This morning E.J. Dionne invokes The Great Gatsby in a column about wealth inequality. I recently reread the book, after seeing the DiCaprio version (rather good, I thought, especially given the powerful scene in which Gatsby is perplexed at Nick's uncorrupted, "no-charge" generosity--directed better than written). Fitzgerald's ending, while not directly addressing wealth inequality itself, made a universal statement about the obscene attitude of those at the wealthiest top:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
Then, as though in anticipation of the Great Crashes to come (his book debuted in 1925), the last from which we're still clearing the rubble, Fitzgerald thrust what I read as a kind of rebellious exhortation:
I shook hands with [Tom]; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to but a pearl necklace--or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons--rid of my provincial squeamishness forever.
Hold tight to the squeamishness, Fitzgerald was saying; and don't let them forget it. Indeed, we might even want to do something about their messes--pre-mess--which does bump against Dionne's topic of wealth inequality.
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