Gatsby Loses to Woody Allen

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties. Of course, it’s too early to know whether the roar is college revolt or the howl from high food prices. Two years ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of the prior Roaring Twenties, The Great Gatsby, entered the public domain and on April 25th a Broadway musical version opened on the Great White Way. The timing is exquisite, since we are living in an era where billionaires fascinate, and populists propose to confiscate their wealth. Fitzgerald’s flawed, all-American tycoon earned his stash of illicit loot trading shady corporate bonds, and with his champagne flutes and flapper-filled parties on Long Island, Gatsby sure looks like a poster-child for the lucky and sometimes boorish “1 percent.”