Tender Is The Night

"Of course there is," he said impatiently. "Dick sees it's over between you two - it's obvious he has quit. What does he expect you to do?" (Fitzgerald, F. S. K., Tender Is The Night. p. 300. United States of America: Scribner).

        This book at first seemed to me yet another typical story of infidelities and broken love. The more I ponder about it, the more complex it becomes in my mind. Toward the end I was undoubtedly enjoying it much more. Once again it feels like Providence put this book in my life exactly when I needed to read it, though, perhaps this is another trick that my mind is playing on me. Maybe because of my parent's current situation plus my own current existential crisis, the latter related to my going to see a psychoanalyst and a neuropsychiatrist to help me out of this terrible state I am in.
       I am not sure if the story appears too me as sad, rather I feel numb and confused. The third part of this novel overwhelmed me. Right now all I can do is wonder in what state of mind was Fitzgerald in to write this kind of novel? I cannot help thinking of Beethoven, because every time I listen to his music I feel like he is immensely furious. This leads me to believe Fitzgerald was more or less of a sad person, with a permanent depression. This tought is reinforced when I think of the other books of his that I have read: The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned. Why do we suffer so much in life? I am thankful for having read these books because it has helped me realize that I also suffer too much, and this is not how I want to live my life. We are all going to be dead, so why not try to enjoy this finite time we are alive? It is just so hard to do, though. Being on my own has definitely helped. Meditating, doing the things I enjoy, like playing the piano. My advise is to focus on yourselves, because that is what most people unconsciously do anyway. Find a way to get self-generated happiness, inner happiness that does not depend on someone else. Because you never know when that other person is not going to be there to help you and you need to be able to stand on your own.

The Beautiful and Damned

"Such a kiss - it was a flower held against the face, never to be described, scarcely to be remembered; as though her beauty were giving off emanations of itself which settled transiently and already dissolving upon his heart." (Fitzgerald, F. S. K.. The Beautiful and Damned. p. 78. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Alma Classics, 2012).
       Éste es el libro más perverso que he leído. Está maestramente escrito y, precisamente por eso, pudo tan fácilmente llenarme de horror y miedo. The Beautiful and Damned es la historia de Anthony Patch, un joven educado, admirado, diletante e irresponsable. Anthony se encuentra con una mujer que va perfectamente en aromnía con él: Gloria Gilbert, una mujer con personalidad, independiente y hermosa. El libro comienza relatando cómo Anthony se enamora muy intensamente de Gloria, todo está perfectamente relatado, con escenas tan reales en mi vida que pude perfecto imaginar los sentimientos de Anthony para hacia con Gloria. Mi parte preferida del enamoramiento de Anthony es cuando él se da cuenta de que Gloria lo es tan todo para él, que la felicidad, para él, es Gloria y nada más; y creo que el mejor ejemplo es el siguiente: "He glared; his growing enjoyment in the conversation was ripped to shreds. She had been irritable and vindictive all day, and it seemed to him that for this moment he hated her hard selfishness. He stared morosely at the fire. Then a strange thing happened. She turned to him and smiled, and as he saw her smile every rag of anger and hurt vanity dropped from him - as though his very moods were but the outer ripples of her own, as though emotion rose no longer in his breast unless she saw fit to pull an omnipotent controlling thread." (Fitzgerald, F. S. K.. p. 86. The Beautiful and Damned. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Alma Classics, 2012). El enamoramiento y el tiempo en que se enamora Anthony me parecen muy característicos de los jóvenes y por eso me encanta. Me encanta cómo la irresponsabilidad no está mal vista, sino alabada, siento que esto también es muy característico de la gente joven.
       Justo cuando la historia me había convencido de que iba a ser un maestro relato del enamoramiento de dos jóvenes prodigiosos, el libro me hizo recordar que el título de la novela también está maestramente elegido. El libro va mostrando qué tan insidioso es el vicio de la irresponsabilidad y cómo poco a poco va convirtiendo a tu vida en algo horroroso. No obstante, mientras la juventud siga durando, parece que poco importan los excesos, así como bien dijo Gloria: "I don't care about truth. I want some happiness." (Fitzgerald, F. S. K.. The Beautiful and Damned. p. 231. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Alma Classics, 2012). Lamentablemente, a pesar de que Anthony y Gloria se casan y tratan de hacerse mutuamente tan felices como pueden imaginarse, sus decisiones incorrectas hacen que la vida los lleve por momentos trágicos, desagradables, y que tienen tanta insidia en ellos que, al final, logra cambiarles su forma de ser: ya no son los jóvenes admirados que fueron en un principio, sino adultos que inspiran lástima. La vida los reduce a la más horrible miseria. La vida les abre los ojos a su irresonsabilidad.
       Ya cuando todo parecía estar al máximo de lo horrible, el final nos muestra la más terrible de las tragedias: no aprender de nuestros errores. ¡Whoa!, la verdad es un excelentísimo libro. No sólo lo recomiendo, sino que considero imperativo leer este libro.
       "Years before, when she was twenty-one, she had written in her diary: "Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved - to be harvested carefully and then flung at a chosen lover like a gift of roses. It seems to me, so far as I can judge clearly at all, that my beauty should be used like that..."". (Fitzgerald, F. S. K.. The Beautiful and Damned. p. 297. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Alma Classics, 2012).

The Great Gatsby

Definitivamente un muy macho libro. Muy cruel, también. Jay Gatsby tiene su forma de agradarle a la gente: siendo amable, educado, siendo siempre muy generoso con todas las personas. Su sonrisa es lo más influyente de su persona:
"He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced -or seemed to face- the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you, at your best, you hoped to convey." (Fitzgerald, F. S. K. The Great Gatsby. p. 40. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Oxford University Press, 2008).
       No obstante, todo esto, como hace todo gran hombre, está pensado en sólo una persona: Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby se confabula con Jordan Baker y Nicholas Carraway para reencontrarse con la mujer que más le importa en la vida. Su plan es bastante elaborado, pero hasta este plan meticulosamente pensado tiene que sortear terribles imprevistos.
       Cuando Gatsby le protesta a Nicholas: "Look here, old sport, you've got to get somebody for me. You've got to try hard. I can't go through this alone." (Fitzgerald, F. S. K. The Great Gatsby. p. 131. Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte: Oxford University Press, 2008), lo que más me duele es que Daisy no haya llegado. Pienso que a Gatsby no le hubiese importado la ausencia de todos los demás, no le hubiese importado la ausencia de Meyer Wolfshiem ni la de Klipspringer, pero la de Daisy creo que sí se sintió como traición.
       Me gustaría decir que me siento identificado con Gatsby, pero creo que sería una mala comparación, pues Gatsby finalmente es el Gran Gatsby. Ampliamente recomiendo la lectura de este libro. Una muy buena narrativa, mezclada con mucho misterio, el cual sólamente engrandece la machez de Gatsby.