The Great Gatsby
THE GREAT GATSBY (F. Scott Fitzgerald) - Four Stars
I had originally read The Great Gatsby in high school. Now, some fifteen or so years later, I decided to sit down and reread the novel—because I wanted to, not because I had to. I understand, now, why I remembered so little of the book from my high school years.
The Great Gatsby is deceptively simple to an enormous extent. Despite being less than 200 pages and superficially a rather simple love story, I would consider it more of a college-level book in the analysis of all the symbols and meanings. Certainly, my teenage self missed quite a lot the first time through (or, perhaps, I have just forgotten it over the years). Amongst the things that really stood out to me this time...
(1) The drunken revelry. A little too young to fully understand it the first time I read the novel, Fitzgerald quite amusingly details the drunkenness at these high society parties. It's probably because he was an alcoholic himself, but Fitzgerald's portrayal of social inebriation is spot-on in the book.
(2) The sociology of wealth. The "class battles" between "new rich" and "old wealth" in The Great Gatsby, but I was rather intrigued at how much of a rebuke the novel was against pointless wealth in general. Far from being a new idea in the Reaganomics-era, Fitzgerald in the 1920s makes some astute and disapproving comments about the general soullessness vast amounts of money can bring to people ("new rich" or "old wealth") who are incapable of utilizing it productively (Gatsby's largesse, the Buchanan's general aloofness, etc.).
(3) Gatsby's character and how it pertains to the title. The title, The Great Gatsby, is almost sarcastic: one feels the word "Great" should have quotation marks around it. How is he great, and to whom? Gatsby is a wonderfully paradoxical character. He was a war hero in WWI and performed many acts of valor, but barely seems proud of any of that. He is, at heart one believes, a generally good person, but he had no compunction in making his fortune in illicit activities like bootlegging (and maybe more: the fact that his name is a play on "gat"/gun is not coincidental). And, of course, the entire goal for amassing his fortune: Daisy Buchanan (or rather, Gatsby's idealized memory of Daisy Buchanan)—an "old wealth" girl from Kentucky that Gatsby is obsessed with and certain that the only way he can impress her/win her heart is with wealth (in one of the many, many cynical observations made in the book, Gatsby is mostly correct in this regard). And yet, his love and loyalty to Daisy remains so absolute (even after she spurns him) that he takes the blame for a vehicular manslaughter that was her fault.
(4) The enormity of the shallowness most of the characters possess. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are the only two characters in the novel that seem to possess any wide-range of feeling. Daisy, the girl Gatsby is infatuated with, is actually a shockingly soulless and cold individual (name one scene in the novel, apart from the climatic confrontation between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby in the New York City hotel room, where Daisy displays any "true" emotion; there isn't one, for all her emotion is portrayed as just a "show" for social purposes, like jewelry). After the aforementioned vehicular manslaughter, after running over and killing someone (I won't spoil who, but it certainly didn't seem "accidental" to me), Daisy lets Gatsby take the blame for it and goes on vacation. Even Nick's slight love affair with Jordan dissolves due to Nick's disgust at these shallow, idle rich people.
But possibly my favorite part of The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's skewering of American society's obsession with symbols and symbolism. His points on the general uselessness of symbols in the characters lives, and the fact those symbols only hold the individual meaning each person gives to them resonated greatly with me. America is and always has been a fairly jingoistic society with an unhealthy obsession with symbolism (as evidenced by the thousands of "patriotic" jackasses willing to beat the shit out of you for burning a woven piece of fabric with fifty white stars on a blue background and thirteen red and white stripes). Perhaps the best part came at the end, when the faded billboard eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are revealed to be the condemning eyes of God (but only to a grief-mad, broken down, suicidal man).
I had originally read The Great Gatsby in high school. Now, some fifteen or so years later, I decided to sit down and reread the novel—because I wanted to, not because I had to. I understand, now, why I remembered so little of the book from my high school years.
The Great Gatsby is deceptively simple to an enormous extent. Despite being less than 200 pages and superficially a rather simple love story, I would consider it more of a college-level book in the analysis of all the symbols and meanings. Certainly, my teenage self missed quite a lot the first time through (or, perhaps, I have just forgotten it over the years). Amongst the things that really stood out to me this time...
(1) The drunken revelry. A little too young to fully understand it the first time I read the novel, Fitzgerald quite amusingly details the drunkenness at these high society parties. It's probably because he was an alcoholic himself, but Fitzgerald's portrayal of social inebriation is spot-on in the book.
(2) The sociology of wealth. The "class battles" between "new rich" and "old wealth" in The Great Gatsby, but I was rather intrigued at how much of a rebuke the novel was against pointless wealth in general. Far from being a new idea in the Reaganomics-era, Fitzgerald in the 1920s makes some astute and disapproving comments about the general soullessness vast amounts of money can bring to people ("new rich" or "old wealth") who are incapable of utilizing it productively (Gatsby's largesse, the Buchanan's general aloofness, etc.).
(3) Gatsby's character and how it pertains to the title. The title, The Great Gatsby, is almost sarcastic: one feels the word "Great" should have quotation marks around it. How is he great, and to whom? Gatsby is a wonderfully paradoxical character. He was a war hero in WWI and performed many acts of valor, but barely seems proud of any of that. He is, at heart one believes, a generally good person, but he had no compunction in making his fortune in illicit activities like bootlegging (and maybe more: the fact that his name is a play on "gat"/gun is not coincidental). And, of course, the entire goal for amassing his fortune: Daisy Buchanan (or rather, Gatsby's idealized memory of Daisy Buchanan)—an "old wealth" girl from Kentucky that Gatsby is obsessed with and certain that the only way he can impress her/win her heart is with wealth (in one of the many, many cynical observations made in the book, Gatsby is mostly correct in this regard). And yet, his love and loyalty to Daisy remains so absolute (even after she spurns him) that he takes the blame for a vehicular manslaughter that was her fault.
(4) The enormity of the shallowness most of the characters possess. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are the only two characters in the novel that seem to possess any wide-range of feeling. Daisy, the girl Gatsby is infatuated with, is actually a shockingly soulless and cold individual (name one scene in the novel, apart from the climatic confrontation between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby in the New York City hotel room, where Daisy displays any "true" emotion; there isn't one, for all her emotion is portrayed as just a "show" for social purposes, like jewelry). After the aforementioned vehicular manslaughter, after running over and killing someone (I won't spoil who, but it certainly didn't seem "accidental" to me), Daisy lets Gatsby take the blame for it and goes on vacation. Even Nick's slight love affair with Jordan dissolves due to Nick's disgust at these shallow, idle rich people.
But possibly my favorite part of The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's skewering of American society's obsession with symbols and symbolism. His points on the general uselessness of symbols in the characters lives, and the fact those symbols only hold the individual meaning each person gives to them resonated greatly with me. America is and always has been a fairly jingoistic society with an unhealthy obsession with symbolism (as evidenced by the thousands of "patriotic" jackasses willing to beat the shit out of you for burning a woven piece of fabric with fifty white stars on a blue background and thirteen red and white stripes). Perhaps the best part came at the end, when the faded billboard eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are revealed to be the condemning eyes of God (but only to a grief-mad, broken down, suicidal man).
posted by Kevin at 2:56 PM
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