NRC Reading Club Live: The Great Gatsby

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A tradition at the Writers Unlimited festival. This time the Reading Club tackles F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. A classic novel in which the American Dream and other possible dreams occupy the minds of those in it. Pieter Steinz, Elsbeth Etty, Bas Heijne and Gustaaf Peek discuss the novel with each other and with readers. The Great Gatsby (1925) is invariably mentioned the most important candidate for the title Great American Novel. Deservedly, because the story of the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby, who cannot seem to escape his (shadowy) past, is more than just a clever version of the pursuit of the American Dream. It is also the account of an unequal friendship (between Gatsby and his neighbour on Long Island, the hopelessly naïve first person narrator Nick Carraway), as well as a Shakespearean tragedy about envy and broken illusions. Right now director Baz Luhrman (Moulin Rouge) is filming The Great Gatsby, with Leonardo Di Caprio in the role of Jay Gatsby. NRC editors Elsbeth Etty, Bas Heijne and Gustaaf Peek discuss with each other and with readers. Host: Pieter Steinz, editor of the NRC Handelsblad book pages. In Dutch.

Information

Date and time Saturday 21 January 2012 from 14:00 to 16:30 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui - grote zaal

Line-up

Pieter Steinz

(Rotterdam 1963 - Haarlem 2016) in 2010 published Grote Verwachtingen. Opgroeien in de letteren in 25 schema’s (Great Expectations. Growing up in Literature in 25 Charts). He did the same in Luisteren & cetera, (Listening etc) about 25 1970s pop albums. Somewhat earlier Macbet heeft echt geleefd (Macbeth Really Existed) appeared, on places where literary heroes used to live. In Verleden in verf (Past in Paint, 2011), Steinz sketches Dutch history in forty paintings. Steinz became an art editor with NRC Handelsblad in 1989. From 2005-2011 he headed the bookpages of that paper. Steinz studied ancient history and English. Earlier he wrote, among other books, Klein ABC van de wereldliteratuur (Concise ABC of world literature; 2008), Het web van de wereldliteratuur (The World Literature Web; 2007) and Lezen op locatie (Reading on Location; 2003), sixty maps on which he identifies where masterpieces of literature are set. In 2010 he published De Duivelskunstenaar (The wizard), a journey through Europe in search of Faust. Since 2012 Steinz has been head of the Dutch Literary Fund. He died in august 2016.
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Bas Heijne

(Nijmegen, NL, 1960) writes essays, short stories and plays, and is a columnist with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He published the novels Laatste woorden (Last words) and Suez and received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize in 2005. In 2011's Moeten wij van elkaar houden, het populisme ontleed (Do We Have to Love One Another? Populism Dissected) Heijne shows how globalisation and individualism pave the way for populism. Angst en schoonheid (Fear and Beauty) was published in 2013, an essay about Dutch writer Louis Couperus, whom Heijne admires. In the same year his documentary about Couperus was broadcast. In 2015 he hosted the five-part documentary De volmaakte mens (The Perfect Human). In 2016 his essay Onbehagen – nieuw licht op de beschaafde mens (Discontent - new light on civilized man) was published. In 2017 Heijne received the P.C. Hooft Award for his essayistic works.
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Elsbeth Etty

(Hulshorst, NL, 1951) received the Anne Vondeling Award for political journalism in 2008, owing to her sharp analyses of social problems. She is a journalist in the widest sense of the word. Besides being an editor and columnist with the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, she makes frequent appearances on radio and TV. In 2007 she debuted as a novelist with Maak jezelf maar klaar (Go Get Yourself Off), in which one of the characters from Harry Mulisch's The Discovery of Heaven figures as a main character. Etty obtained her Ph.D. with distinction from Utrecht University with a biography of Henriëtte Roland Holst, Liefde is heel het leven niet (Love Is Not All of Life, 1996). Her newspaper columns appeared in four different books. Her reviews were compiled in Dames gaan voor - Van Hella Haasse to Connie Palmen (Ladies First: From Hella Haasse to Connie Palmen, 1999). Etty is a special lecturer in Literary Criticism at the Free University in Amsterdam, and is now at work on a biography of the late Dutch poet and songwriter Willem Wilmink.
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Gustaaf Peek

(The Netherlands, 1975) is a writer of novels, poems, stories, essays, and screenplays. His work is characterized by the compelling way in which he brings characters involved in historical injustices to life. His debut novel Armin (2008) is about children adrift after World War II. In Ik was Amerika (I Was America, 2010), a Dutch prisoner of war in World War II befriends a farm worker in a camp in the US. Decades later, he seeks him out again. Peek received the BNG Literature Prize and the F. Bordewijk Prize for this work. Godin, held (Goddess, Hero, 2014) is a candid novel about the mysterious and all-too-human nature of love. In his pamphlet Verzet! Pleidooi voor communisme (Resistance! A Plea for Communism, 2015), he undermines decades of capitalist indoctrination. His novel A.D. (2021) tells about the events and hardships aboard one of the first seaships in the 16th century to present-day Indonesia and the arrival there. In 2025, his poetry collection Orang/oetan was published.
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