kaleidoscopic world

p.49

He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

p.92

As I went over to say good-bye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occured to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart.

p.171

And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

p.171 - 172

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

-

가장 긴박하고, 절망적이고, 슬픈 순간들까지도 꾹꾹 눌러담아 덤덤하게 표현해낸 피츠제럴드의 문장들.

마지막 부분을 읽을 때의 먹먹한 심정은 Of Mice and Men의 결말을 읽었을때의 느낌과 비슷했다.

이름은 기억나지 않는 한 배우가, 이런 말을 했던 걸 들은 기억이 있다.

한 작품을 찍고 난 다음에는, walk out of the character할 시간이 필요하다고.

출퇴근길, 퇴근 후 시간 등을 아껴 읽어온 책은 오늘에야 끝났지만,

이 책에서 걸어나오려면 꽤 긴 시간이 필요할 듯 싶다. 내게도.