Nows and Forevers

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first edition of “The Great Gatsby.”

Even though I am reasonably well read and had enough credits for an English major by the time I was through college, somehow missed “Gatsby” in both high school and undergrad. I don’t know why. I read lots of Hemingway, Faulkner, even some other Fitzgerald. Just stubborn, I guess.

It wasn’t until seeing a remaindered edition at the New England Mobile Book Fair two years or so after college, when I was visiting my family in Newton and I brought it with me to the beach.

I swallowed “Gatsby” whole, ignoring the sun and the waves and everyone. I can’t believe I was dopey enough to avoid it for 23 years. Says a lot about the past and also about 2025, too. And its devastating ending:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”