Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor was fantastic, but mostly because of my early fascination with the unlikable characters in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. However, Cantor spun the same story, eliciting sympathy for Fitzgerald's selfish, unlikeable characters. I loved the spin on Jordon Baker. She is by far the best character in the story. I even felt that Fitzgerald would have approved simply because, not directly "hard, jaunty body" but indirectly, Jordan's sexuality was questionable at the very least. Still, Jordon was also "aloof, cold," and unlikable because of her ability to avoid trouble. Cantor allowed the reader to see past the cold Jordan, placing one of the perspectives in her voice and giving real insight into her motives. I liked everything except the golf cheating twist. I felt like she was a girl who would always cheat despite her many charms. This does not make her less sympathetic; in fact, if she had owned it, her new character would have been perfect. That element fell too far from the original story to work for me. Mrytle's sister's perspective was hit-or-miss for me, mostly because I wanted to hear more about the women's movement she was part of in the 1920s. I would have loved to see that as more of a theme than Fitzgerald's crumbling American dream theme. But, alas, this was glossed over, just a spark or two of meetings and whatnot. Daisy, well, "Daisy Daisy Daisy" as Mrytle said before her nose was broken in the original story by the brute Tom Buchanan. Daisy said she hoped her daughter was a "beautiful fool," that's all a girl could hope for. Daisy Buchanan was not a fool, but she certainly could never be as innocent and martyred as I felt Cantor painted her. I love the idea of a story playing off of Daisy's "beautiful fool" line, but innocence, please. Daisy definitely would have had an affair with Gatsby behind Tom's back, just as Jordon would have cheated at golf. Learning from these mistakes would have made both Jordon and Daisy much better characters and kept them aligned with Fitzgerald's original beloved story. As far as the character of Gatsby goes, bravo here, because Nick's perspective in the original story was told through rose colored glasses. Nick was in love with Gatsby - fact. Gatsby was a dirty bootlegger - fact. Gatsby would run over anyone, Mrytle included, to achieve his American Dream - fact. I really liked the new Gatsby in this story. I do feel, though, that when redoing a classic piece of literature such as this one, certain constants have to stay in place simply because we read The Great Gatsby every year.
