The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels, and the constant mention of the Fitzgerald work in reviews of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles made me both curious and apprehensive about reading this one. But the cover is lovely (I have a thing for the Conde Nast archives) so I kept picking it up in book stores to look through, read a bit here and there, and then maybe on the third or so go round of this, saw the list in the back of the book - the young George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. And then it clicked. Gatsby's boyhood schedule written in his copy of Hopalong Cassidy.
When Gatsby's father, Mr. Gatz, arrives at the end of the novel so obviously proud of his son and his son's possessions, he pulls a tattered old copy of Hopalong Cassidy from his pocket to show Nick Carraway.
No matter how many times I read Gatsby, I always find this parental pride and the naivete of attachment to the dream of social mobility incredibly moving. While Rules of Civility tells a similar story of a female narrator that rises from Russian immigrant penury to the offices of Conde Nast and the parties seen in its classic photographs and a bright and shiny young man who has written a social place for himself, its snappy composition runs afield of the same type of emotional impact. It borders on a novel of manners type exposition and has a zing not present in the poignancy of Gatsby. It was a fun and quick read but suffers in comparison with the Fitzgerald classic. A little unfair but impossible not to draw comparisons.He opened it at the back cover and turned it around for me to see. On the last fly-leaf was printed the word SCHEDULE, and the date September 12, 1906. And underneath:
Rise from bed......................................6:00 AM
Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling.............6:15-6:30 "
Study electricity, etc..............................7:15-8:15 "
Work................................................8:30-4:30 PM
Baseball and sports................................4:30-5:00 "
Practice elocution, poise and gow to attain it.5:00-6:00 "
Study needed inventions..........................7:00-9:00 "
GENERAL RESOLVES
No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]
No more smokeing or chewing
Bath every other day
Read one improving book or magazine per week
Save $5.00 [crossed out] $3.00 per week
Be better to parents
"I come across this book by accident," said the old man. "It just shows you, don't it?"
"It just shows you."
"Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind? He was always great for that. He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it."
He was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud and then looking eagerly at me. I think he rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use.
