And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes --a fresh green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
...
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter --tomorrow we will run faster stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning -----
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -The Great Gatsby
A transitory enchanted moment. Aesthetic contemplation. Commensurate to a capacity for wonder. How I related to this book. I found myself in the narrators place, and I found myself contemplating how similar to Gatsby's fate would be my own. Ultimately what facades come down and what about us do they bare to the world?
No comments:
Post a Comment