The Verb - The Great Gatsby
This year, F Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby enters the public domain. What will this mean for one of America's best loved novels?
Ian McMillan is joined by the academic and writer Sarah Churchwell, author of 'Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the invention of The Great Gatsby', to discuss why the language of the book is still so resonant to us today.
And poet and playwright Inua Ellams considers the quality of 'emptiness' in the text and how Fitzgerald's writing made this glittering world of parties feel so hollow.
Jonathan Bate's new book is 'Bright Star, Green Light: The Beautiful and Damned Lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald'. Bate joins us to take us on a 'Keatsian' reading of The Great Gatsby
And to examine the idea of the public domain, we'll also be looking at what it means to remix and play around with a text with musician, broadcaster and technologist LJ Rich. LJ is a synesthete - how does she Fitzgerald's book, famously drenched in colour from green lights to yellow cocktail music?
Presenter: Ian McMillan
Producer: Jessica Treen
Published on Friday, 12th March 2021.
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