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I do have some reservations; but I am cautiously excited about the new Gatsby movie.

I bought a second paperback copy of the novel and gave it to my movie buddy Justin to read before we go. (Husband doesn’t do movies.) I had to buy Justin a copy because it turns out that my copy, which dates from high school, is hideously marked up: one of my high school English teachers had us turn in our books to be graded on how entirely we had defaced them with highlighter and margin notes. I got a 100 on The Great Gatsby, which means it’s entirely unacceptable for me to hand over to a first-time reader. I’m just glad I noticed before he took it home with him. [I’ve discussed marginalia here before. In a nutshell, I’m not a big fan.]

So, Justin has a copy of the book, and we will be seeing the movie. I’ve read that it’s not a perfect match – and when is a movie ever a perfect match to the book? The right strategy, I think, is to know and accept that going in. Hopefully we can do this, and enjoy Leonardo DiCaprio and all the glitz and glamour.

It does look very pretty.

As an added bonus, Shelf Awareness published a fun piece the other day, in honor of BookExpo America: Gatsby’s New York. Great fun there.

So stay tuned for a movie review to come! Ideally I would have found time to reread the book myself. But I’ll just have to go on the strength of multiple rereadings of years ago – and Justin’s recent experience.

Anybody else excited about this one?

Filed under: musings | Tagged: classics, marginalia, movies |