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It's the Brian Laira Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we continue our WNYC Centennial series,

100 Years of 100 Things.

Today it's Thing Number 58,

100 years of F. Scots Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most iconic

novels in American literature. That's why we're doing it as part of this series. And though it

didn't receive much attention when it was first published in 1925, it has since become a cultural

touchstone taught in schools and endlessly reinterpreted in art and film and even

fashion. We're going to play a couple of clips from movie adaptations. But why does Gatsby continue

to resonate a century later? Well, joining us to explore the novel's lasting cultural and literary

impact and what it might still have to say about America's

political, social, and economic predicament is Maureen Corrigan. You may know her as book

critic for Fresh Air. She's also a Georgetown professor and author of the book, So We Read

on How the Great Gatsby came to be and why it endures.

Maureen, thanks so much for coming on for this.

Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you so much, Brian.

So Fitzgerald apparently called the 1920s the most expensive orgy in history.

And we see that extravagance all over the Great Gatsby. And that's one of the things

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