Day 49
Total - 5 books 103 pages
Result - 1 book 150 pages to reach goal
Well, the book certainly takes a different turn in Book 2! It veers completely away from the protagonist Rosemary and the protagonist becomes Dick and Rosemary's out of the picture as it shows Dick's life pre-Rosemary and post-Book 1.
I do like Fitzgerald's language, but I'm wondering if he's somewhat obliviously prejudiced. To modern eyes it's obvious; I wonder how obvious it was to him?
What I mean is, it's odd; this world he creates is filled with these rich people who sort of float around their lives in a way, and he's obviously concerned with a type of person who likes to travel and see the world and experience things, and is unbothered by it as well - many of the characters are Americans who are quite as ease either living or staying for long periods of time in Europe. I love that about this story. I love adventure and travel and new cultures and experiences, so I completely love that.
And, as part of these people's open lives is a very openness to the people around them - they freely, for the most part, socialise with somewhat obviously gay people (a gay couple even!), and black people. In this time, to do that must have been seen as extremely liberal, so you'd think that that's a good thing.
However, it's the way these characters view these minority characters. Sure, they freely associate with them - but they view them as something less, something trivial and not as important, sometimes almost inhuman. Once I finish the book and see where he's taking me, I can better assess what Fitzgerald's intentions might have been. If he's making a point on purpose it's one thing, but if he's letting his own prejudice seep in it's quite another.
At the moment, I'm feeling like he may be letting his prejudice seep in. Here's why: Fitzgerald has a way with descriptions, and he has a way with describing the unique beauty in his different characters, even the less friendly ones such as Nicole's sister Baby. Yet, with the gay couple in the beginning, he describes them much less flatteringly than his other male or female characters, and it almost seems like he even takes an evil glee with describing their ugliness. And when the one gay man is exaggeratedly having an emotional moment, the other characters, even the sympathetic ones such as Rosemary, laugh and in the end think of it as unimportant.
Then there's the black characters that come in once they're in Paris. One is murdered and even though the man was just up there at their hotel rooms trying to be protected from a mob, the others don't seem to care at all about the man dying, only about how it may affect them at the moment, it happening at their rooms.
And another one is in jail because of something a character does and the character should go and clear the matter up and get the man out of jail, but he doesn't for a long time and the other characters know it and when talking to him don't seem too concerned with the black man in jail that their friend here could easily get out if he'd just go down to the jail - they're more concerned with their friend's problems.
And the main character, Dick, uses the "N" word says that black people don't matter.
And these people, Rosemary and Dick and the others, they do seem rather self-involved anyway, but otherwise they seem more or less nice and charming people who care at least somewhat about others.
Perhaps it should be obvious to me what Fitzgerald is doing but as yet it's not. He could be commenting on these people's shallow lives and how, though they may seem nice on the surface, the ugliness comes out.
Or, on the other hand, he may want us to really see these people as the good protagonists and in his own prejudice are letting his characters be obliviously prejudiced too. I want to believe the first option, but I'm leaning more toward the second option because of his descriptions of the gay and black people - they're not sympathetic, to say the least. They don't have any of the beauty or nobleness or charm that his other characters have. And if he were trying to make a statement on the prejudice one would think he himself would be more sympathetic with them, which he's not, so far.
Of course, there's still the possibility that he was doing it on purpose for an effect of the readers of the time who would've been likely to be more prejudiced in general than we today are. As I said earlier, once I've finished and know where the rest of the story leads, I can judge better. But so far, the gay people and the black people have been brushed off altogether, perhaps not to reappear again at all.
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