Why did they read 'The Great Gatsby' at the royal wedding?



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Photo: VICTORIA JONES / AFP / Getty Images

For those of you who have gone to high school and read a book during your stay, you will probably remember F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby the magnificent – this mythical legend of the jazz age about greed, unrequited love and the futility of the American dream. It is a singular choice to be read at a wedding, especially the royal wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank. But on Friday morning, Princess Beatrice, the bride's sister and bridesmaid, stepped onto the podium to read aloud an excerpt from the novel, in which narrator Nick Carraway describes the lure of swindler Jay Gatsby's smile. :

"He smiled with understanding – much more than understanding. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal assurance that you could meet four or five times in life. He faced – or seemed to be facing – everyone eternal for a moment, then focused on you with an irresistible bias in your favor. He understood you as much as you wanted to be understood, believed in yourself as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it gave you the precise impression that, at best, you were hoping to convey. At that precise moment, he disappeared – and I was looking at an elegant young man with a rough neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate form of speech had just been absurd. Some time before his presentation, I had the strong impression that he was taking his words carefully. "

Although the choice of the extract probably raised eyebrows, a prospectus handed to the marriage provided an explanation. Apparently, Eugenie read Gatsby the magnificent shortly after meeting Jack, and this passage reminded him of him. "The words that particularly reminded him of Jack relate to Gatsby's smile," reads the note, referring to Fitzgerald's description that "one of those rare smiles" was focusing on you with irresistible prejudice in your favor.

"Well, a few years have passed and Eugenie and Jack come here today to smile. One and the other, and to offer One and the other something like "eternal reassurance" and the promise of "irresistible prejudice" in favor of the other, "he continues.

Hopefully their fate will be better than that of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.

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