The Happy Ending Project, the Old Yorker’s methodical revision of the classics of literature and art, which seeks to turn the frowns that pervade the Western canon upside down, has been called “the aesthetic equivalent of a moon shot” (The New York Review of Books) and “the most ambitious bit of editing since the Readers’ Digest tackled Proust” (Slate). Yet, despite our grand goals, there are acts of unwriting that exceed even our skill and patience.
For example, though few novels are more in need of a happy ending than Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” we may not, according to our code, remove the Napoleonic Wars from World History. For this same reason, Stendahl’s “Charterhouse of Parma” and “The Red and the Black” must remain forever sad and gloomy. Yes, I suppose we could make Napoleon the victor at Waterloo but then what would become of all of those monumental triumphant paintings of the Duke of Wellington? By giving the battle to the French, they would be rendered ineffably tragic or, at best, ironic.
No, we will not alter the major events of world history to suit our own selfish ends. But there are plenty of candidates for new happy endings that deal with more personal tragedies, ones that may, in turn, reflect the times in which they were created. “The Great Gatsby” is a perfect example. As we shall see, it can quite easily be turned from a depressing downer in which the reckless glamor of the Jazz Age leads to an inevitable crack-up, to a happy book that makes the Roaring 20s roar anew.
Here goes.
THE GREAT GATSBY (HAPPY VERSION)
The narrator, Nick Carraway, opens his story by recounting that he, a young man from Minnesota, has moved to New York, renting a low-cost cottage located in West Egg, the less fashionable of two fictional seaside communities alongside one another on Long Island Sound (the other one being East Egg). Nick visits his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, whose husband, Tom, was a football player at Yale and who now is a phenomenally wealthy polo player. The Buchanans have an opulent mansion in East Egg. Here, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a lady friend of Daisy’s and well-known golfer.
Nick is the next-door neighbor of Jay Gatsby, an extremely wealthy man known for hosting lavish soirées in his own enormous mansion, where every Saturday, hundreds of people come.
Gatsby seems to be a mysterious character whose great wealth is a subject of much rumor; none of the guests Nick meets at Gatsby’s parties know much about his past. At one point during the party, a man begins a conversation with Nick. The man reveals himself to be Gatsby, surprising Nick who had expected Gatsby to be much older and not as personable. Nick and Gatsby begin a close friendship.
Jordan Baker reveals to Nick that Gatsby hosts these parties in hopes that Daisy, his former love, would visit by chance. Also through Jordan, Gatsby requests Nick to arrange a meeting with Daisy. Nick obliges, and the reunion is initially awkward but ultimately successful, and soon Daisy and Gatsby begin an affair. In the meantime, Nick and Jordan Baker, whom Nick re-encounters at one of Gatsby’s parties, start a relationship, which Nick already predicts will be superficial.
Eventually, Daisy’s husband Tom notices Gatsby’s love for Daisy and alleges that Gatsby is a bootlegger, in front of Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, and Jordan in an explosive scene at a hotel in Manhattan. In reply, Gatsby urges Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him; Daisy does tell Tom, but hesitantly. Tom, seeing that he still has a chance to reconcile with Daisy tells her and Gatsby to drive together from the hotel to Tom and Daisy’s house on Long Island; Tom mocks Gatsby by claiming he knows nothing can happen between Daisy and Gatsby.
George Wilson, owner of an auto repair garage on a desolate road between Manhattan and northern Long Island, is arguing with his wife Myrtle (with whom Tom is having an affair). She runs out of the house, only to be hit by Tom’s car. Myrtle is killed instantly. Later, as Daisy and Gatsby pass, they notice the car accident. Wilson comes out of his shop, half-insane and half in shock, and rants about having seen a yellow car. Daisy and Gatsby realize that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle was Tom. Daisy urges Gatsby to tell Wilson this, but Gatsby refuses, saying it would be a breach of decency and “taking the easy way out.”
Wilson becomes more and more unhinged. He stays up all night rocking back and forth, muttering nonsense, while his neighbor patiently watches over him. Wilson thinks he makes the connection that whoever was driving that yellow car must have been the man Myrtle was having an affair with and makes up his mind to find the yellow car and its driver.
Wilson finds his way to Tom’s house with a gun and Tom, while packing for an escape trip with Daisy, names Gatsby as the driver of the yellow car that killed Wilson’s wife. Wilson, however, knows that the driver can’t have been Gatsby because Gatsby drove by after the accident. As Tom turns to resume his packing, Wilson shoots him and then staggers out on to the Buchanan’s lawn and shoots himself.
Several months later, Nick received a cryptic invitation to attend a party at Brunner’s Hotel in Grasse on the Riviera with all expenses paid. Intrigued, he travels to France where he is delighted to discover that Gatsby and Daisy are living quietly while the scandal surrounding Tom’s death dies down. The party is a celebration of their marriage. Gatsby recites his vows using his real name, “Jay Gatz,” a hint that he has reached an accommodation with both his modest past and his ambitions for the future.
THE END
