Gatsby House Demolished

I was in line at Coffee Bean the other day (as I am far too often, I'll admit) when I overheard two girls talking about the Gatsby house. I had decided to, rather than find out for sure that the house had been demolished, remain blissfully ignorant and imagine that someone stopped the historic mansion from being torn down. However, the conversation confirmed that it was indeed torn down. How sad. Hopefully they saved a lot of important artifacts and took lots of pictures before they demolished it.

RIP Gatsby House

"...And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." -Sylvia Plath

I'm currently working on a project about Sylvia Plath, and I feel like this is very true. For example, I recently started writing a short story and got 15 pages into it, then started to think those thoughts that are devastating to writers: "This isn't really good; No one would want to read this; What's the matter with me? I can't write."


I guess the point of this entry is really to point out to you (and to myself) that nothing is preventing you from writing a good poem, interesting book, or compelling short story. If writing is what you are passionate about, then you can't second-guess yourself too much. Think if F. Scott Fitzgerald had written half of the Great Gatsby, only to read over it and think that it was too romantic, the language too poetic... it is one thing to correct your own writing and to push to make it better. It is another thing entirely to give up.

Gatsby House in the News

The house that some say inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write "The Great Gatsby" is doomed. It's slated to be razed and its property parceled up into new developments.

The once-grand home called Lands End has fallen into disrepair. But back in the day, the 25-room, 20,000-square-foot Colonial Revival mansion was home to parties attended by Winston Churchill, the Marx brothers, Dorothy Parker and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. According to local lore, Fitzgerald drank there too, Newsday reports.

The home was built in 1902 and came to be owned by journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, one of the first recipients of the Pulitzer Prize and editor of the New York World. It was Swope's parties that Fitzgerald was said to have attended. The history of the house -- and its legendary influence on Fitzgerald -- was reported by Forbes when the house was for sale in 2005.

Located on 13 acres in Sands Point, N.Y.,  on Long Island Sound, the property has a private beach, a grand pool and wide patio (where, according to legend, Fitzgerald was spotted.) In January, Sands Point Village approved plans to raze the house and divide the property into lots for five custom homes, to be sold for $10 million each.

When the house was sold in the mid-2000s, it still had, according to the New York Times, "banana-yellow laminate countertops in the kitchen... neon flower-power 1970's-style carpeting in some of the bedrooms" and other design offenses that called for a full renovation.

Seems to me that an inspired eye could make that work -- although it would have to be an inspired eye with deep pockets -- upkeep was said to be $5,000 a day.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

"So we beat on..."

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
-The Great Gatsby

This is the quote that is on F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave.

I'm sorry, it has been too long!

I do have a good excuse as to why I have not posted for about two months. My computer decided to make Google and Blogger die. Google owns Blogger, so for some reason, both sites were not working. Knock on wood, they are working again for the first time in a long time, and on my birthday, too! It's a birthday miracle.

I am now about halfway through re-reading the Great Gatsby again, so hopefully I will post more soon! Of course, only if my internet decides to behave.

Ciao (I'm sorry, I can't resist. I had an Italian mid-term today)

let's start at the beginning...

If you have somehow wandered onto my blog, you have probably already read The Great Gatsby, but if you haven't, now is a good time to do so. After all, the new year just began, and wouldn't it be nice to start it off by reading one of the classics? I promise you that you will not regret reading it, even if it doesn't turn out to be your favorite book.

Right now, I am about to begin re-reading the novel for the third time. I will still post while I'm in the process of reading it again. I might post quotes that I find particularly interesting, or things that I thought of after reading certain passages. If you too are reading the book, whether it's your first or seventh time doing so, feel free to comment! Of course, you can comment even if you aren't currently reading it.

Before I end this post, I thought that I would tell you a little bit more about myself. I am, as I said before, just a college student. I am studying English Literature and French at the University of Southern California. I am in no way an expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby, or the Jazz Age. I have just been very interested in learning about the Jazz Age and making connections to today's society.

If you haven't read the novel before, the one advice that I would give, which was given to me by a teacher, is to pay close attention to details. But most of all, enjoy the book and DO NOT JUST WATCH THE MOVIE. In fact, I have been advised to not watch the movie at all, so personally I plan on never doing so. There's no need for a film adaptation of the book, in my opinion.

Happy reading.

my valley of ashes

Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Halle and I am just another college student who loves to read. I first read F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby when I was in eleventh grade, and never before has any novel captivated me as much as it did. Of course, I loved the imagery and language in the novel, as well as the characters and story. But the thing that most resonated with me was how much the disillusionment of society in the 1920's could be applied to today, the second decade of the 20th century. Of course, there are too many differences to count; the world has changed so much since 1925. It is a different world than the one that F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein wrote about in Paris and the French Riviera. But I know that I am not alone in saying that what makes any novel become a classic is its ability to put forth universal themes, so that one year or 85 years after its publication, readers can still identify with it. I think that The Great Gatsby is still read and loved by millions of readers today because we can learn just as much from it now as readers in the 1920's could. I especially feel that today's society, and my generation, can identify with the 'Lost Generation' of the twenties. In a world where writers seem to be running out of ideas, the United States is fighting to maintain its standing in the world, and morality seems to be disappearing, I often feel that America is coated in ashes... in other words, life is lackluster and more and more people are feeling lost. You might not feel that way, but then again, maybe you do. Maybe this is another 'Lost Generation'. But it does not matter if you think so; you don't have to in order to appreciate the writing and culture of the 1920's. This brings me back to this blog. The Great Gatsby and the Jazz Age that it depicts are the inspiration for this blog, because I feel that America today is my valley of ashes.