Literature.... Interrupted.....

  So I’m hanging out with a friend of mine when the trailer for the latest adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” flashes before our eyes like a trashy fantasia like soap opera of love and excess and well to do folk dancing amongst the excesses of that great enigma known as Jay Gatsby.  My friend excitedly proclaims that we buy tickets to Baz  Luhrmann’s modern day visual spectacle while I bemoan the dumbing down of yet another classic piece of literature.  Am I wrong here, mister and misses America?  Isn’t Baz Luhrmann the director who made Romeo and Juliet into a tweeners delight with all of the elements of teen angst and forbidden love tossed into the mix?  That’s the point here folks.  I’m tired of literary classics being stripped down and pulverized so they go down easier for the apathetic souls who won’t take the time to experience the work of the great F Scott Fitzgerald or anyone else whose name isn’t Stephanie Meyer.  Even if you draw the non literary souls to the book version of Gatsby via this flashy Hollywood update, one thing remains.  They’re not going to like the book anyway because they’re going to expect the same processed version of Gatsby that Hollywood fed them in the first place.  Think about this, mister and Misses America.  How does anyone learn to appreciate someone like the great William Shakespeare if they’re being fed a stripped down version of his work.  How does anyone really get to enjoy the beauty of great literature if it’s stripped down to its most basic form?  You don’t.  That’s my point.  You don’t truly enjoy Shakespeare unless you learn to navigate the waters and discover the beauty of his particular language.  You don’t gain an appreciation for great literature by going to Hollywood for the cliff notes.  You read the book.  Or you download or you read it on Kindle or you make it like a pizza, whatever form you wish.  Just read people.  Read the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald people.  Read a little Shakespeare.  After that, you have carte blanche to plop down ten bucks to watch Hollywood dumbification in living color on a wide screen.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish my reading before the next episode of “Nashville” comes on.  Resist Tyranny!!! Toot!! Toot!!!!