Speaking of perfection, somewhere recently—I can’t for the life of me remember where—I came across the assertion that the last sentence in The Great Gatsby was one of the great joys of someone’s life. I’m not sure if this reference was in mainstream culture; if it was, maybe someone can remind me where I read or heard that claim, or suggest what unearthly presence beamed it into my mind.

In any case, I found it intriguing enough to reread The Great Gatsby, not even skipping ahead to the last sentence to spoil the surprise. I read it last when I was fourteen, in an era in which I probably didn’t care as much about lovely sentences as I do now. Even my gradual appreciation for the art, however, has not enlightened me as to how anyone could find that sentence precisely so thrilling. As written, it’s poetic but a little obvious, and although there is intense meaning behind it if you give it a bit of thought (it’s basically a summation of the human experience in a way that attempts to make a profound symbol out of a passing reference from earlier in the book), I think it’s a bit of a stretch to try to glorify what comes before by appending this lofty insight. Which is not to say it’s not a breathtaking book, or that the sentence is not brilliant in the grand scheme of the universe, it’s just that I don’t understand why the combination of those two particular things is so pivotal for whomever suggested it was. Truly, I wish I did, which is why I reread it in the first place; it’s not as if I disbelieve him or her or feel as if he or she runs around excessively claiming this or that sentence is meaningful to the point where the claim itself becomes meaningless.

I guess I just felt it was a startling thing to say about a medium that I sometimes take too much for granted, and I wanted to read it and think: Ah yes! How profound! And I was more like: yeah, OK.