society, struggling to hold on to the world they had established over so many years even as it crumbled around them in the construction of high-rises and raced past them in trains and shouted over them in the raucous dance of democracy. It makes us sympathise for poor Newland, struggling between the frightening solace of comfort without love and the frightening perils of love with disgrace; for Ellen who keeps reaching for a happiness that she always knew was not hers to achieve, or lacks the capacity to reach for the happiness she wants; and for May, innocence raised to a shallow saintliness and dragged into deviousness.

Edith Wharton’s writing blends Victorian convention with a more modern, conversational style that makes it easy enough to read. That does not mean it is easy to grasp, however. A certain degree of familiarity with the times and conventions of the time it is set in would help, but the most important factor a reader needs to bring to it is a desire and ability to delve into the world created by the author, else one is in danger of coming away having read nothing more than a story about an Opera, a Ball, a Wedding, a couple of vacations and a couple of parties. 

In his 1993 film of the same title, Martin Scorsese adapts the novel more or less faithfully, and perhaps the definite proof that he knew exactly what he was doing lies in his assertion that it was the most violent film he ever made. What I found fascinating was that he made it at all, though—Scorsese’s versatility is indisputable, but adapting a costume-period drama in 1993 would seem like an odd choice for someone whose previous films were Goodfellas and Cape Fear, and whose next was Casino—except that it is not. In it’s true essence, The Age of Innocence is a story with striking relevance, for you see, there is a reason some stories stand the test of time, and it goes beyond narrative excellence or memorable characters; it has to do with the universality of themes. That’s why we continue to make and re-make films based on the classics, that’s why we continue to read and love them, generation to generation—because they do still speak to us. 

Have you felt suffocated by the pressures of conventional morality? Have you struggled to keep a smiling face while your heart broke inside? Have you found yourself devastated by the luxury of comfort, frightened by the unending changelessness of your predictable life? Have you walked away from something, convinced yourself that it was not what you wanted, though it was everything you ever did? If you have, you have lived through The Age of Innocence.

Maybe you still are. 

Maybe you will again, one day.

And maybe you will, one day, shudder at the ruthlessness of Catherine Mingott when she tells her niece, 

“It was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's covered you with shame.”

at the magisterial death sentence Sillerton Jackson pronounces when he says,

“I didn’t think the Mingotts would have tried it on.”

at the jealousy and hatred contained in Newland Archer’s,

“Hallo, Beaufort, this way! Madame Olenska was expecting you,”

at the unfathomable sense of helplessness expressed when he says, with a smile,

“Tell her I am old-fashioned: that’s enough.”

--

Purchase here

Book Review: My Antonia, by Willa Cather

Book Review: My Antonia, by Willa Cather

I've never been to Nebraska. Couldn't point it out on a map if I had to. I don't feel too bad about that, because, you know...it's not like most Americans could either. It's a typical 'flyover' state, large rural expanses, minimal population (16th by Area, 37th by population) and not much to distinguish it from the rest of the mid-west. But to those who live there, and lived there, it must be home, and home is never insignificant. Home is always unique.

Willa Cather's' My Antonia' is a heartfelt ode not just to Nebraska and the prairies, but to the concept of 'home', of youth and first love.

Through the narrator, Jim Burden and the Antonia (Shimerda) of the title, Cather constructs a story without a real plot but with a lot of story; a narrative of intersecting lives that never quite come together other than in brief, shining moments of tranquility, conflict, remorse and love. 

Slowly tracing the life of the orphaned Jim through the heroes of his childhood, the harsh winters on a Prairie farm, the struggle between acquired 'class' and inherent desire for joy, offering glimpses of Antonia's struggle to settle down into an ‘American’ life, adjust to the realities of her life, the losses she faces with quiet, powerful dignity, Willa Cather paints a moving portrait of lives that were destined to grow apart but never lost their love for each other.

The supporting cast is memorable too, whether it's the old-world grace of Mr, Shimerda or his wife's loutishness, the villainous Wick Cutter or his toxic-dependent wife. She retains a special love for the 'farm girls', the 'hired hands', the ones who came from afar to make their lives in early-20th century America, and set down roots there. Tiny Soderball, the 'Bohemian Marys', Antonia and Lena Lingaard each show in their different ways, aspects of womanhood shaped by toil, cowed by circumstances, but never without hope and happiness. Antonia, of course, as the heroine stand out, but Lena too gets her moments under the sun, and both feel alive and real, portrayals of nuanced, complicated womanhood. 

Lena, indolent, seductive, slandered far and wide, drawing men under her spell without even trying, but virtuous as only a woman of principle can be; Antonia, animated, beautiful, adored by one and all, fated to disgrace and strong enough to rise above it. 

I've known a Lena Lingaard, I've known an Antonia, drawn from landscapes far removed from the western prairies, but no less remarkable, no less strong. Willa Cather captures their natures, their beauty, their power as she does their caprices. Perhaps they represent the country and the changing seasons; harsh and lovely in turns, pliant and stubborn in turns, but never less than magnificent.

The book ends on an open, uncertain note, the loss of innocence and childhood mitigated by the emergence of a new generation, just as spring's flowers supplant winter's bones. Yes, Jim can never go back again, for Optima dies prima fugit; in the lives of mortals, the best days are the first to flee, but at the end, Jim Burden's Antonia still stands tall. 

She is older, perhaps very little wiser, her beauty is a thing of the past, but her strength still resplendent. For she is more than a woman, just as the book is about more than what is written on the page. She is womanhood, and the earth, and nature, the loves and losses of childhood, and she remains, like My Antonia, 'battered, but not diminished'.

Book Review: Help the Witch, by Tom Cox

Book Review: Help the Witch, by Tom Cox

When I joined Twitter a few years ago, my hellacious cat, Ser Pounce-a-lot ensured that I followed several luminaries of the feline twitter-verse. He assured me that about 40% of the non-pornographic traffic on the WWW is cat-related and as such, if I wanted to stay abreast of current trends, following prominent cat celebrities was absolutely essential. 

One of the most interesting cat celebrities turned out to be @MySadCat, a.k.a The Bear, a mournful black senior-citizen feline, whose philosophical, poetic Twitter feed was a source of much joy. Occasionally, The Bear would mention that he had under his wing a human, an author named Tom Cox, and he shared the said human with three other cats—Shipley, who swore a lot, Ralph, who was a rockstar-cat, and Roscoe, a businesswoman-cat.

Following Cox’s Twitter feed and reading his work on his website was a joy, for he was clearly a seriously talented writer, combining wit, humour and quirkiness with a taste for the slightly macabre that made his work unpredictable in outcome, but always enjoyable.

Help the Witch, Cox’s first short-story collection, came out in October 2018 and while I bought it almost immediately, it took me till a recent train journey to finally read it, and it turned out to be…well, different.

Help the Witch begins in an epistolary format, with a narrator excerpting from his diary about moving into a new home in the north of England. Gradually, two neighbours are revealed, his landlord and a tenant farmer, and the narrator comments on the mysterious behaviour of his cats as well as the tendency of his wooden Owl figurine to end up in the trash. The village itself has a darker past than is at first apparent, and by the time the source of the strange happenings around the narrator are revealed, you settle in for what looks like being a very different sort of spooky novel…

And then it becomes something else entirely.

For Tom Cox is clearly not writing to his audience, even if he is writing for one. Help the Witch is, nominally, a collection of short stories, but it is not quite that simple. All conventional ideas about how a collection should be compiled are thrown out of the window, and stories jump from horror to humour, from charming ghost stories to slice-of-life narratives, from first-person to omnipresent third-person viewpoints. Through all of it, the only constant is Cox’s amazing ability to pitch the language in just the right way to keep a reader interested in the moment. 

That said, the sheer non-linear, unstructured nature of the stories and the book overall, is likely to be a turn-off for some readers. The horror elements are unconventional, and Cox’s humour relies on absurdity and clever turn of phrase rather than satire or situation. What holds the disparate tales together is their deep love for the environment from which they spring; a viewpoint that sees nature as neither a deified mother-figure or an unimportant part of the background, but as a living, breathing element in symbiotic co-existence with us. Sometimes, she is scary, and sometimes, she is stunningly beautiful, and that, really, is what Cox brings out best in his writing.

Help the Witch left me smiling, and even from a third of the way across the globe, the environs and people Cox wrote about came to life very vividly. All said and done, a quirky, meandering trek through a fascinating corner of the world that I would only recommend to those who don’t mind getting their brain slightly scrambled by the end.

Book Review: Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous, by Manu Joseph

Book Review: Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous

Manu Joseph thinks you are trash.

It does not matter if you’re male or female, young or old, rich or poor, upper caste or lower, or somewhere in the middle of each duality; he thinks you are trash.

If it’s any comfort, he thinks he’s trash, too.

Why does it matter what Manu Joseph thinks, though? 

Fair question, that. He’s a journalist, as are many others, and not being on TV, is not important enough to issue certificates of nationalism either. So why does his opinion matter?

It matters because he has a voice and he is not afraid to use it. It has become quite common among right-wing commentators to brand writers as ‘liberals’ and lump them into a corner alongside the ‘intellectuals’, whose opinions must be discounted as driven by ideology. This is quite ridiculous, really, because India’s greatest literary giant, Chetan Bhagat, has broadly been a cheer-leader of the current government, as has Amish Tripathi, which makes it quite surprising that the ‘writers’ are reviled thus.

But Manu Joseph, ah well, now that’s another matter. He does hate the right-wing, you know. Enough to make them the apparent antagonists of his book, Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous. 

Indeed, on the surface of it, this short novel, featuring two quite sympathetic female protagonists and two quite unsympathetic male protagonists, seems to be an attack on the current dispensation. Thinly-veiled references to the Great Leader Modi, his caporegime Amit Shah and the mystical AK Doval abound. The extent to which the party and more importantly, the RSS, have infiltrated higher echelons of the security apparatus is hinted at, and much of the set-up of the story would, or should, make a reader nod his head in quiet agreement—tinged with pride or disgust, perhaps.

So what’s the story of Miss Laila?

Given that much of Joseph’s non-fiction writing lacks a comprehensible argument, flow or point, it is important to mention here that, short though it is, this novel does have a story. But to talk about Miss Laila’s story would be to give away much of what makes the book so interesting. Suffice to say that it exists. 

It is based on a not-so-recent event that was fairly controversial when it occurred—back when there needed to be a reason for killing a Muslim—and constituted a minor blip in the meteoric rise of India’s man of destiny. But I am getting ahead of myself. Miss Laila doesn’t appear in the narrative till much later.

Instead, we are introduced first to Akhila Iyer, stand-up comedienne and maker of prank videos. A minor tremor in Mumbai leads to Akhila venturing to check on the damage in the neighbourhood. Instead, she ends up embroiled in a strange, complex terror plot, becoming the only connection the ‘establishment’ has to a member of a terrorist sleeper cell. 

Then there is the erudite old bachelor Professor Vaid, the prominent intellectual backbone of the Sangh, able to articulate more shades of bigotry in one line than his foot-soldiers can through essay-length Facebook posts. 

Finally, there is Mukundan, the government heavy in charge of tailing Miss Laila,  when she is revealed to be armed and dangerous, who is not quite sure if he’s driven by duty or ideology and is apparently trying to be a decent bloke according to a very flexible definition of decency.

As Akhila zips between her present mission and her chequered past, as the Professor expounds mentally on the various shades of indoctrination that he has at his command and as Mukundan debates the ethics of premeditated murder versus accidental collateral damage, we find that we are laying bare not just a one-time political hot potato, but the casual bigotry that infects our society and the ease with which institutions, scruples and laws can be subverted and brought to serve a toxic, hate-filled ideology.

The characters follow their pre-ordained literary paths, converging into an unexpected ending that is suitably disturbing. Whether it leaves room for hope, or is a monument to despair is something that I think an individual reader will have to decide for himself.

Oh, and it reminds the reader that Manu Joseph thinks he’s trash. 

You see, the right-wing reactionaries and the bigots and xenophobes are the obvious targets of Joseph’s words. But his sharper weapons—his satire and his cutting wit—are reserved for the other side of the aisle. Left-leaning writers, rich upper-caste liberals who sympathise with peasants, self-proclaimed male feminists, all the apparently well-meaning members of the chattering classes are skewered and roasted with far more gusto than the Professor and his cadres. One can almost visualise the pleasure in the writer’s face as he attacks the leftists and the liberals (who are not, contrary to what your WhatsApp forwards tell you, always the same people), the NGO-types and the intellectuals.

However, the great weakness is Miss Laila remains its lack of intensity. Hovering over the political and social implication of what he writes, Joseph steadfastly refuses to delve deeply into any of the issues he raises, whether the hypocrisy of the intellectual class or the depravity of the religious ideologues. Despite the felicity with language, the pacing, and a proven ability to use words to evoke an emotional response in readers, Joseph steps back and avoids making it truly hit home in the way he surely could.

Maybe it’s unfair of me to say that, though. A writer, especially one as good as Joseph, is entitled to write what he wants, and his frankness and willingness to speak the truth as he perceives it is worthy of appreciation for its own sake. To expect more, to want a more compelling, more evocative narrative from him is like asking a Wizard not to be late—a Wizard, as we know, is never late; nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to—and we must trust that Joseph gives his readers precisely as much as he means to.

After all, he thinks we are trash, so why should he give us more? 

Buying Links: 

Amazon US

Amazon India

That's right, you're trash.

Book Review: Death Watch, by Ari Berk

Book Review – Death Watch, by Ari Berk

We have always been fascinated by ghosts. In myth and legend, art and religion, they come to frighten, sometimes to amuse, always to raise questions about our own mortality. It is the ghost of Hamlet’s father that sets in motion the events of Shakespeare’s famous play, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, that enliven Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.So when Aindrila Roywas kind enough to gift me a book whose central theme appeared to be ghosts, I settled myself down for what I hoped would be a grand read in that hoary tradition. 

I was not disappointed.

In ‘Death Watch’,Ari Berkpresents a stirring, creepily atmospheric tale of the living and the dead, and those whose job it is to take souls from the land of the one to the other. Drawing upon various ancient and medieval mythologies and more modern beliefs, the book takes the readers on a truly goosebumps-inducing journey over the course of its 500-odd pages. 

Silas Umber is an introverted American teenager who does not seem to be particularly unusual for his type—shy, believing in imaginary friends, having few in real life, and caught in the middle of his parents’ unhappy marriage. His father Amos is a mortician, and his mother Dolores a housewife, and while they live in the town of Saltsbridge, his father’s work usually takes him to Lichport, a nearby coastal town where Silas was born.

But when his father disappears suddenly, Silas is forced to confront the reality that perhaps his father was something much more than a mortician, and his mother is little more than a barely-functioning alcoholic. As their money runs out, Silas and Dolores have to return to Lichport to stay with Amos’ elder brother, Charles. Silas finds himself distrusting his uncle and the more he meets and befriends the other people of Lichport who knew his father, the more he learns about the line of work he has been born into—for the Umbers are an old family, and for long have had the responsibility of easing the passage of the living to the world of the dead, and other things besides.

In Berk’s deft prose, Lichport itself comes alive as a vast sprawling necropolis, a town dedicated to the dead and those who linger beyond death. Silas, as the heir to the Umber profession, is received by the town as one of its own, and as he takes on, literally and metaphorically, his father’s mantle, we are taken with him on a journey where the borders between life and death blur in ways that are often sad, and sometimes frightening. 

Here we have the lovely Bea who Silas loses his heart to, the strange Mrs Bowe and her ghost lover, Mother Peale of the Narrows, ever on the lookout for the Mist Ship, which comes to take the souls of the damned, the three women of the Lichport Sewing Circle, who weave a tapestry and unweave it as events unfold. But just as much character comes from the Umber House, the Beacon Hill, Newfieldswith its giant bronze lion, the millpond and the Narrows where the Sorrowsman wails out his horrifying tale.

The book is essentially about Silas’ search for his missing father, and to some extent about his relationship with Bea, but those end up being like a hiking trail—existing mostly to give us an opportunity to revel in the beauty of the world Berk creates. Indeed, so immersive is the world of Lichport that as a reader one can almost forget, at times, that there is the matter of Silas’ father to clear up; it seems almost secondary to the broader story about what death is, and what it means to ‘Rest in Peace’.

Despite the morbidity of the subject, Silas is a character who embodies hope, and has a deep-rooted desire to make the world of both living and dead better. His enduring love for his father, his simple and almost-pathetic feelings for Bea, even after he realizes who she is, all make for a likeable protagonist, while the handling of the subject means that even over its considerable length, the narrative rarely becomes boring, even if there are passages where very little seems to happen.

All said and done, Death Watchis an enjoyable read, especially for those who enjoy horror (though you know, probably not at night in an empty house and so on). It is possible that removing a POV or two might have made for a tighter story, but that will always be a matter of opinion. Also, some aspects, such as Silas’s relationship with Bea and the significance of the Mist Ship, are perhaps not as well-explored or as well-concluded as I might like, but with this being the first of a trilogy, perhaps these are to be seen in more detail later. This does not mean that the book does not work well stand-alone, because it does, but it has certainly also piqued my interest to read its sequels. 

Ari Berk deserves praise for his handling of characters and settings, for weaving myths that we know in a refreshing way and for taking a subject of such morbidity and managing to write a story that feels alive. None of the horror relies on cheap tricks or gimmicks, and like its characters who linger beyond death, Death Watch is a book that seems determined to stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Buy the book here:

Amazon India

Amazon US

Images from www.AriBerk.com

Of Greatness, F Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann

Of Greatness, F Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann

The Great Gatsby, as most people know, is a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Baz Luhrmann.

It is also, as most people also know, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the foremost authors of the first half of the 20th century.

I read 'Gatsby' a long time ago, and I still have memories of the freshness of the prose (though I was reading from a well-worn book that had once belonged to my uncle), the natural-ness of the writing and how Fitzgerald could careen from the sordid to the sublime through the power of his words. For a long time to come, I could recall the imagery of the green light glimpsed through the fog at the end of Daisy's dock, the fantastic parties at the Gatsby mansion, and the spooky eyes of TJ Eckleberg overlooking the Valley of Ashes. 

And yet, having seen at least two Luhrmann films, I had a disinclination to see this book, that I had loved so much, in its film adaptation.

The reason for this? First and foremost, ‘Moulin Rouge’, which I saw in a small theatre in Bandra with one friend whose defining characteristic is to be stoic to the point of sometimes resembling a tree, and another whose idea of high art was ‘Comedy Circus’. The former watched in silence and maintained that silence to the point of waving us good-bye after the film, while the latter kept his gimlet eye fixed upon the acres of cleavage on display on the screen and seemed to remember nothing else after. That film, a regurgitation of colour and hamming onto the screen in a way that tries so hard to be beautiful that it could only fail, stands as a reflection of how an otherwise ordinary film can be uplifted by a brilliant performance. I am referring, of course, to Nicole Kidman, who played Satine with such sensitivity and skill that the fact that she wasted that performance on this film was a bigger tragedy than what was depicted on-screen.

Secondly, of course, ‘Australia’, in which even Kidman’s talent and Hugh Jackman’s charm cannot deflect for long from the tiresome mish-mash of tropes and stereotypes that it is.

But Netflix, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Gatsby was the sort of film I’d like to see, and since DiCaprio’s visage, holding up that champagne bottle, had some sort of psychic hold over me, I ended up clicking through, and seeing the film in three or four instalments over a week.

It begins with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) in a nursing home, on a typewriter, writing out the events that will constitute the film, and one quickly realises that not only does this give Luhrmann the ability to insert passages from the book verbatim into his film by having Carraway narrate them, but is also the exact same framing device he used for Moulin Rouge. We are introduced to Tom and Daisy Buchanan (Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan). Daisy is Nick’s cousin, Tom is a wealthy old-money heir, and they live across the bay from Nick’s little outhouse-cottage. Nick himself is not quite as rich and has to make his living working in the bond markets on Wall Street, while the Buchanans appear to live off their inherited wealth in a gorgeous life of ennui. Nick is also introduced to Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), a friend of Daisy’s and a well-known golfer. 

All the while, a great mystery is kept up about Nick’s neighbour, however, a fabulously wealthy young man named Jay Gatsby who has never been seen in person, but whose mansion hosts the most incredible parties, attended by all of New York’s bold and beautiful. It is at one of these parties, to which Nick seems to be the only man with a proper invitation, that he meets Jordan Baker again and then, his host, played with typical earnestness by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nick quickly becomes friends with Gatsby, who takes him to the City to meet his friends in a speakeasy behind a barbershop, introducing him to his friend Wolfsheim (a cameo from Amitabh Bachhan). It’s the first hint Nick gets that Gatsby might not have made his money through strictly legal means, and also that some parts of the story he tells about himself may be untrue. Tom Buchanan also seems keen to befriend Nick and even takes him along on a romp with his mistress Myrtle(Isla Fisher), a car mechanic’s wife who lives above the garage in the ‘Valley of Ashes’, a stretch of sordid, slovenly land between the elegance of where the Buchanans and Gatsby live and the glitzy, looming skyscrapers of the city; a town marked by the tall billboard advertising the services of TJ Eckleberg, Oculist (optometrist), which shows a pair of bespectacled eyes looking down over the whole expanse.

The crux of the film is Gatsby—his past, his wealth and his feelings for Daisy—but it is also the relationship between Tom and Daisy, with Tom’s infidelity and Daisy’s unhappiness being like an open secret, a chasm between them as wide as the bay that separates the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock from the one that extends from Gatsby’s estate.

In portraying the tragedy that unfolds, the film never rises above the glitz and glamour of Gatsby’s parties. For a book that is often interpreted as a stinging critique of both classism and conspicuous consumption, all that this adaptation achieves is to seemingly celebrate those exact values. Scratch the surface of Luhrmann’s exquisite costumes and hairdo’s, the sets and the lighting and what you have is something of a ham-fisted morality play or an un-ironic love story, neither of which is really what The Great Gatsby, as Fitzgerald wrote it, was trying to be.

DiCaprio and Edgerton, nevertheless, act well and are convincing as the hopeful upstart and the pampered boor respectively. Edgerton in particular, hams magnificently in a role that demands hamming. Carey Mulligan is disappointing as Daisy though, capturing but little of the character’s Southern charm and less of her conflicted carelessness. Tobey Maguire’s Nick is sadly forgettable and Elizabeth Debicki’s Jordan even more so. Indeed, by jettisoning much of Baker’s role (as in the book) in the adaptation, it can be said that Debicki was dealt a harsh hand.

With one exception, Jay-Z’s soundtrack is forgettable and incongruous, though that exception—Lana Del Ray’s “Young and Beautiful” fits perfectly into the film like the book sleeve on that old copy of the book on my shelf. Sung with a lingering sorrow permeating every note, Del Ray’s smoky, nasal voice embodies Daisy’s pathetic existence better than Mulligan’s dialogue or expressions do as she utters her plaintive plea:

“Will you still love me, when I am no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me, when I got nothing but my aching soul?”

With all this said though, I still find myself thinking that it is a film worth watching. If for no other reason, than that the book is not widely-read enough outside the US, and within that country, being taught in schools has ruined it for generations who might see in Luhrmann’s colour-laden, excess-laced version, a reason to visit and re-visit it, and find something to love, hate, or fear.

For me, the images Fitzgerald’s words conjured will continue to outweigh the images that the film depicted, whether it was that light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the hollow sham that was Gatsby’s wealth or those ever-judging eyes of TJ Eckleberg.