{"id":155538,"date":"2013-05-05T20:41:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T03:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=155538"},"modified":"2013-07-07T13:10:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:10:03","slug":"reading-gatsby-in-beijing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos suggests that Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby<\/em> “could hardly find a more fitting audience than in China in the opening years of the twenty-first century.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Perhaps no work of fiction has returned to me more often over the past eight years in China than F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s slippery tale of James Gatz of North Dakota, who thrust himself into a new world in desperate, doomed pursuit of love and ambition\u2014a life in which the \u201cdream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.\u201d I\u2019ve stood in Shanghai, bathed in the lights of a new skyline, and thought of Gatsby\u2019s glimpse of New York, with \u201cthe city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps.\u201d And at times it\u2019s been hard to think of anything but Fitzgerald\u2019s \u201cuniverse of ineffable gaudiness\u201d\u2014upon seeing, for instance, the Korean boutique in Beijing with the English name \u201cPRICH: Pride & Rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

But to Chinese readers, who have read Gatsby (in translation or in English) for decades, the story has acquired new layers of relevance in recent years, as the initial rush of China\u2019s boom has given way to a more complex economic phase. When Chinese readers talk about Gatsby today, some see a cautionary tale of materialism run amok; others point to the potential danger in the gap between riches and power; and still others recognize the dawning realization that that one may never grasp the dream he so desires. \u201cAfter Gatsby was gone, no one cared,\u201d a Chinese blogger named Xiao Peng wrote not long ago. \u201cNot his business partners or his friends or his guests. Once everything became clear, Gatsby\u2019s life evaporated like smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos suggests that Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby “could hardly find a more fitting audience than in China in the opening years of the twenty-first century.” Perhaps no work of fiction has returned to me more often over the past eight years in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,14744,14745,14746,5],"tags":[935,646,1203,1289,7394],"class_list":["post-155538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-society","tag-books","tag-film","tag-inequality","tag-literature","tag-materialism","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nReading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos suggests that Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby “could hardly find a more fitting audience than in China in the opening years of the twenty-first century.” Perhaps no work of fiction has returned to me more often over the past eight years in […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Samuel Wade\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Samuel Wade\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Samuel Wade\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/4b33a6e88a49d3a6787f02f798de0d8e\"},\"headline\":\"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\"},\"wordCount\":305,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"books\",\"film\",\"inequality\",\"literature\",\"materialism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Culture & the Arts\",\"Level 2 Article\",\"Level 3 Article\",\"Level 4 Article\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\",\"name\":\"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\",\"name\":\"China Digital Times (CDT)\",\"description\":\"Covering China from Cyberspace\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\",\"name\":\"China Digital Times\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg\",\"width\":186,\"height\":177,\"caption\":\"China Digital Times\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/cdt\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/4b33a6e88a49d3a6787f02f798de0d8e\",\"name\":\"Samuel Wade\",\"description\":\"Samuel Wade (@samuel_wade@mstdn.ca) is Executive Editor for CDT English, and is based in Vancouver.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/samuelwa.de\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/author\/samuelwade\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing","og_description":"At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos suggests that Baz Luhrmann’s new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby “could hardly find a more fitting audience than in China in the opening years of the twenty-first century.” Perhaps no work of fiction has returned to me more often over the past eight years in […]","og_url":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/","og_site_name":"China Digital Times (CDT)","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes","article_published_time":"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":186,"height":177,"url":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Samuel Wade","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@cdt","twitter_site":"@cdt","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Samuel Wade","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/"},"author":{"name":"Samuel Wade","@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/4b33a6e88a49d3a6787f02f798de0d8e"},"headline":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing","datePublished":"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00","dateModified":"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/"},"wordCount":305,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization"},"keywords":["books","film","inequality","literature","materialism"],"articleSection":["Culture & the Arts","Level 2 Article","Level 3 Article","Level 4 Article","Society"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/","url":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/","name":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-05-06T03:41:02+00:00","dateModified":"2013-07-07T20:10:03+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/05\/reading-gatsby-in-beijing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Reading \u201cGatsby\u201d in Beijing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#website","url":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/","name":"China Digital Times (CDT)","description":"Covering China from Cyberspace","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization","name":"China Digital Times","url":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.jpg","width":186,"height":177,"caption":"China Digital Times"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes","https:\/\/x.com\/cdt"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/4b33a6e88a49d3a6787f02f798de0d8e","name":"Samuel Wade","description":"Samuel Wade (@samuel_wade@mstdn.ca) is Executive Editor for CDT English, and is based in Vancouver.","sameAs":["http:\/\/samuelwa.de"],"url":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/author\/samuelwade\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}