As with the rest of humanity, I've been thinking about Jada & Will Smith.

It's been nagging me that the situation reminds me of something. I thought it was something I had witnessed either in my own life or with a friend. It's neither. I have now realised what it reminds me of.

So:
The Jada/Will Smith entanglement recalls a novel published in 1925, in which a guy falls in love with the girl of his dreams but she's married. She lets him woo her though...until, well, the thing comes to an (un)natural end.

The novel is The Great Gatsby. Jada Pinkett-Smith is Daisy Buchanan; Will is Tom Buchanan; August Alsina is my guy Gatsby, the story's hero, its only tragic hero.

Of course, Will is the one true departure from the novel. He's nothing like the brutish, vulgar husband of Daisy, but they are both from money and in possession of an attractive but fickle wife, who doesn't care heavily about other people's feelings.

But even if she's fickle, Daisy, like her descendant Jada, when, push finally comes to shove, was never going to leave her husband for Jay Gatsby. Jada wasn't ever leaving Will. Everybody else knows. Everybody but the new guy.

That's not how it works for women like Daisy/Jada. Those years mean something and everything else is a distraction, a temporary fix to make her "feel good", despite her husband's shortcomings and whatever sickness the new lover has.

The sickness was some mental illness for August Alsina; for Gatsby, it was insecurity, the abiding sense of potentially been rejected because of his background. August was hurt but he left with his life. Jay Gatsby wasn't so lucky.

F. Scott Fitzgerald knew something about a certain type of woman: For women like Jada or Daisy, everyone but the spouse is an entanglement with an expiry date on their heads. Eventually, you have to leave. That is always the case...even if you are an august visitor. END.