Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925.
Everyone knows The Great Gatsby, but the ironic thing is no one can figure out James Gatz Jay Gatsby. Every time someone saw me with this slim (182 page) paperback I was reminded of just how “great” Gatsby is, but no one could really tell me what it was about.
Consider this: the plot (set in the 1920s) is basically about a bunch of adulterous affairs observed by Nick Carraway. First, there is his second cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom. Tom is cheating with Myrtle. Myrtle is married to George Wilson, the drunk. Daisy is hooking up with Gatsby because five years earlier they had a thing and in Gatsby’s mind, he never let Daisy go. The hook of the entire book is the mystery surrounding Jay Gatsby. For starters, that’s not his real name. He may or may not be wealthy, he may or may not be a war hero, he may or may not be a bootlegger, he may or may not be connected with organized crime, and he may or not be a murderer. He is a complex study in contradictions – throwing outrageous parties every weekend but not knowing enough people who would care enough to attend his funeral. Besides being an interesting portrait Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby is also a picture of society in the roaring 1920s, and a commentary on morality and the pitfalls of wealth.
Favorite lines:
“‘I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library'” (p 46)…yeah, libraries have that effect on drunks.
“”No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (p 97).
“She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand” (p 108).
Most shocking: Tom breaking Myrtle’s nose and the exclusion of Tom & Daisy’s three year old child, Penny, in the story.
BookLust Twist: The Great Gatsby gets a double mention. First, in Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s” (mentioned for the teacakes) (p 73). Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called 100 good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1920s” (p 176).
~*LunaSea*~ 