Forbes to host $20K Gatsby festivities

Forbes College will spend about $20,000 this spring to throw an extravagant party based on the novel "The Great Gatsby," which is more than triple the cost of previous celebrations the residential colleges have sponsored.

"It's going to be big. It's going to be grandiose," Forbes College Council chair Robert Sobieski '10 said. "We're still deciding on many of the most important factors, but one thing's for sure — it's going to be grandiose and awesome. I know that's saying the same thing twice, but that's how great it's going to be."

Early ideas for the party closely replicate themes from the classic 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald '17. They include a 1920s car show, a green light on one side of a pond at Forbes — a reference to the famous green light at the end of the dock in the novel — and a billboard with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckelburg, mimicking a giant advertisement that appears in the book.

Newly appointed Forbes Director of Student Life Lesley Nye will oversee the gala, most of the funding for which will come from Forbes' budget. The Gatsby party is not expected to take away funding from other Forbes events, Sobieski said.

Widely considered Fitzgerald's masterpiece and a staple of high school reading lists, "Gatsby" portrays the narcissistic decadence of the Jazz Age. The novel's themes include ambition, greed and conflicts between the moneyed aristocracy and the nouveau rich. Jay Gatsby, the novel's main character, throws frequent and elaborate parties, complete with lavish feasts and flowing wine. His house, where the celebrations take place, features a Rolls-Royce and a fountain.

Even though the college council has not yet held its first planning meeting for the event — which, unlike Gatsby's parties, will be alcohol-free — the theme has already sparked interest among students and inspired a few literary allusions.

"If freshmen could have cars, I'd definitely go and crash it," David Tsao '11 said, referring to a careless accident that happens in the novel.

"Absolutely I'd show up," David Letourneau '11 said. "It sounds really expensive and high class," he added, lampooning the empty materialism portrayed in the novel.

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Sobieski said there is a "95 percent chance" that the party will be a formal.

The idea for a large-scale Forbes event arose out of Forbes College Master Christian Wildberg's experiences as an undergraduate at Cambridge, where he attended elaborate end-of-year formal parties known as May Balls. Wildberg was unavailable for comment.

Forbes College Council member Raaj Mehta '10 said the party is intended to be both a memorable experience and a way to make up for the possible disadvantages of being a Forbesian. The event will "overshadow living in the addition or so far from campus," he said. Both Forbes residents and nonresidents will be invited to the bash.

Sobieski said he and Roscoe Cafaro '09, a former Forbes resident, thought up the Gatsby theme last spring while examining an old bar that was used to serve drinks when Forbes was known as the Princeton Inn. Its decor and atmosphere seemed like "exactly the type of environment Fitzgerald was thinking about" when he was writing "Gatsby," Sobieski said. Soon afterwards, they suggested the theme at Tea and Talk, a weekly meeting with Forbes staff and students.

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"It's really going to help Forbes keep selling its image as the 'country club' college," Mehta said.

Last week, Forbes held a smaller Gatsby-themed party complete with virgin daiquiris, waiters serving hors d'oeuvres and red-and-white flower bouquets to gauge interest for a larger event. Turnout numbered in the hundreds, and "people loved it," Mehta said.