Among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars movie#

Scott FitzgeraldвЂ™s classic, The Great Gatsby, which was adapted as a movie in 2013, starring Leonard DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, the pool is part of lonely nouveau riche GatsbyвЂ™s ostentatious life-style.

Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. This was at the edge of the WesterhazyвЂ™s pool. вЂњIt must have been the wine,вЂќ said Helen Westerhazy. вЂњWe all drank too much,вЂќ said Lucinda Merrill. вЂњI drank too much,вЂќ said Donald Westerhazy. It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, вЂњI drank too much last night.вЂќ You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church, heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in the vestiarium, heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve where the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. (You can read the whole story at the Library of America website.) Vivid and suburban, CheeverвЂ™s writing hooks you from the first sentence. Along the way he crashes pool parties and meets interesting, difficult people. After drinking a lot of gin, he begins a journey swimming through all the neighborhood pools, planning eventually to circle back home. In John CheeverвЂ™s well-known short story, вЂњThe Swimmer,вЂќ which was made into an excellent film with Burt Lancaster in 1968, Neddy Merrill attends a pool party. Anyway, glamorous aspiring actors and actresses drink cocktails and mingle charmingly with the well-known guests, hoping to meet the pool owner вЂ“ a director or producer.ДЄnd so I began to wonder: What happens at pool parties in literature? Well, mostly drinking. I canвЂ™t remember the names of any of these films, so perhaps I read these scenes in some novel. I vaguely remember pool party scenes in movies set in Hollywood. My experience with pool parties is strictly cinematic and literary. And I must say, the pool parties are obnoxious. For fun my friend looks up city ordinances about pools. They play their music so loudly that the foundations of all the houses in the neighborhood shake. According to my friend, the neighborsвЂ™ pool parties are so Dionysian that Jay GatsbyвЂ™s wild parties seem tame. And that was the first time I heard the phrase outside of a Henry James novel.Д«ut the nouveau riche вЂ“ whoever they may be вЂ“ have occupied our backwater. The more sophisticated, experienced teachers criticized the studentsвЂ™ parentsвЂ™ nouveau riche life-style, of which I was oblivious. Indeed, I havenвЂ™t heard the phrase nouveau riche since I taught at a fancy private school. She claims that the young pool owners are вЂњtacky nouveau riche riffraff.вЂќ But my friend Cassandra has gone insane about her neighborsвЂ™ swimming pool, on the patio of which she expects Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin to break out singing and dancing. Private pools have not caught on in flyover country, even with global warming.

According to several websites, the accuracy of which I donвЂ™t vouch for, there are 10.4 million private pools in the U.S., and 40 percent are in California and Florida. That may have changed in our backwater in the last fifteen or twenty years. Private pools are for people in Hollywood, we used to think. If you live in a northern town or city, you will see few private swimming pools.