I never read The Great Gatsby when I was in school and afterwards as the years went by I kept putting it off. Something about the plot didn't grab me and now having finally read The Great Gatsby I can't say I loved the book but I have been left with many questions and the realization that one reading is not enough.
Is this a novel for example about the decadence of the Jazz Age? Are Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan stand ins for F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald? Is Gatsby a cautionary tale about the American Dream and what is meant by the American Dream? Does the age at which you read The Great Gatsby and the era you are living through matter? I would say yes to all of these questions. There are multiple meanings to take from this book.
And so when The Great Gatsby begins it is 1922 The novel is set on Long Island and New York City and narrated by Nick Carraway. Nick is from the Midwest. He's also a Yale graduate and a World War I Vet who is working in the bond business in New York. Nick lives in a modest house in West Egg, a nouveau rich part of Long Island that is looked down upon by East Egg, the town across the river. Nick's neighbor is the very wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lives in a beautiful mansion and almost every night he throws fabulous parties. The guests show up in their finery and dance and drink the night away. Jay Gatsby is the host but no one sees him at these parties and there is all sorts of speculation about where he came from and how he makes his money.
Shortly after Nick moves next door he receives an invitation from Gatsby to attend one of his parties. Nick accepts and is stunned by Gatsby's estate and the excess he sees around him. He also meets an attractive young woman named Jordan Baker at the party. Jordan is a professional golfer with a cynical personality that Nick falls for and it will be at this party that Nick also meets Jay Gatsby. The two men talk about heir recent service in World War I but Gatsby has a reason for wanting to be Nick's friend. Gatsby knows that Nick is a distant cousin of Daisy Buchanan who lives across the river in more fashionable East Egg and Gatsby has been obsessed with the beautiful Daisy for years.
Like Nick, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are also originally from the Midwest but from different classes. Daisy comes from a prominent family and Jay Gatsby (Jimmy Gatz) is the son of a poor farmer. Normally these two would never have met but five years ago a handsome young Jay Gatsby was in uniform stationed in Daisy's home town and they fell in love. The courtship was cut short when Gatsby went overseas to serve in World War I and Daisy ended up marrying the wealthy Tom Buchanan. It's not a happy marriage. Tom cheats on Daisy, beats up his mistress and he's a racist and a bully. As for Daisy despite her beauty and her flirtatious charming exterior she is silly, vain and selfish.
Jay Gatsby meanwhile has been spending the last five years pining for Daisy. He has remade himself, grown rich through bootlegging and he's moved to West Egg determined to win Daisy back. Nick is called upon by Gatsby to facilitate the reunion. Gatsby is sure that Daisy never loved Tom and that he can win her back and finally have the life he's always dreamed of and I won't go any further in the story except to say that it ends in tragedy.
This isn't a book filled with likeable characters and as bad as Tom Buchanan is, Daisy doesn't prove herself to be a decent person either. Quite the contary and so if you ask yourself what Gatsby sees in Daisy, it's actually what she represents. Jimmy Gatz (Jay Gatsby) the poor boy remaking himself by winning over the beautiful girl from a prominent family is at the core of this book. It doesn't matter where you come from in other words. If you have determination you can rise high and your past and your class won't matter and I suppose that is at the center of what has come to be known as the American Dream.
But I think to read The Great Gatsby in the 1920's is different than reading it now because back in the 1920's the public was fascinated by the rich and famous to an extent I am not sure we are today. Maybe we are still fascinated but the awe is gone. Movie stars for example are not the Gods and Goddesses they once were during the silent film era. I think New York has changed too. It's still a great city but the way F. Scott Fitzgerald experienced it, coming from the Midwest a successful young author and his beautiful wife, it must have seemed like a magical city with every door opened to this golden couple.
But The Great Gatsby continues to have relevance today best expressed I think by Azar Nafisi in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran: "It shows how dreams can be tainted by reality and that if you don't compromise you may suffer". I think that's a universal truth that never goes out of fashion.
The Great Gatsby is book twelve on my Back to the Classics Challenge list fulfilling the category - choose a classic with a name in the title.
There are a lot of classics that I did not read until later in life. I think that I probably first read The Great Gatsby in my 30s.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is correct that much Of what goes on in the book is representative of America. On the other hand, I would be curious to hear if non Americans thought that some of it is more universal.
Hi Brian, The American Dream which as I understand is the belief that you can come from anywhere and with hard work and ambition be whatever you want to be is I think at the core of our mythology and at the center of this book. But today with college tuition being affordable and healthcare precarious and people not being paid a living wage its very hard to rise up from where you start. The universal part though is that everyone has dreams growing up but as Azar Nafisi says, one's dreams have to have a certain amount of reality and compromise baked in or like Jay Gatsby you could be headed for destruction.
DeleteCoincidentally (or serendipitously?), I was looking at this book in a catalog last night and wondering if I should buy it, which is really a no-brainer because it is on my classics list. I think I must have read The Great Gatsby when I was in college (in the early 1970s) because I was very interested in his wife Zelda, and that must have grown out of reading Fitzgerald's books. But I remember nothing, and I look forward to reading it. Your review is very useful because it tackles the difference between reading it when it first came out and now, much later. I do hope I get to it in 2021.
ReplyDeleteHi Tracy, I can't say I loved it but it is a great classic and agree with you about Zelda. I have been fascinated by her since Nancy Mitford's biography came out many years ago. Looking at her life it seems clear that had Zelda been born today her artistic talents and ambition would have been respected and also there would have been new and better medications to treat her mental illness. Tragically she lived during a time that wasn't ready for her.
DeleteThis was one of the books I had to read for high school English that I actually liked. I think it's because I like the way Fitzgerald writes. And because I didn't have to write a paper about its symbolism. ;D I don't know if I'd like it as much now. But I've read and enjoyed many of Fitzgerald's other novels, so maybe. Great review!
ReplyDeleteThanks Lark, Tender is the Night is the novel F Scott Fitzgerald published after Gatsby and it came out in 1934. The Great Depression was going on and that's a novel I would like to read because I think the husband and wife at the center of this novel would have more depth. They say its a very haunting novel.
DeleteI read this in high school and then I re-read it about 10 years later when I had, literally, nothing else to read in English available to me. I would say I appreciated it both times. As you point out in your excellent review, all the characters are pretty awful. But it is a good book to write a paper on, it is pretty short and it hits all those classic American notes you mention, so I can see why it is read in high school. I would say that my take on the book is that the American Dream is as empty and illusory as Daisy’s affection for Gatsby. It is still the Tom Buchanans who run the country for the most part.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t read any other Fitzgerald since, however, but Tender is the Night is on my list. Maybe next year for Karen’s challenge?
Thanks Ruthiella, Agree about the American Dream which as I understand it tells people they can rise from humble beginnings and fulfill their dreams. Not sure how many people believed that even in Fitzgerald's time but now with college unaffordable, healthcare precarious and many barely earning a liveable wage one cannot rise high.
ReplyDeleteTender is the Night sounds interesting because Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby in 1925 and he wrote Tender is the Night in the 1930's and alot had changed by then.