The Chosen and the Beautiful

Diese Neuerzählung des modernen Klassikers »Der große Gatsby« von F. Scott Fitzgerald ist in meinen Augen eine sehr gelungene. Die Essenz des Originals ist in jedem Satz spürbar und die Geschichte folgt der Handlung des Originals recht eng. Dennoch verleiht Nghi Vo ihrer Version neue Bedeutungsebenen und macht daraus etwas ganz Eigenes, zutiefst Originelles; vor allem rückt sie die Charaktere in ein neues Licht, um ihre Motive aus einem anderen Blickwinkel zu hinterfragen. Statt dem bodenständigen Nick Carraway lässt sie die pansexuelle Society-Lady Jordan Baker durch die Geschichte führen. Anders als im Original ist Jordan hier vietnamesischer Herkunft. Sie wird aufgrund ihrer angesehenen Adoptivfamilie zwar toleriert, ist wegen ihrer Schönheit und Freizügigkeit auch ein gerne gesehener Gast auf Partys – doch sie ist klug genug, zu wissen, dass sie sich bestenfalls in einem liminalen Raum bewegt. Indem Nghi Vo sie zur Erzählerin macht, eröffnet sie der Geschichte natürlich eine ganz andere Perspektive: queer, feministisch, divers. Jo hadert mit ihrer Identität, sehnt sich insgeheim nach Zugehörigkeit und weiß doch nicht so recht, wo sie sich selber sieht. Dies ist ein zeitloses Thema, das auch für moderne Leser:innen auf vielerlei Arten relevant ist, zum Beispiel im Kontext von Immigration oder internationaler Adoption. Doch es ist nicht nur die Erzählperspektive, die »The Chosen and the Beautiful« vom Original unterscheidet: Ja, wir sind in Amerika, ja, es sind die Roaring Twenties – aber wir befinden uns in einer alternativen Realität, in der Magie mehr ist als nur ein Bühnenakt. Gatsby hat buchstäblich seine Seele verkauft, die Prohibition verbietet nicht nur Alkohol, sondern auch ‘Demoniac’ – Dämonenblut, das einem Drink einen ganz besonderen Kick verleiht –, und Jo hat ein angeborenes Talent für die vietnamesische Papiermagie. Es ist der atmosphärische, oft geradezu lyrische Schreibstil, der diesen Balanceakt zusammenhält: Mit mehr als einer Spur magischem Realismus verwandelt Nghi Vo den großen Klassiker der amerikanischen Literatur in ein ganz neues Werk, das tiefgängig und wunderschön geschrieben auf eigenen Füßen stehen kann – und das mit offensichtlichem Respekt und Wertschätzung.

This is on me. I didn't like the Great Gatsby at all. Plus the supposed fantasy element is almost non existent and not clear. But liked more than the original and love the (non white) queer rep!

Eine ganz andere Art von Geschichte

Ich würde gerne halbe Sterne vergeben, denn das Buch war für mich zwischen 3-4 Sternen. Die Figuren fand ich faszinierend, die Handlung war spannend und atmosphärisch und ich habe das Buch in kurzer Zeit ausgelesen. Der Fantasy Aspekt war mir allerdings zu vage. Klar, das war Absicht, aber ich hätte mir da einfach etwas mehr gewünscht. Generell fand ich einige Wendungen etwas schwer zu verstehen und zu blumig umschrieben. Alles in allem aber ein faszinierendes, schönes Buch.

One star for the writing style. It had no plot whatsoever and the characters were super boring and for sure not interesting enough to make me read the rest. If I hadn't had to read it for a book club, I would've stopped much earlier and wouldn't have finished it. If you like retellings, then give it a chance but lower your expectations.

I started to read this book with a vague memory of it being set in the US-American high society in the 1920s from the POV of an Asian-American queer woman, but that was about it. Then I started to read it and realized within seconds that it was a Great Gatsby adaption and I think this was the moment I fell in love with this book. If I was asked what classics I liked, The Great Gatsby would certainly be one of them. Apart from that, I also love good adaptations and this is one. What I liked about The Great Gatsby was above all the atmosphere, this setting of an incredibly hot summer that is pressing down not only on the characters, but also on the reader, that is sticky and exhausting and making it hard to breathe. Nghi Vo recreates exactly this atmosphere while turning everything that was queer subtext in the original openly queer and everything that was slightly toxic openly toxic. It is not that this book is more obvious than the original. It is just more intense. We follow the story from the POV of Jordan Baker whom I really liked as a protagonist. She's very intelligent, good at gathering secrets and seeing through the facades of others. In a society of money, image, and pretention, she is used to navigate these, to use these, but also to cynically comment on these. Because while her adoptive family and her understanding of how to play the rules make her part of this society, she's also always an outsider, just because she's Asian-American in a rather racist environment. So apart from following the story of The Great Gatsby, this book is also dealing with questions of identity and colonialism on the side, showing the ridiculous ways in which people make racist comments around Jordan and then immediatly excluding her from them, because of course they are not directed at people they know. It is also an interesting new perspective in contrast to Nick's rather naive view on a society that he just gets into, while Jordan has a lot more insights into the people's backgrounds and relations and is less admiring of Gatsby and more critical towards his obsession. Jordan is independent, confident, and never planning more than two weeks ahead, following the life style of rich people in the 1920s for which The Great Gatsby is so famous and which is portrayed in an amazing way in this book. Nghi Vo uses supernatural elements to bring out all these dark sides even more. People are not just metaphorically selling their soules in these retelling of the golden 20s, they are literally. The ghost of their ancestors are not metaphorically haunting the big buildings, they are literally. And I just loved how this fits so well without becoming a major plot point. All the elements are only used to underline the existing topics, and I have to admit that I'm a fan of magic that is rather casually woven into a story, treated as normal, while the main story continues to evolve around something else. Jordan is also very confidently queer and so are a lot of the characters. I also liked how everyone is pretty much polyam with Gatsby flirting immediatly with Nick while Jordan and Nick are also getting closer and of course the famous relation between Gatsby and Daisy. The latter seems pretty asexual to me by the way, thanks to a comment by Jordan, which I also loved. This book further surprised me with how much the characters sometimes communicate - at least Jordan and Daisy who have a wonderful but also compelex and pretty interesting relation. All the relations and interactions were very interesting, in the end - this book is centered on the characters and while it was great to rediscover lines from the original book, the tragedy lies even more with the characters and their relations. Speaking of which, I really liked how the topic of consent was dealt with. Jordan is very clear at drawing boundaries and also respecting boundaries. That doesn't mean that everything was consensual, but that this was discussed. It was great to see how sexuality was dealt with in this book, because it was about respect and communication, about attraction, but also commitment and different forms of these. In addition, the writing style was very beautiful, really creating this looming atmosphere, and I loved every second of reading this book. Definitely a highlight.