August 2025

Hello Friends,

In my younger, and more vulnerable years, I was given a book that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Like most members of my generation, I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in high school. Unlike most of my generation, I read it for the first time on my own, before it was assigned to me. I’ve read it dozens of times since then, but some experiences reading it stand out above others.

At 14, having read it on my own, I was captivated by the history of New York. I went to the library and scoured the encyclopedia (which is Gen X for internet) to find out all I could about West and East Egg, only to discover they were not real. At 16, I suffered through listening to my classmates complain about how much they hated it, while dealing with the long-term sub drone on about the symbolism of the clocks and the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. Sure, those things are there, but…really? Is that the way to get teenagers to care?

Years later, there was an entire episode of Ed that dealt with this very trend. I felt seen. This show has never been released on DVD or streaming, but thanks to the magic of the internet, you can watch it here. At roughly the 4:20 mark, you will see how it feels to be a student listening to that trash. Make sure you skip ahead to around 11:30 and to 20:30. Sure, the guy playing the principal is a huge blowhard, but he makes a pretty good point. The show sticks the landing at 34:50.

I loved this show when it was on. The heart of the series is about a guy, Ed, who is still hung up on the girl of his dreams, Carol, who is now the woman of his dreams; or so he thinks. He has some misguided expectations he has placed on her in his mind. Hmmm. That sounds sort of familiar. A bit Gatsbyesque, one might argue. As a side note, if Dave Letterman, who owns the show, could settle his beef with NBC and release it to the public, I would buy a boxed set of the whole series. It is so good. Anyway, where was I? Right. College.

At 20, while in college for my F. Scott Fitzgerald directed study seminar with Dr. Hal Wyss, an icon of American literature in his own right, I first read about Zelda and then about Hemingway, before reading this. A biographical analysis was a mind-blowing experience. It was hard to shake, and so when I taught it for the first time in my mid-twenties, I read the book with Dr. Wyss in my head, and I did my best not to sound like him in my class, but I’m sure he slipped in there.

In my thirties, when I taught it again, I was a much different person, and I was a much better teacher. That was a joy, and when I taught it to a bunch of high schoolers in a dual-enrolled course, I promise you, we didn’t talk about clocks. The Baz Luhrmann movie came out just before I turned 40, so I read it again. That is my favorite adaptation, but it isn’t better than the book. In my late forties, I decided to include it in a college-level senior seminar. It wasn’t a literature class, but I wanted my students, who were taking their final class before they went out into the world as college graduates, to have a think about life, and so we talked about class, and race, and money, and all the things that are on full-display in this slim, chapterless book. The majority of my students hadn’t ever been asked what they thought about the ethics of the novel, or really asked what they thought about it at all. Using it in class was a triumph.

Knowing I wanted to write about this book this month, I read it yesterday. Well, I listened to an audio version read by Tim Robbins, which I highly recommend. He didn’t win that Oscar by accident. Honestly, I could read it again right now. I have a copy sitting on my dresser. I can get it for free online because it is in the public domain.

Nick says to us, as he is writing directly to us the whole time, “I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded man..’ This isn't just an epigram - life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.”

How can one be well-rounded when one looks through a single window? Of course, it is an epigram, and here is one of the many times that we know Nick is full of it. He tells us over and over that he is trustworthy and reliable as a narrator, but of course, he isn’t. Maybe it isn’t all his fault. He isn’t well, is he? He was a machine gunner in WWI, meaning he killed a lot of people. Nick has PTSD. It wasn’t called that then; it was Shell Shock, but he has it. How could he not?

I root for Nick to find a way to work it out with Jordan Baker and for him to become her caddy so they can tour the world together (Jordan’s a professional golfer), but alas, they are broken. She is considered a cheat, but I don’t buy that. The lie isn’t about her golf game; it is about her whole life. She, too, like Gatsby, isn’t who she pretends to be. How can she feel comfortable in her own skin when she is constantly reminded of her “white childhood in Louisville?” There is a lot of evidence in this book that Jordan Baker is “passing” as white, and only she and Daisy know it. That must be exhausting. Living a lie changes a person. It must.

This book is full of all the ways NOT to do things. No one in this book is great, not even our titular character, but a book called The Morally Ambiguous Gatsby doesn’t have the same ring, does it? This book, which, to be sure, is full of terrible people doing terrible things, and yet, I love it still. I don’t see it as a playbook, but as a warning. The book turns 100 this year, and the advice that it gives is just as relevant as ever. And so we beat on…

Notes from my headphones

Aimee Mann is one of America’s best songwriters. She is introspective. She is funny. She can croon, and howl, and hit the high notes. I’ve been listening to her a lot because, as I write Haunting Northanger, and as Cat experiences things for the first time, I am reevaluating things I thought I understood. Aimee may be a folksinger, but she is a Riot Grrrl at heart. She reunited her band Til’ Tuesday a few months ago for a one-off show, and they still rock.

Notes from my bookshelf

As promised, I read several books that were recommended in Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, and I am here to report back. Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho wandered a bit in the final act, but without Ann Radcliffe, we wouldn’t have Anne Rice. Sure, Rice is a lot more graphic in her horror, but the way she describes every flaw in every brick she learned from Radcliffe. I’ve not been to any of the places she goes in Udolpho, but it feels like I have.

Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote is both a love letter to and an indictment of Cervantes’ masterpiece. Talk about literary criticism in the form of a novel. Wow. It does repeat itself a lot, but of course, so does the original, so I totally get what she did there.

Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story is so brilliant in so many ways. The story is simple, but the message is anything but. The first half of the book features a woman who doesn’t even get a first name. It is so bold and honest. She wrote it in 1791, and yet, we still haven’t learned anything.

Notes from my keyboard

It has been a busy month with life, so my writing has taken a bit of a backseat. I’ve written several thousand words, and Chapter 11 is much longer than I expected, but Cat Morland has arrived in Mansfield, so things are about to get super fun.

I also worked hard on Comics Lit Vol 2. We have a bunch of excellent essays. Tonya and I can’t wait to share them with you. This one will feature everything from The Hulk to folklore, with a bit of zombies and Shakespeare thrown in for good measure.

I started a new web series called Fireside Chats with A.R. Farina, where I spend a few minutes, twice a month, talking about books in general and Jane Austen in particular. You can watch and subscribe here.