The Last Line of The Great Gatsby

The last line of The Great Gatsby only makes sense if you’re over 30, or better yet, even older than that. Being “une femme d’un certain age” has few benefits, but here’s one of them: books with complex plots revolving around obsession, and drinking, and self-delusion, and accidents make more sense. You have to be old enough to have a past, and to have tried to do things that did not pan out. You have to know in your bones from experience that uncontrollable shit happens.

-Elizabeth Bastos