As previously stated, the posting of my more eloquent correspondencies with my old college chum Casey is one of the more blatant physical manifestations of my young egotism. The written oblations offered by my good friend slip quietly into my heart and swell, the crest of my vanity crescendos, and ultimately a sense of braggadocios duty brings me to publish his aggrandizing insights; which I'm certian is met (by ny readers) with a chorus of eyerolls held together by a collective sense of my own absurdity. For this I apologize.
T.S. Eliot-Love Song
Fitzgerald-Paradise
Michael (which is to say, Amory),
Your emails are only too flattering; should there be any ego with exceeding superfluous time to itself than yours, I'm sure it would be mine. One might say a thermometer that records only fevers is broken; or at any rate useless? Though the imagery is quite moving, admittedly. Your prose is at once sweeping yet arresting. Alas, I was once so childish as to believe us to be of the same age; but I'm glad to be the younger of the two, old man.
As for your rumored religious awakening, I'd be lying if I said my eyebrows were noticeably elevated. For such an event has been in the makings for some time, dare I say even in the era of the Jayhawk, a role you so marvelously mastered, like a glove you effortlessly wore before slipping it off one night, what with your rapid departure, leaving us all in speechless wonder. The audacity to steal away into the night, without so much as a goodbye; you had it planned all along, no? But as for your new found Christianity, all the better, and I'm sure you'll succeed, though I imagine you would say "it's not about that."
Although I am honored at the idea of playing Mnsgr. Darcy to your Amory, I'm afraid I cannot reconcile myself to the thought; furthermore, I'm afraid it would be slanderous to both yourself and Mnsgr. Darcy. Darcy of course had faith, faith in a higher power and a reconciliatory power, which Amory was obviously drawn to (what with his own apparent lack of faith in anything outside the realm of his own egotistical reactions to phenomena).
Personally, if I am to judge myself according to my actions and the way others react to/regard me, I must conclude that through my meager and admittedly somewhat disappointing efforts at learning, I have taken refuge entirely in the rather hedonistic pleasures of this world/the flesh. I'm not certain I would trade the impetuous nature of youth and it's insatiable desires for anything, especially the peace afforded by Mnsgr. Darcy's robes: after all, what one desires is not the lost innocence of youth, but rather the pleasure of losing that innocence again.
At any rate, I've been thinking of This Side of Paradise for some time now, and this is where I'm at: I believe that what Fitzgerald truly captures in Amory, and the thing that makes the book so wonderful and magnetized, is an ideal that permeates the mind of the individual. I can only relate this notion to only think to J. Alfred Prufrock and his damned love song (and indeed, i think, at this point, that Prufrock is the end of all men who would aspire to Amory Blaine, i.e.: you Michael).
Every Prufrock wishes he could be Amory, but any with the potential to become Amory instead inevitably become prufrock. I'm not sure this is making any sense, but I'll press on. Prufrock is haunted by a knowledge of the pettiness and triviality of this world and a feeling that once, somewhere, he had had a vision of a life more real and more beautiful, but that he has long since strayed from that reality to the artificial and barren existence in which he suffocates. Amory is a direct contradiction of this, but still ends up vaguely destroyed and none the better, perhaps. I don't know, just an idea. It appears I see not through you, but through myself.
"In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo"
Admiringly,
Casey
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