This month was the 100th anniversary (Mar 4th 2022) of the publishing "The Beautiful and Damned", Fitzgerald's jazz age novel with many similar themes to "The Great Gatsby" (which I was also be reading for the Amsterdam English Classics in March).
While the title of Nghi Vo's "The Chosen and the Beautiful" is a wordplay on Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and Damned", her principal character Jordan Baker is queer and Vietnamese! Jordan Baker was an enigmatic but minor character in Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby".
In terms of GoodReads ratings, This is my first 5-star review for a while, I'm trying to save 5-stars for all-time favourite books and not just my current favourite / new book. However, this is a book I've immediately fallen in love with and touched me deeply.
Curiously I see that a few years ago I rated the original The Great Gatsby at 4 stars, which now seems wrong. The Great Gatsby is a book that has really grown on me, it is a short and easy read, packed with symbolism and can be relatively easily seen as harsh criticism of the "American dream". It is outstanding fiction about the roaring 20s, prohibition, and more tragically it interleaves F Scott Fitzgerald's and his "it girl" wife Zelda Fitzgerald ("the first American flapper") battles with alcoholism, depression and mental health. This book is more up than down, but there is no doubt by the end that the down is coming, which is explored in his later novels.
Since first reading The Great Gatsby, about 5 years ago, it's grown on me, there is so much in this short book that is just below the surface and also resonates with real-world events going on now, approx 100 years later. This book has come back to mind so often over the last few years, sometimes triggered by the events in the "big world out-there" of macroeconomics with politics, organized crime and mafia operations. But also the more personable, micro world of cool parties, having fun, pulling back from the edge of reason, the nature of love, mental health challenges. As I said, this is a book that has worked its way into my psyche and resonated deeply with me.
I could go on about how much I like The Great Gatsby but I'll leave that for another book review ;)
So getting back to Nghi Vo's "The Chosen and the Beautiful", the title is a wordplay on Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and the Damned" which just had its 100th birthday (published March 4th 1922), but potentially confusingly this book, is much more closely related to The Great Gatsby.
Actually, this book is a pretty faithful re-telling of The Great Gatsby, but from a very fresh perspective of Jordan Baker, a minor but colourful character in the original. In the original Ms Baker is a glamorous, if slightly hard-edged potential love interest for the narrator Nick (Carraway). Nick is probably the most sensible person in the whole story, the voice of reason, who guides us through this beguiling and corrupting world. Nick never seems that interested in Ms Baker, or any other woman, instead, Nick is more enchanted by the American dream, he is quietly getting on with his life and is somewhat bewitched by the weird and wonderful going on in the house-next-door: Gatsby's palatial mansion, with wild parties, wacky musician, plus the beautiful and the quixotic people.
So now the story is re-told from Jordan Baker's harsher perspective, and in Nghi Vo's new version Jordan Baker character is far more fleshed out, plus now she is both queer and Vietnamese!
I'm not normally a fan-fiction reader, it is a very tricky thing to do i.e. retell a much-beloved story, capture the essence of the original, add some new and not to sully the original? This sounds almost impossible to do, many have tried and failed, but in this case, Nghi Vo somehow pulls it off.
Nghi Vo has a remarkable prose style, both rich and floral. Fitzgerald is famous for his tight prose, especially in The Great Gatsby, parts of which he apparently re-work and re-work and then re-worked again. Fortunately, some of my favourite lines and dialogue from the original have been woven into this retelling. For me, this is not plagiarism, but homage.
Next, what does Nghi Vo bring to the original and I do I think F Scott Fitzgerald would have approved? Assuming he is somehow looking down on the earth from the pearly gates and has adjusted for where we are culturally at in the 2020s vs his world of the 1920s. Obviously, this is highly speculative but the question for me is: whether this story seems to fit and resonate well with the original.
- The very first thing Nghi Vo bring is some magic realism at several key moments including the wonderfully playful and charming opening chapter, with Daisy and Jordan getting up to some fun hijinks. It gets a bit deeper later, and Nghi Vo uses magic realism sparing and with great effect. There is also an interesting wordplay between Oculist and Occultist, I don't have the time to explain hn ow magic realism lead me into this quirky wordplay but it made me smile while reading "The Chosen and the Beautiful"
. - The second thing Nghi Vo bring is an insight into the racism of 1920s America towards the Asian community. In the original Tom Buchanan is a bigotted fool, and his wife gently mocks this brutish man but this is only a few lines. Re-telling the story from an Asian American perspective, allows us to really explore the stigma, the feelings, the day to day grind, the frequent minor irritations and occasionally the major confrontations. It is very compelling storytelling, as it is mostly a moment's tension here or there, with a steady build-up, making it highly believable and relatable.
- The third thing Nghi Vo bring is openly gay, lesbian and bisexual characters. The original is all about decadence and cool parties but it is very hetero normative. Again the storytelling has a gradual build-up with an illusion here, a mysterious underground party there and climaxing in some spectacular declarations of true love. Like the original this is fundamentally a love story, but with a new twist at the end.
I can imagine with the help of a bit of time travel, F Scott Fitzgerald would have really enjoyed this 2020s hommage to his 1920s iconic works. Also for myself, it was wonderful to revisit the original story but with a fresh pair of eyes.
