Comments on: In closing

By: Tatyana

Tatyana — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:34:33 +0000

For many years, ever since I read it in Russian translation when I was 23 or 24, it has been my secret retreat, a novel to come to to get a fresh grounding in life.
That room, with huge sofa and the curtains that were flowing like sails under the summer breeze, and two beautiful girls reclining on that sofa…a picture of wholesome, simple beauty – and everything in it turned out to be a lie, a stage decoration.
I even made that room a subject of my entry essay to design school..the topic was what interior inspired you to choose your major.

Sad, but so beautiful.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:22:52 +0000

I agree, fillyjonk. If Gatsby isn’t the saddest story in American literature, it’s got to be in the top 5.

By: fillyjonk

fillyjonk — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:17:09 +0000

Tat, I almost posted the same thing, but when I got to thinking about the whole novel, it made me so sad that I was too paralyzed to post.

I’ve read Gatsby 3 or 4 times and every single time it just makes me so damn sad.

By: Charles Pergiel

Charles Pergiel — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:25:22 +0000

“His soul swooned slowly”? Bah. It’s snowing. When it snows it pretty much covers everything. I guess this makes me, what, a heathen pagan? Or a barbarian? Avast ye swabs!

By: Tatyana

Tatyana — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:17:21 +0000

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

By: Akaky

Akaky — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:07:49 +0000

And it was JJ’s birthday yesterday to boot!

By: Francis W. Porretto

Francis W. Porretto — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:39:32 +0000

That is, indeed, the finest closing paragraph in all of English literature — but then, “The Dead” is the best of all Joyce’s fictions, and Joyce at his best eats the rest of the Western literary canon for breakfast.

Incidentally, for anyone who hasn’t seen it, John Huston’s movie of “The Dead,” starring Donal McCann and Anjelica Huston, is an extraordinary bit of cinema, the sort that lingers with you for days afterward.