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I read about 1/4 of this book for school then got lazy and never finished it. I enjoyed what I did read though. Maybe I’ll come back to it some day lol
There was music from my neighbour’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.
2023 review: I take it back, I
do understand why this is a classic: because it’s taught in schools: and it’s taught in schools because it’s short, easy to read, subtle as being hit upside the head, and empty enough to invite endless speculation about the characters. There is no subtext, no nuance, no depth. It’s a soap opera with paper-thin players who do not change and do not intrigue because there is nothing
there to start with.
On rereading, I actually liked
The Great Gatsby much more than I did the first time, hence the three-star rating (up from two stars). Fitzgerald’s prose is crystal clear, and he imbues such movement and color in each scene that it’s easy to get swept up in the atmosphere. And what an atmosphere it is! Be it a garage in the ash-heaps or a sweltering hotel room or each bombastic party overflowing with champagne and light, each setting has a tangibility to it that not many writers accomplish. (I am less enchanted by Fitzgerald’s many aphorisms, which try to add depth and a degree of profundity that the novel otherwise can’t support.)
However: while I liked reading it more this time, I am also more solidly convinced that it is not a good novel. Because atmosphere aside, unfortunately, there are the characters. Nick and Jordan are the only two interesting people because they are the only ones who retain some mystery, whose backstories aren’t dully recounted beat-for-beat, who aren’t explained into two dimensions. The rest are completely flat: Tom is the brute, Gatsby the lovesick puppy, Daisy the indecisive beaten-down wife. Daisy is, in fact, the actual worst of the lot: I don’t believe she ever said
“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” or
“It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” or
“You always look so cool” or any of the numerous other ridiculous little pieces of nonsense that no real person would ever say in that context. Because Daisy is not a real person. None of them are.
I’ve tried it twice now. It’s so short and insubstantial that, who knows, maybe in a decade I’ll try it again to see what I missed. But for the foreseeable future, color me unimpressed.
Some favorite passages:
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew.
A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
“Anyhow, he gives large parties,” said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”
“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”
An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in.
outside Gatsby’s window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the Sound.
that voice was a deathless song.
A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.
“She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of—” I hesitated. “Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it …
Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.
It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.
Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.
He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about … like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made …
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further …
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
2020 review: 2 stars
I don't understand why this is considered a classic.
Fitzgerald's prose is beautiful at times, there's no denying that, and his scenes are wonderfully atmospheric: I loved reading his glamorous descriptions of the parties at Gatsby's mansion, from the overall ambiance down to the littlest details like the woman in the yellow dress crying while playing the piano.
Unfortunately, the characters were one-dimensional and horrifically dull (an amazing accomplishment given all the scandal).
Why does Gatsby love Daisy? Because he does. Why does Daisy love Gatsby? Because she does. Why does Nick love Jordan? Because he does. Why does Tom care about Daisy? Because he does. Why does Tom have an affair with Myrtle? Because he does. Why does Daisy decide to stay with Tom? Because she does.
These questions should have been the heart and soul of this story, but instead Fitzgerald left them unaddressed.
There's no real plot, no sense of urgency, no real stakes. At no point did I feel invested in anything that was happening, and, as a result, this novel had zero emotional impact on me. In a word, this novel was vapid.
At least it was short.
This is an older rating; my current rating and reviews may be found at
this edition.
Not my favorite classic out there, but I'm all for the disillusionment of the American Dream
This novel is tedious, and some of the characters are insipid, but it has its merits. It's a classic, and does a good job of illustrating the failings of the 'American Dream'. I think F. Scott Fitzgerald is a tad overrated, and would certainly not do as well in the literary market if he were competing today. However, The Great Gatsby is an interesting read nonetheless, and deserves a try.
One of the best written books in 20th century America. It's unfortunate the way it's taught in high school -- they manage to scrape all the fun out of it.
I didn’t enjoy the plot :(
An exquisitely woven story of betrayed love and shadowy protagonists. Enjoyable to read from beginning to end. Every time I read about Gatsby and Daisie, I feel like crying because of how complicated their love is. A timeless work that you should definitely read:)
Reading the book again did not diminish my appreciation for it. It ranks up there among the best books I've ever read.
A scathing dissection of the American Dream. One of the best novels ever written in the United States; definitely the best American book of the twentieth century