Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald – ★★★★1/2

“As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams“. Apparently, this is the story that Fitzgerald fleshed out to then produce The Great Gatsby. The focus is on Dexter Green, a very dreamy and aspiring young man who loves all things prestige and luxury, and who gets infatuated with one lovely, rich girl, Judy Jones. The issue though is that Judy is very popular and he faces much competition: “She had brought him ecstatic happiness and intolerable agony of spirit”. The Great Gatsby themes are everywhere in Winter Dreams: the abundant, unreasonable hope, the rags-to-riches narrative, one beautiful, unattainable and fickle woman. It is a flowing narrative that necessarily invites much comparison with Fitzgerald’s most famous novel and, therefore, feels lacking and less subtle, almost an exercise in the anticipation of a real thing. Still, there is this nostalgic, melancholic quality to this tragic tale that simply spellbinds.

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