Fans are celebrating 100 years of 'The Great Gatsby' with a complete live reading

NINA MOINI: The comedian Andy Kaufman had a bit where he would fill up his time on stage by reading The Great Gatsby aloud.

ANDY KAUFMAN: Chapter 1.

[LAUGHTER]

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember--

NINA MOINI: A similar performance will be happening tomorrow at the Minnesota History Center, but this time it's not for laughs. It's not a joke. It's the 100th anniversary of the publication of the novel by Saint Paul's own F Scott Fitzgerald. And a non-profit in his hometown is celebrating with a complete live reading of the book, starting at 1:00 PM and stretching into the evening, or whenever, I guess.

The Friends of the Saint Paul Library Senior Director of Programs and Services Alayne Hopkins joins me in the studio now to share about it. Thanks for being here.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: Thank you, Nina. Happy to talk about this.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. For starters, tell us a little bit about what your group, Friends of the Saint Paul Libraries, does.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: Yes. The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library supports the Saint Paul Public Library through fundraising, programming, and advocacy. And so this falls under our programming. We are also the Minnesota Center for the Book, which is a designation of the Library of Congress. So we have programming that stretches across the state that focuses on literacy, libraries, and connecting readers and writers.

NINA MOINI: Super cool. So how did the idea for this live reading of The Great Gatsby come about?

ALAYNE HOPKINS: The Friends has been doing programming surrounding Fitzgerald and his work for quite some time. And in 2020, we actually adopted the mission and work of another nonprofit organization called Fitzgerald in Saint Paul. So when we did that, the 2025 anniversary was already on our radar.

And so we formed a committee of interested individuals, authors, organizational partners and started talking. And one of the first things that came up was this idea to do a live reading on April 10, which is the actual publication anniversary, as you mentioned. So it got a lot of interest, and it has been quite an endeavor to put it all together.

NINA MOINI: It sounds really fun. So F Scott Fitzgerald, born in Saint Paul, lived here before writing The Great Gatsby. And if you walk around Saint Paul, there's a lot of different homages to him and whatnot. But can you describe what his relationship to his hometown was like?

ALAYNE HOPKINS: I think the easiest word, or the first one that comes to mind, is fraught. I think that the impact of his time in Saint Paul and the idea of being from here is definitely present, both in The Great Gatsby and many of his other works. And I also get the sense, from the experts that we've had as presenters in the past, and from some of the writing itself, is that Fitzgerald also felt really constricted by Saint Paul, and maybe that sense of what we might think of as the old Saint Paul, perhaps the Catholic upbringing and some of those factors about being from what he describes as the Middle West.

And yet, there is still, as you mentioned, an homage to Fitzgerald. But I think there's a little bit of an homage to that Middle West in his work. And you can see that in The Great Gatsby with the sense at the end of Nick coming back to Saint Paul or reminiscing about that. And there's a fondness there. So I think that there's a fair bit of tension, at least that's in my opinion.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I think a lot of people can relate to that with their hometowns. There's certainly a push pull and things you liked and maybe didn't like. But the reception that the novel got originally, how does it differ from how popular it became after F Scott Fitzgerald's death?

ALAYNE HOPKINS: Yes. It's kind of shocking, because I think if anyone thinks about F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby is the first thing that comes to mind.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: And from what I understand, it was really pretty poorly received when it was published. And Fitzgerald, this was news to me until we started work on this series, actually did a lot of rewriting of the book even after it was published. And there were different iterations in serial magazines and things like that.

And he kept trying different things, supposedly, to make it better, and, in fact, never wrote in the same style again because he had this idea, right, it didn't work. But yet, this is the book that has this kind of perennial appeal now.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And so many of us grew up reading it in school. And there's movies made. It's kind of one of those things that's just a part of the culture. But how do you feel if, in any way, the meaning or the resonance has changed over time?

ALAYNE HOPKINS: I think that the core of what Fitzgerald is looking at in The Great Gatsby, when you think about things like class, and society, materialism, this idea or, perhaps, myth of the American dream, those are such important things that so many different writers also are still addressing 100 years later, and I think still have a kind of resonance for us reading it now. I mean, if we think about maybe some of the heedlessness or recklessness of the '20s before the Great Depression, you think, hmm, maybe some things are happening now in our culture and our society.

We might like to pretend that America is a classless society, but I think we all know that that's not true. And so many people, I think, have to and are thinking about that on a daily basis. And it's certainly something other creative artists cover in their work now, too.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. There are certain books that the themes just resonate forever and ever, it seems. So this event tomorrow, who is going to be behind the microphone? Is this something people could still participate in? Or is that pretty much set.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: We have a number of readers who have already signed up. But people, when they come tomorrow, they would be invited to sign up for some slots that are available. So we anticipate that maybe some of the scheduled readers might not show up.

So there is a little room for people who are coming to listen to say, hey, maybe I want to put my hat in the ring to read a little bit. It'll be truly a community event. We certainly have a number of writers, people who have written on Fitzgerald or on Fitzgerald enthusiasts.

We have the Saint Paul Public Library Director, Maureen Hartman. We have representation from the Saint Paul City Council, organizational partners like Minnesota Historical Society representation and TPT, and then just plenty of readers who are excited about coming and lending their voice to this novel.

NINA MOINI: So the whole idea of your work beyond this day is just to get people excited about their libraries, and those community spaces, and reading. What keeps you going in this work? What do you enjoy the most about this work?

ALAYNE HOPKINS: That is such a hard question to answer.

NINA MOINI: And we only have a minute left.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: Yes. No, exactly. I think when you think about it, libraries are truly the hearts of the community. And that's, in fact, the vision of the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library is a dynamic library at the heart of every community. This is the idea of the third space.

This is where people come together. And we feel very strongly that thinking about stories, and literature, and connecting over those stories is something that brings us all together. And we, then, have all sorts of programming that takes place at the library.

Beyond that and beyond the books, the libraries are so, so vital to, really, I think, everyone's lives right now. And so that keeps us going. And it's really exciting to think about making those connections in the community and having people see the library as the truly vital space that it is.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. Alayne, thank you so much for stopping by and telling us about this exciting event and all the exciting work that you do year round. Thank you.

ALAYNE HOPKINS: Thank you for the opportunity.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. Alayne Hopkins is Senior Director of Programs and Services of the Friends of the Saint Paul Library. You can find a link to events celebrating 100 years of The Great Gatsby on our website, mprnews.org.

What a great show. Thanks to all of our guests for stopping by. Thank you for tuning in. As always, hope to see you back here tomorrow at noon. I'm Nina Moini. Thanks for listening to Minnesota Now.

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