An age long past and immediate

After finishing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last summer, I resolved to myself that the next classic fictional work of literature I would consume would be The Great Gatsby, another 'Great American Novel'.  After many distraction and displacements, I have completed my quarry.  I had Wolf Hall on my shelves from long before the television series I eschewed and works by Dyostevsky.  Anna Karenina is also high on my to-read list.  But it was The Great Gatsby that glittered most brightly, the encapsulation of the 'Roaring Twenties', a phrase maybe derived from "Roaring June" within its pages.
It became even more appropriate as the people being discussed (at least the main male protagonists) are roughly the same age as me, insofar as the main narrative unfolds.  If I can't claim to read 'one 'improving book or magazine a week' (unless on counts The Telegraph and The Guardian) like the aspirations of James Gatz, I have now finished a book that regularly finishes in the top-100 must-reads and before it is spoilt for me.
I can't say I'll do the same for those reading this - in fact I most certainly won't.  I tried to expunge the bare few images that Baz Luhrmann's abortive adaptation has seeded in my mind from its promotional footage.  After Gatsby, I'll most definitely give the movie a pass.  So here's the gig. Gatsby dies.  It is an appropriate full stop though as his personal and professional lives have or are collapsing.  In death, he is neglected and unloved as his first mentor Dan Cody, who met a similarly sudden and violent death and only those who valued him truly as a person (Nick Carraway, Gatz senior and a man who admired Gatsby's library), in addition to loyal former servants, attend his funeral.  Even a lodger who spent many months at Gatsby's pile prefers to attend a picnic than pay his respects.  All those who attended the lavish parties have simply moved on to the next party like the locusts they are.  And those who are rich but cause mayhem in the lives of others are similarly insulated.   Gatsby was almost certainly involved in shady business who let others do the dirty work in the era of Prohibition (making the parties even more special) but East Coasters respect for the hosts was ephemeral and only extended as far as the last party.
Written in 1926, Gastby's second mentor, Meyer Wolfshiem (who 'fixed the 1919 World Series') operates a company by the most extraordinary name - The Swastika Holding Company - seven years before that symbol took on dark resonance for Jews in Germany.  The coincidence is astounding for this traditionally ancient pattern.
But it is not the depiction of how the other half (or 1% in today's terminology) lives but the love story that surrounds Gatsby and the object of his affection, Daisy Buchanan that really captivates.  Gatsby is essentially a good person as is Daisy but they have been corrupted by circumstance and money and inevitably this rottenness cannot be sustained.  Yet for the brief brilliant moment, it captured what it meant to be in love, even if we should never go back to try and remake the past.  There is much more that can be said about The Great Gatsby; however, I prefer to let its rhythms percolate my mind rather than dissect it further.