If someone put a gun to my head and told me to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald again, I would make my peace with the world and ask them to get it over with. No judgment to anyone who loves that book. It’s a good book. But there are only so many times you can be forced to read the same 200 pages on the American dream before you want to gouge out your eyeballs with a melon baller. I hit that point about ten years ago.
So when I say that The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo made me voluntarily dig out my old, sloppily annoyed copy of Gatsby to give it another look, please understand my meaning. In her debut novel, Nghi Vo makes Fitzgerald’s world come alive in a way it never did for me before. Jordan Baker takes center stage, reimagined as a queer Vietnamese adoptee in a world of wild parties, complicated characters, and literal magic.
It took me a couple of tries to really get into this book and leave my middle school English class trauma behind, but I firmly believe, after sitting with Nghi Vo’s work for a couple of weeks, that it was worth the effort. To me, The Chosen and the Beautiful does not only pay homage to an American classic but elevates it, making the original deeper and more relevant. While Jordan Baker is the novel’s focus, all of Fitzgerald’s characters are given new attention, making them richer without changing who they are.
My main critique of this book is that I wanted more. Though beautiful and haunting, its conclusion left me with more questions than I started with and frustrated that I wasn’t going to get closure on a couple of important themes.
The work’s greatest strength is undoubtedly its imagery. Two moments, in particular, stood out to me, one with Jordan and Daisy, the other with Jordan and Nick, where the magic that lingers in the background comes into sharp, visceral focus. While I wasn’t sure how I felt about the supernatural undertones at first, these moments thoroughly justified the addition of magic to the world. As an aspiring writer and novelist, I found myself taking notes.
I am looking forward immensely to reading more of Nghi Vo’s work.
Book Info: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2021
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