"So We Drove On toward Death through the Cooling Twilight"
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The main story -- a romantic man's doomed attempt to recapture the love of an immature woman -- was less enthralling than expected. Daisy seemed hardly worth all the trouble Gatsby took, and for that matter, neither did entry into her world. She was a cipher. The use of a narrator to connect the various characters was interesting; how could the book have been written otherwise? But at times the plot felt contrived, as with the switching of cars and an accident, and the symbolism around the valley of ashes seemed heavy-handed. Other than the passive narrator, the people lacked even a small degree of self-awareness. (One of the author's points, I assume.) The character who seemed the least conflicted and most sure of himself throughout was the brutal, self-centered Tom.
It was the lesser details in this novel that were enjoyed most. A montage at the end of the second chapter in which the drunken narrator moved from an elevator, to a bedroom, to Penn Station. The effect Gatsby's smile had on those who saw it. A mansion housing a library of books with their pages uncut. The vapidity of a man who tried to act out his limited idea of the good life but had little of interest to say and thought San Francisco was in the Middle West. Dogged efforts at self-improvement linked to shallow goals. A shady character eating with "ferocious delicacy." The way Daisy conveyed her love for a character in just a few words said lightly in front of her husband. The class disdain someone like Tom felt for the main character -- he couldn't be an Oxford man because he wore a pink suit. The gust of hot shrubbery from Central Park wafting through the upper windows of the Plaza Hotel. The author's description of how it felt to reach 30. And the concluding paragraphs, which can still move despite the superficiality of the people portrayed.
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re: ageist reader of The Great Gatsby
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reply to "I am not anti-kids or anti-teens. But high school students need constantly to remind themselves that they are not experienced readers"
i was quite offended by the generalisations, ageism and supposed wordly authority of "reader" towards "high schoolers", or should i say presumptuous oafs? I have no doubt that there are some who do not appreciate the novel, but this is not a matter of age, it is a matter of literary understanding across the board. Writing "great novels" in CAPITAL LETTERS does not secure your literary prowess, it makes you look like a fool. Wow, you've read mainstream "great novels", how wonderful for you.
I'm in the middle of writing a reveiw on "Reading Lolita in Tehran," and discussing whether Gatsby is a hero or simply in love with an illusion inevitably corrupted by the American dream. Whether he fits the classificatioins of an anti-hero or aristotles tragic hero or both. a paragraph goes something like this, from memory. Fitzgerlad drew on NEITZCHE (reaffirming my understanding with capitals isnt) "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." After all, if the world is absurd, and everything we do is absurd anyway, why not do the most absurd thing imaginable? And what could be more absurd than to fall in love with an illusion? Blaise Pascal said, "The heart has reasons that the mind cannot understand"; but really, if the heart has reasons, then, indeed, there are reasons, and the world is not an such an absurd place to Gatsby. no? Nietzsche's ideals found a home in the new turn-of-the-century. For the self made man, the American dream became one where `Morality' (wonderful concept you should explore by the way) became a secondary consideration to the celebration of life carried on by the new rich."
I'm even tackling Existentialism. Gatsby is free because all his own values flow from his own will. He invests value as a matter of decision, a matter of will. Dealing with the absence of God that implies the loss of value.
But hey? What do i know? I'm only 17 and clearly then, have no literary ability whatsoever and everything i say should be discredited? Right? Literature and the arts in general are so amazing because they touch an audience across the board. Remember that.
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The social life of the rich in the Jazz Age
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Gatsby was a bootlegger and a penny stock hustler. He was "great" only in a delusive sense. Thus the title of Fitzgerald's celebrated novel is ironic, and that is something to keep in mind when reading it.
But Gatsby is seen as a step above the tony East Egg society that lived in their plush estates across the Long Island sound from his nouveau riche mansion--at least that is the revelation that narrator Nick Carraway eventually comes to as we learn from his famous line, "They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole dam bunch put together."
It is ironic and proper that Daisy Buchanan, the wispy, languid and privileged beauty escapes blame for the tragedy near the end of the novel. It is her class that had always escaped blame, that had always lived on in its narrow-minded, greedy luxury. We can see their class--the Buchanans and their crowd--as Eloi-like children of the robber barons. Although Gatsby was dishonest and a criminal at least he had some gumption. And in the end we see he had some sense of integrity and courage as well.
He is "great" then as compared to the listless, privileged people who had inherited much of the vast wealth that this young nation had accumulated during the westward expansion following the Civil War. Gatsby's failing and the failure in general of the rich was that they knew not what to do with their leisure and privilege. Gatsby threw lavish parties and affected an air of mystery while the Buchanans indulged in racist and class war philosophies while they pursued adulterous affairs and the mind-numbing qualities of drunkenness.
When I first read this as a young man I thought it was a rather mediocre novel. The infidelities that so drove the story were commonplace to me at a time past mid-century, and I really missed the deep irony that Fitzgerald intended. The Great Gatsby was not "great," that much was obvious; but that he was great relative to the Buchanan crowd was what I missed. He serves not only as the "up from poverty" character so often seen in Jazz Age and depression novels, but he is a more deeply realized character. Not a brutal man like most bootleg operatives, instead he is almost a dilettante bootlegger, yet a hugely successful one, so much so that hardly any of the details of his business now occupy him; indeed one of the reasons that I mistook his character upon a first reading is that the actual reality of the lifestyle of those who fed the speakeasies is not in the novel. Fitzgerald was more interested in the social life of the degenerates and how they looked upon social climbers like Jay Gatsby.
Nick the modest narrator is in-between. An educated man of the upper middle class, a graduate of Yale, he represents the objectifying device in the novel. We see everything through his eyes and through his sensibilities. Initially in ambivalent admiration of both his cousin Daisy and Gatsby, Nick eventually becomes disillusioned with their differing but shallow lifestyles and their shallow values while he comes to realize that while Gatsby is a cut above, he is still a man with a tragically limited vision.
In short, The Great Gatsby is an indictment of the Jazz Age and its easy money mentality with attendant moral corruption. Perhaps this is why it did not sell well when it was published in 1925--the jazz agers were not interested in self-portraits--but now has become a stable of American literature, and certainly Fitzgerald's most read and most celebrated novel.
Fitzgerald the man may have borne witness to the excesses of the Roaring Twenties but he did not learn its lessons. He died young in Hollywood in 1940 of a heart attack, an alcoholic trying to write pot boilers for magazines and scripts for B movies. The tragedy of Jay Gatsby in some strange way may have foreshadowed the tragedy of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
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A rich story
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"The Great Gatsby" is one of the most exquisite books I have ever read to date that deals with most if not all aspects of love and the challenges of life. There is so much to learn especially for us in this modern world where so many people use the word "love" without really knowing what it truly means. The author is so descriptive that I sometimes felt as if I was in the story. He made it easy for readers to penetrate the souls of the characters and relate to their lives.
The character development is prodigious, while prose is outstanding. I felt as much for Gatsby as I have for any other character. He had always had high aspirations, but his dreams were taken away from him by the fact the he had to fight a war, and he could never be the same again. Gatsby's ambition is to have his former love, who is now married to an unfaithful husband, a quest that saw outstanding twist and turns in the story to make it the great read we have heard so much about. This book is truly inspirational for everyone irrespective of race, gender, age or occupation.
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A beautiful book
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I'm 15, and just finished The Great Gatsby for the second time. I didn't read it because of an English class or because I had to - it was entirely by choice I picked up a copy, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What struck me is how subtle the story is - on reading it the first time, I was left under-whelmed, but after returning to it again a few months later I can genuinely see why everyone loves it. It's lovely, descriptive narrative brings to life the sights and sounds of 'The Roaring Twenties' a story that exposes the materialistic and corrupt heart at the centre of the glittering 'jazz age'. Gatsby, Daisy and Tom are all flawed but fascinating characters - beautiful, wealthy and popular, but also superficial, cruel and greedy. Intriguing, certainly, likable, no. All in all, an interesting, poignant read, that I would recommend to my friends.
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