Nibbles for Thought: Dreams

Guess what? A bunch of Real Life stuff has finally passed and now I have a lot more time on my hands (though it never seems quite enough) to do the things that make me happy. Such as this kind of happy:

So as you probably know, last week was the big release of the movie to one of my ALL-TIME FAVORITE (caps and italics!) books. My friends and I tried to be organize (pfft) something so that we could all go see it together, but of course that didn't end up working out because no one believed me that it would be sold out (!!!) and so obviously it sold out. Only another friend had reserved a ticket so it ended up just being the two of us. BUT THAT'S OKAY. We made up with spirit. I did my nails in the theme colors and we wore pearls and she wore a feather headband.

Can you guess?

Needless to say, The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan was nothing short of amazing. I don't give a hoot about what the critics say. All the stuff about how Nick Carraway's narration was annoying/ruined the movie? I honestly think it was intentional. After all, if you've ever done some analysis of GG in your high school English class then you'll know that Nick is an unreliable narrator and a hypocrite and a wimp (I love him for all those things) and the only way that the movie could have stayed accurate to the books (and you bet it did!) was to somehow translate his narration to screen.

But see, my favorite character in GG is not Nick. And you might ask how can you have a favorite character at all? So what if none of the GG characters are sympathetic and are all, to some degree, villains and hypocrites and scoundrels and cheaters and plain despicable (I'm looking at you, Daisy Buchanan)? I find it funny that people stress that a character must be Relatable or Admirable. Firstly, I don't agree. Secondly, even if I did, how come so many Relatable characters are so good (and I don't mean Mary-Sue good but good as it they have a great trait, be it compassion or courage or determination or selflessness or humor or wit, etc.)? Not to bash on humans or anything, but if the world was filled with the protagonists of books, then I think it'd generally (and of course there's the occasional anti-hero protagonist but even then they more than redeem themselves in some way) be a better place.**

**I'll do a post on this in the future.

So who's my favorite character? None other than Jay Gatsby himself!

Some call Gatsby deplorable. Some call him pitiful. I agree that he's all of those things. I mean, he only forced Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him but also bootlegged a bit here and there and only tried to collect Daisy as some kind of doll to show that he could control the past. He also thew some wickedly extravagant and wasteful parties, but that's beside the point.

Whenever I read the GG, however, I can't get hung up on Gatsby's flaws. Even if I try, I can't. Conversely, I did go through a period of time in Real Life when I thought some of my acquaintances were being hypocrites and gossips and braggarts. I'm semi-decent at going along with the flow and putting up a good face, but I did get upset on the inside about all their not-so-decent traits. And let me tell you that is not fun. It gets so tiring after a while, like you're acting as an arbiter on a case that nobody cares about. Turning a blind eye and letting things go is truly a skill because in the end, their flaws are their flaws and there's no one to judge them but time.

The reason why I like Gatsby so much is that he essentially built something grand out of nothing. And maybe he didn't quite use the right means to get there (and you should probably not live by his philosophy of cutting corners). But he had a goal--to win the woman he loved--and he did everything he could to reach that goal. For a while, he did. Then Daisy had to Daisy, and that was it.

There's something to achingly painful about Gatsby's dream, because most of us know that it's never going to turn out right for him, not in the book and not in the movie. It makes it all the worse when you realize he worked so much for it, when you realize that for years, his life revolved around it. But there's something something beautiful about it that makes me hold my breath for him when he first sees Daisy after five years, makes me root for him to the very end. I'm even rooting for him at his funeral. God, I hate the funeral scene. It's so cruel. It's the best scene and the worst scene. Worst scene because it's so empty. It's the best because it beautifully portrays one of the themes of GG.

When you have a dream as strong as Gatsby's, it does get to the point of painful. Nights ago, while I was lying in bed, I thought about my distant dream--wait for it--of being published. Not really original, right? I know, but I can't help it. And I could see it so clearly, but I also couldn't. I could feel on walking on my teeth, but then I could hardly imagine it. It was a good sort of pain and a bad sort of pain. Dreams breathe meaning onto your life, but at the same time you can't help wondering if they're leading you in the wrong direction. Because having a dream is like falling in love. You don't think that objectively about something when you want it so badly.

Dreams are frightening. Part of the reason why Gatsby is called pitiful is because it he was so blinded to him dream that he was unable to see the true toll of time on love.

No one wants to be called pitiful.

But in my mind, The Great Gatsby is still such a beautiful story because of Gatsby's dream. So, if I fail, at least I'll have made a story for myself :D

What are your thoughts on dreams that seem so far away? Who's your favorite character from The Great Gatsby? Have you seen the movie yet? What do you think?