The Great Gatsby

I am pretty sure I read this long ago but this time I remembered virtually nothing about it. I picked this up as a second-hand paperback heavily highlighted by its previous owner(s), probably for a school assignment. All I really recalled was how the story was told from the point of view of a secondary character, Nick Carraway, who knows as little about the title character initially as we do and has to work out his attitude to all the principals as he meets them. What I was mainly interested in was the reputation it has had since its publication in 1925. The writing shows its age but I did notice the care the author took with each of the characters to establish a clear voice, and with the settings to help the reader imagine what it felt like to experience along with the characters. There are a few flourishes of colloquial, non-academic speech I noticed and some passages of emotional description to enhance the mood, whether during a boozy party, a tense situation rising toward violence, or the deep melancholy at the end. Carraway is taken with his enigmatic friend Gatsby and we the readers have to work out how far to go in along the same direction, or to instead reject that point of view as we are presented with that character's flaws. All the characters are messed up in various ways and the social environment can also come in for criticism. This book was closer to a novella, with just the Carraway/Baker subplot against the main story with the two love triangles. I wasn't drawn in as much with this as with the novels I enjoy the most but appreciate the chance to renew my acquaintance with this 99-year old standard.

I was (like many) forced to read The Great Gatsby in high school, though I wish I hadn't as I was incapable of truly appreciating it at the time.

As others have mentioned, Fitzgerald's prose is unbelievable. In just a few words he can paint vivid imagery in your mind with layers of depth and analysis to accompany the emotions. The story and characters are beautifully written with a natural complexity that avoids the cliche 'good guys' & 'bad guys' we typically experience.

Just from my perspective alone, I found many themes and interpretations to the story which resonated with me, just to name a few:

• Clinging to the past and trying to repeat history expecting a different outcome. Recently this has tied nicely into my romantic life, where I've been noticing some repetition compulsion.
• Nick's character in general was someone I found myself heavily relating to, as I feel I tend to be the listening ear for the many people around me, which puts me in the center of some complicated situations. Many of his thoughts and reservations he keeps to himself about people around him reminds me of how I likewise internalize my judgements towards others but am able and willing to keep the peace. Even with complete strangers it's not uncommon for me to hear 'wow I'm not sure why I shared so much with you'—it's an interesting phenomenon!
• Obviously the more commonly discussed themes of Fitzgerald's criticisms of the American Dream
• Gatsby (I believe by design) is somewhat of an inspiration—at least to me. Despite being deeply flawed in core areas, I think he's overall an admirable character who is an honest victim of unfortunate circumstances.

And those are just the themes that resonated with me! There are a billion different things to take from this book, and I feel it's probably worth re-reading every few years as I'm sure there's more to get from it as we develop in life and stumble on different issues that resonate with us.

Watching the 2013 movie after finishing the book, I'm a fan.

How does one review the Great American Novel™ without sounding like a hipster or a jerk?

First of all, the prose is gorgeous. Some writing you drizzle on your tongue like honey; some you cut into like steak (or maybe like vegetables); some you down like water. Fitzgerald's prose is fired at you like a fire hose, and you don't so much drink it as try not to let it bowl you over. The words individually are refreshing and packed with such meaning, but then on the whole they become an onslaught. An attack even. It's enjoyable in a terrifying way.

It's also unerringly true in that way only fiction can be. Everyone has secrets, everyone has regrets, everyone gets pulled along further than they might wish. By the end there are only one or two really likeable characters. You don't really know what you hope happens anymore.

The novel has one foot dipped in the waters of modern fiction, a world flowing freely from (I'm sure) this book itself and dripping with the shades of gray people; and the other firmly planted in the word choice, idiom, and propriety of the previous generation. Its short length makes its stance for this maneuver quite narrow, showing how little difference there can be between them.

But I don't know how I feel about it at the end, and perhaps that's the brilliance of it: rather than a plot twist, the novel ends with an emotion twist. I don't know how I'd have reacted to this novel if I'd read it as a teen, but I'm sure I'd be insufferable about "the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder."

Despite it all, I think that's what I'm left with at the end of The Great Gatsby: not joy or elation (or even relief or disgust), but wonder at what I just experienced.