19 April 2011
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s enduring legacy
I often think about the meaning of The Great Gatsby to America and Americans. What begins as a morality tale ends as a metaphor. That seems one definition of the American way.
Today I read in the Wall Street Journal news of the demolition of Land’s End, inspiration for the mansion in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous book. (The picture at the top of this post is from the piece.)
After it failed to sell for roughly $30 million, a developer has chosen to raze the 13-acre property to build five luxury homes priced at $10 million a piece. You can read a tale of the property’s decay on Curbed.
And so, the quintessential tale of American ambition, a story about the hollowness inherent in such dreaming, collapses in a collective decision to erase all memory of the past. A symbol of one thing (the lack of core values in America), becomes a symbol of another thing entirely (the rampant capitalism of Americans).
Or check out the piece from which I borrowed most of the pictures, in the China Daily, natch.
Or don’t!
Whatever dude.
Diddy will have your back.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Curbed, F. Scott Fitgerald, Land's End, Real Estate, The Great Gatsby, The Problem With Glamour, Wall Street Journal