Dear Rudy,
Yesterday didn’t feel normal enough to write about, so I’m writing about today instead. I’m reading The Great Gatsby again, for probably the twentieth time, and I’ve decided I hate them all. It’s a new feeling for me. When I first read it I thought Gatsby was tragic and Nick was sad and Daisy was lonely. I wanted Gatsby and Daisy to run away together, and I wanted Nick to end up with Jordan. Why did I think like that? They’re awful, self-centred, over-indulgent childish people, the whole lot of them. I used to want everything tied up neatly with a little bow, I guess, happily-ever-afters and Disney princesses and all of that. It’s all a bit rubbish. Not everyone finishes school and gets a job they love and marries a person they love, or anyone at all. It’s not a given that we get this big, beautiful, wonderful life. It’s not even a given that we get a whole life to live. That sounds obvious, but I’d never really contemplated the fact that I might die before I’m old. Even after everything that happened I never thought about it until I finished Gatsby this time around. Anyway, the person I feel most sorry for is George Wilson, and I used to think he was the bad guy. Isn’t that strange?
In class I wanted to put my hand up and say that as part of the discussion, but of course I didn’t because talking in class is like volunteering for slow torture. Why would I do it? So instead I sat quietly and listened to Jessica Rabbit’s interpretation of the book as a tragic love story. She said Daisy and Gatsby were star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet, and I rolled my eyes as if I hadn’t thought that too up until this year. It’s like I read what I wanted to read, until one day I woke up and read the words for what they were, and everything changed.
Love, Erin