Speculatively, Seven Classics Get the Fifty Shades of Grey Treatment
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Don’t get us wrong. Fitzgerald was not “constrained by his time” like Jane Austen was. And this book is all about sexual longing. Well, that’s not ALL it’s about. (Spoiler: It’s about a man who owns too many shirts and how women really don’t like it when men care about their clothes so much AND it’s about looking both ways before you cross the street because the car that’s coming just might not slow down. End of spoiler.)
But it’s not explicit enough. What the wild success of Fifty Shades of Grey has taught us is that Americans like their sex to be explicit.
Fact: This is why Cosmo is a better magazine than The New Yorker.
Anyway, here’s what needs to be done with Gatsby. Forget about Daisy and Gatsby. Yeah, there could be a scene where he ties her up with his shirts, but whatever. And forget about Tom and Myrtle. She’s too talkative. Would she benefit from a ball gag? Sure, but she’s still annoying.
No, what a re-released edition would have to have is a whole chapter, at least, devoted to Nick sleeping with Mr. McKee. You just know that Nick gets really kinky, what with the whole voyeur thing he clearly has going. And there’s such a dream-like quality to their interlude. Nick just wakes up in his underwear on the bed. Was he roofied? Who knows?! Someone should write about it.