Books

8 of Fiction's Best Fêtes

From Mr. Gatsby to Mr. Bingley, literary characters know how to rage. But where was our invite? Here are some of books' best bashes to get you fired up for the weekend. (But remember, hangovers are non-fiction.)

by Claire Luchette

From Mr. Gatsby to Mr. Bingley, literary characters know how to rage. But where was our invite? Here are some of books' best bashes to get you fired up for the weekend. (But remember, hangovers are non-fiction.)

Gatsby's Saturday Night Parties

Gatsby was always ready to give a party a green light. As Nick Carraway recalls:

"There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before."

Mrs. Ramsay's Dinner Party in 'To the Lighthouse'

What a night! Mrs. Ramsay made sense of chaos and one heck of a boeuf en daube. Here's a moment in which she feels all eternity:

"Everything seemed possible. Everything seemed right. Just now (but this cannot last, she thought, dissociating herself from the moment while they were all talking about boots) just now she had reached security; she hovered like a hawk suspended; like a flag floated in an element of joy which filled every nerve of her body fully and sweetly, not noisily, solemnly rather, for it arose, she thought, looking at them all eating there, from husband and children and friends; all of which rising in this profound stillness (she was helping William Bankes to one very small piece more, and peered into the depths of the earthenware pot) seemed now for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume rising upwards, holding them safe together. Nothing need be said; nothing could be said. There it was, all round them. It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity; as she had already felt about something different once before that afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures."

Plato's 'Symposium'

Agathon's symposium was a smash hit. Those guys really knew how to get silly (while maintaining and discussing their philosophies about love), especially that rascal Alcibiades:

"You seem, my friends, to be sober, which is a thing not to be endured; you must drink — for that was the agreement under which I was admitted — and I elect myself master of the feast until you are well drunk. Let us have a large goblet, Agathon, or rather, he said, addressing the attendant, bring me that wine-cooler. The wine-cooler which had caught his eye was a vessel holding more than two quarts — this he filled and emptied, and bade the attendant fill it again for Socrates."

Wine coolers?! That party's off the hook!

Kiki Holcombe's Cocktail Party

Aristocracy! Howard Roark & Dominique! Cocktails! What an affair:

"Kiki Holcombe surveyed her ballroom with satisfaction. She looked up at the twilight of the ceiling, left untouched above the chandeliers, and she noted how far it was above the guests, how dominant and undisturbed. The huge crowd of guests did not dwarf her hall; it stood over them like a square box of space, grotesquely out of scale; and it was this wasted expanse of air imprisoned above them that gave the occasion an aspect of regal luxury; it was like the lid of a jewel case, unnecessarily large over a flat bottom holding a single small gem."

'Claudia's Big Party'

Claudia's parents are away for the weekend, and you know what that means. No one parties harder than the Baby-Sitters Club: they have pizza and cookies. Claudia learns what happens when you mix 7th grade school pals with 8th grade baby-sitting ladies: CALAMITY! A vase is broken, along with several hearts.

"'I thought there were going to be fourteen people here, Janine said quietly to me. 'I count twenty and with me, twenty-one.'"

Prince Prospero's Masquerade

In Poe's really tragic and quite horrifying story "The Masque of the Red Death," Prince Prospero throws a huge party while disease rages on its own throughout the country. But because you shouldn't celebrate while your people are suffering and because parties are the best places to get consumption (ha), everyone gets sick and dies anyway. Still, the masquerade sounds pretty delightful before the Red Death showed up:

"The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the 'Red Death.'"

The Mad Tea Party

While the little brat Alice thought it was the "stupidest tea-party" she'd ever been to, the Mad Hatter's tea party sounds like a real trip.

"'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. 'I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily."

Mushroom nibbling and riddles ensue! How is a raven like a writing-desk? The world will never know.

Netherfield Ball

A night of Mr. Collins being Mr. Collins and Mary playing and singing what seems like the 19th century equivalent of Billy Joel ballads at the piano — not to mention Elizabeth and Darcy's first dance! Oh, to be a flea on a waitress at that ball!

"To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success."

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