I didn’t get it when I first read The Great Gatsby in high school. I loved the symbolism, but not the writing. It was too flowery, I didn’t understand the story’s context, and there wasn’t an “in” for a kid from central Illinois.

The Redford movie helped, but it was the 2013 film that made it click for me. The cast, especially Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan, made the story come alive. Yes, it was all glitz, glamour, and over the top, but it also conveyed the sadness and class warfare I was too young to get in 1985.

Earlier in the month, Fresh Air/NPR had a great story about the 100th anniversary of the book’s publication. “Great works of art are great, in part, because they continue to have something to say to the present: They’re both timebound and timeless. And, boy, does Gatsby have something to say to us in 2025.”

The article never uses the best line from the book to illustrate its point, but I will.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

I think, with just a little imagination, we know who Fitzgerald would be talking about today. We know who the modern-day equivalents of Tom and Daisy are in this world.

The privileged and wealthy act without considering the consequences of their actions on others. They do not care and can’t be made to care. Furthermore, they can escape the repercussions of their actions because of wealth, status, or both.

Fitzgerald was writing about the moral corruption and societal decline of the wealthy elite during the Roaring Twenties. I can only imagine what historians call this Twenties decade… the Ruinous Twenties?