The Great Gatsby and the American debt crisis

Just recently I’ve been rereading The Great Gatsby by Scott Fiztgerald. Contrary to received wisdom, it’s not his best novel, which is Tender is the night – obviously – but Gatsby is more fun and if the definition of the truly great novel is to have contemporary relevance way beyond its time, the Great Gatsby succeeds in spades.

The boom and bust of the inter war years – The Great Gatsby is set in the roaring 1920s – was, in economic terms at least, a period much like our own, so many of the themes of this book are deeply resonant. And of course it ends with one of the great passages of English literature, which both defines the American dream and points to its ultimate fallibility.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic 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 farther…. And one fine morning —

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

OK, so I don’t want to stretch the parallels too far, but it seems to me that with the crisis over the American debt talks, we are once again at a “Gatsby moment”. People are losing faith in the American dream – domestically and internationally. The green light is fading, and America seems incapable any longer of running faster, or stretching out its arms farther.

The optimism of youth is giving way to that resigned sense of inevitable decline that occurs in late middle age. The epic battle on Capitol Hill over America’s fiscal future defines this moment better than anything. Self belief and decisiveness is being replaced by indecision and confusion. Feeble impotence is taking the place of economic prowess and rampant self confidence. It’s a tragedy to behold.