FROM: The Fitzgerald Reader: A Collection of His Finest Work
[1963 Scribners] Edited by Arthur Mizener, pgs. 76-90
Forgive me F. Scott, for I have sinned. It's been....(you can check the log) since I last read you. I've been busy (not a lie) but I'm sure I couldn't squeezed a page or two in somewhere.
So they say "Absolution" (June 1924) is the false-start of The Great Gatsby. Okay. I'll go with that. I guess. I think it's a bit strange and the flashback section/repetition is maybe overdone. But what do I know, really?
I had to "look up" my Commandments because I didn't know them in proper order (because our dear boy, Rudolph Miller mentions them by number)--as in, he says he has violated the Sixth and Ninth.
Rudolph had now exhausted the minor offenses, and was approaching the sins it was agony to tell. He held his fingers against his face like bars as if to press out between them the shame in his heart.
"Of dirty words and immodest thoughts and desires," he whispered very low.
"How often?"
"I don't know."
"Once a week? Twice a week?"
"Twice a week."
"Did you yield to these desires?"
"No, Father."
While I was reading, all I could think about was a story a classmate wrote for my Fiction Writing class...involving confession and a priest. We got to hear the priest's inner-most thoughts as he say through a round with his parishioners.
Want to know the truth? I came up with the entire idea for the story.
I didn't write it, mind you--and he knocked it out of the park.
Okay. Back to F. Scott.
I don't want to give away the sin, but I will tell you that Rudolph has the best imagination and has a "character" or alter-ago with the most wonderful name: Blatchford Sarnemington.
Now I shall do my best to read you more often, my dear author.
~~J
