Discuss The Great Gatsby (Jan. 2014)

[Mindy]

At our monthly book meeting on Feb. 1, we'll be talking about The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We selected this book for "Classics Month."

So I'll kick off by saying I read this book in high school (long ago), and I have not read it since. I remember not liking it very much. So I'm curious about how I'll feel when I read it again. It's very short (180 pages), so I'm going to wait awhile before I start it.

Feel free to start discussing the book here at any time, before or after our meetup!

[Brandon]

I too read it in high school or at some point soon after.
I don't really remember it at all.
But i loved the movie, so i wonder if that will color my opinion of reading the book itself.
it is so hard to disassociate the imagery from a movie when you go back and read the book.

[Crissy Hensley]

I read it in high school too, over 10 years ago, and I remember not liking it very much. I think I probably didn't really "get it". I haven't seen the new movie yet! I did find a copy in the uncatalogued "classics" section at the library, so I borrowed it. :) I wonder if my old copy is floating around at my mom's house still...

[Mindy]

On a whim, I searched for an ebook of Gatsby and found this:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzg...

[Lynn]

Awesome link, I downloaded it to my kindle! I have a hard copy though, I just downloaded to see if it would work. Great find!

[Brandon]

Having finished Great Gatsby, I feel that it is one of those books that are kind of OK to read (by no means do I mean its not a good book, btw) but its way more interesting to read the analysis and dig deep into the symbolism after the fact

[Mindy]

My mother was just telling me she liked the older movie version, with Robert Redford as Gatsby, much more than the new version. She really liked Leonardo DiCaprio, but she didn't like the rest of the new one.

[Brandon]

i haven't seen any of the older versions, only the new one, but I can definitely say that I was seeing the actors/settings in my head as I read it. Sometimes thats a good thing, but often it colors the way i read/ interacted with the book.

[Mindy]

I'm just back from our in-person discussion -- really enjoyed it! There was a lot of agreement that the people in this book are not likable, and yet there was PLENTY to talk about. I'm still thinking about the idea that the book was not very popular or well received when it was published. I'm off to the Internet now to read some more about it.

[Brandon]

Relevant link:
http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blo...

[Mindy]

Gotta share what I found:

In an interesting column written in 2007, Washington Post critic Jonathan Yardley wrote:

"Reading it now for the seventh or eighth time, I am more convinced than ever not merely that it is Fitzgerald's masterwork but that it is the American masterwork, the finest work of fiction by any of this country's writers.

"To say this is not to call 'The Great Gatsby' the Great American Novel. ...

"It seems to me, though, that no American novel comes closer than 'Gatsby' to surpassing literary artistry, and none tells us more about ourselves."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

And this, from Kathryn Schulz at Vulture.com:

"There are a small number of novels I return to again and again: Middlemarch, The Portrait of a Lady, Pride and Prejudice, maybe a half-dozen others. But Gatsby is in a class by itself. It is the only book I have read so often despite failing -- in the face of real effort and sincere intentions -- to derive almost any pleasure at all from the experience."

"... I find Gatsby aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent; I think we kid ourselves about the lessons it contains."

http://www.vulture.com/2013/05/schulz...

[Brandon]

yowza. talk about divisive.

[Alexandra]

Good choices Kathryn! ;)

[Lynn]

Mindy wrote: "I'm just back from our in-person discussion -- really enjoyed it! There was a lot of agreement that the people in this book are not likable, and yet there was PLENTY to talk about. I'm still think..."

Though I didn't get to come to the discussion group, my comments are much the same, the characters are so irredeemable I found it hard to keep reading after I figured out how misguided they were. Miss you guys, one of these days I'll get to come back :0)

[Clarence]

I have to say that the discussion of The Great Gatsby was wonderful. I leaned a lot from the comments of the members of this group. I feel that I understand the book better after having heard what was said about it.

[Brandon]

I completely agree. its one of those books that, as i mentioned, is one thing to read, but another thing to analyze (especially with others)

[Andrew]

I love the timing of the novels envelopment. It seems almost as just when the reader recognizes the developing climax the plot falls together and, I believe, it as the flapper party that deserves notice over the Grand Ball as the stories culminating chapters.