Finding ‘Gatsby’

‘The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Adaptation’Adaptation by Nicki Greenberg (Australia, Penguin Group) ‘The Great Gatsby: The Graphic Novel’Adaptation by Fred Fordham and Aya Morton (Scribner)‘The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation’ Adaptation by K. Woodman-Maynard (Candlewick Press)‘F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby’ Adaptation by Ted Adams & Jorge Coelho (Clover Press)‘The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel’ Illustrated by Pete Katz (Graphic Classics)In Chapter Six of “The Great Gatsby,” Nick turns to “the man who gives his name to this book” and says: “I wouldn’t ask too much of her…. You can’t repeat the past.’Gatsby famously responds, “Can’t repeat the past? … Why of course you can.”One part of the past that seems to get endlessly repeated is “The Great Gatsby” itself; if it isn’t the great American novel, it’s difficult to know what is. Most works of art, music, and literature seem to diminish over time — as in, out of print is out of mind, or, as author F. Scott Fitzgerald himself put it, the “future that year by year recedes before us.” Yet “Gatsby” only gets bigger with the passing decades, its impact increasing not incrementally but exponentially with each generation. At last count there have been four film adaptations, none of them especially satisfying — though it’s impossible to say that for certain, since the first, a 1926 silent movie with Warner Baxter (later of “42nd Street” fame) in the title role, is lost to history. Now, in the ramp-up to the “Gatsby” centennial in 2025, there have been no less than five adaptations in the form of what we in the 21st century call the graphic novel. It’s evident why visual mediums — such as the cinema and the graphic novel — should prize this story so highly. In his brief 44 years on Earth, there were at least two Fizgeralds. His short stories (none greater than the 1931 “Babylon Revisited”) were terse, well-plotted, and highly entertaining, filled with memorable characters and situations — not to mention what he called his “Saturday Evening Post”-style twist endings. The longer novels, particularly the last one he managed to finish, “Tender is the Night” (1934), were much more serious and literary: profound and all that, but less fun. A musician whom Fitzgerald doubtless appreciated, Artie Shaw, spoke of the discrepancy between art and entertainment but maintained that a genius like Louis Armstrong could deal in both at once. That’s what Fitzgerald pulled off in “The Great Gatsby,” which combines the energy and action of his best short fiction with the profundity and depth of his novels. Plus, more so than with “This Side of Paradise” or “The Beautiful and Damned,” it’s short enough to be contained at a reasonable cinematic length.The first graphic version was published in 2007 by Nicki Greenberg in Australia, where the work was already in public domain. Around the time that the work was about to become PD in the rest of the world, in 2021, the other versions started appearing, including one by Fred Fordham and Aya Morton, published by Scribner (which put out the original in 1925), and another by K. Woodman-Maynard. Both of these actually look more like series of vintage New Yorker cartoons. The 2022 interpretation by Pete Katz does an especially good job of rendering the clothing styles of the era; the flapper-style gowns and other accouterments are presented in exquisite detail. My favorite of the lot so far is the adaptation by Ted Adams and Jorge Coelho. It’s published in installments — of which the seventh and final has yet to be released — which is true to the career path of Fitzgerald, who supported himself financially mainly by writing fiction for magazines. This is the only one that looks and feels like a comic book, and it is drawn in such a way that you almost expect Archie and Jughead and/or Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Lois Lane to make cameo appearances at one of Gatsby’s lavish affairs. Ironically and infamously, “Gatsby” was not a success when originally published. Fitzgerald’s best-seller during his brief career was his first novel, “This Side of Paradise” (1920), a position roughly analogous to that of George Gershwin and “Swanee,” his first notable song and biggest hit during his even shorter lifetime. Published at the very start of the jazz age (Fitzgerald’s own term), “This Side of Paradise” accurately anticipated the big party that was to follow, and everybody wanted to read it. “Gatsby,” conversely, vividly revealed the seamy underside of that spectacular era, the “foul dust that floated in the wake” of those dreams — and nobody wanted to acknowledge that until well after the author had passed in 1940.Cinematic as it is, we wait in vain for the perfect film version; there are reports of an animated version and even one featuring the Muppets — Kermit the Frog in the lead — both of which would probably be an improvement on the mess directed by Baz Luhrman in 2013. Now that the rights are in public domain, perhaps a mini-series would be best, in the succession of “The Last Tycoon” (2016) and “Z: The Beginning of Everything” (2017), based on Therese Fowler’s biographical novel about Scott and especially Zelda Fitzgerald. Like Gatsby himself, standing on the shore and gazing toward the green light, we’ve been waiting for that movie for nearly 100 years.

Finding ‘Gatsby’

More from the New York Sun

Kim Jong Un Glorifies North Korean Lives Lost in Ukraine War at Opening of Luxury Apartment Complexes at Pyongyang

Colbert Lashes Out at CBS for Blocking Him From Hosting Texas Democrat, Makes Snide Comment About His Show Being Canceled

Israel’s Historic Bobsled Debut at Winter Games Collides With Politics

More from the New York Sun

Kim Jong Un Glorifies North Korean Lives Lost in Ukraine War at Opening of Luxury Apartment Complexes at Pyongyang

Colbert Lashes Out at CBS for Blocking Him From Hosting Texas Democrat, Makes Snide Comment About His Show Being Canceled

Israel’s Historic Bobsled Debut at Winter Games Collides With Politics

CFTC Chairman Joins Battle Over Prediction Markets, Promising To Protect Companies That Employ Donald Trump Jr. From State-Level Legal Challenges

County GOP Chairman in Utah Charged With Felony Child Abuse for Allegedly Waterboarding Daughter

New Show at Neue Galerie Discloses a Good Doctor’s Influence on Austrian Painter Egon Schiele

Francesca Albanese Must Go

How Iran Blocked the Impenetrable Starlink Internet Is Being Closely Watched by Other Oppressive Regimes