The Great Gatsby
discussion
Gatsby's Criminality
James wrote;"
It truly matters. It is no mistake that children in america become christian because they are brainwashed that way. Just as children in Iran become muslim, because they are brainwashed that way. Where you come from matters, no matter what form the gun held to your head. To pretend that everyone has a "choice" to be who they want to be is both naive and ill-considered.
We are the lucky few who escape the bullet."
Well said. My husband and I let our son make up his own mind- he believes in God, his parents are atheists. Lol. To sit in judgment of others with a total disregard for their story or past difficulties I find very distasteful. I loved the mystery of Gatsby's past- where he came from and from who. Another way to wonder.
Karen wrote: "James wrote;"
It truly matters. It is no mistake that children in america become christian because they are brainwashed that way. Just as children in Iran become muslim, because they are brainwash..."
Fitzgerald apparently agrees with you, as he shelved a short story about a younger Gatsby to maintain the mystery.
James wrote: "This comment is so open ended that it begs asking what she means. But you don't care what she thinks. Do you? "On the contrary. I care or I would have ignored her.
Ever hear of the Socratic method?
I simply asked questions intended to stimulate thought and conversation.
You, on the other hand, are making assumptions about how she reacted to my posts, with zero input from her.
I asked questions designed to provoke thought and conversation while you made assumptions, judgments and thoughtless accusations.
See the difference?
"Hey! On the street just now, I saw a man going the opposite direction down a one-way street. There was a police office right there at the intersection and he didn't even stop him!""Huh? Well, I can't understand that..."
(He was walking)
This is what happens when you hyper-focus on just "what's in" (a text). What you see is not always what is there. Sentences do not stand alone in a novel, they are understood --or misunderstood--in relationship to what exists on either side of them.
James wrote: "children in america become christian because they are brainwashed that way. Just as children in iran become muslim, because they are brainwashed that way. Where you come from matters, no matter what form the gun held to your head. To pretend that everyone has a "choice" to be who they want to be is both naive and ill-considered."Agreed. Every religion I have studied, and it's a pretty broad spectrum, employs various degrees of brainwashing and mind control.
Monty wrote;"He was both honest and abusive, by today's standards. Abusive as in, "He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it." Honest in that we have no evidence to the contrary, and he showed admiration, pride and gratitude toward his son by carrying around that weathered photo of Gatsby's house and making a keepsake of the Hopalong Cassidy book and striving so mightily to get to the funeral that he collapsed in exhaustion. These are not typically traits of a dishonest person."
So atypically, they could be traits of a dishonest person- at the same time, the father wanted to be closer to his son and that may have been the reason he carried around his picture, and he had regrets. He had to get to that funeral- his grief, past regret.
Monty J wrote: "James wrote: "This comment is so open ended that it begs asking what she means. But you don't care what she thinks. Do you? "On the contrary. I care or I would have ignored her.
Ever hear of the..."
Well, she didn't respond your method, did she? I'll go with the asssumption that she was put off by you. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's a reasonable place to start. And listen to yourself. You have something to teach her without knowing what is on her mind? Who do you think you are?
James wrote: "You have something to teach her without knowing what is on her mind? "Listen to yourself. I didn't say "teach". I said provoke thought and discussion.
James wrote: "Who do you think you are?"
Someone who's open to discussion rather than making assumptions so they can rush to judgment.
Feliks wrote: "Sentences do not stand alone in a novel, they are understood --or misunderstood--in relationship to what exists on either side of them. "How profound.
And your point is what? To teach us something you thought we didn't know?
Monty J wrote: "James wrote: "You have something to teach her without knowing what is on her mind? "Listen to yourself. I didn't say "teach". I said provoke thought and discussion.
James wrote: "Who do you thin..."
Your whole thesis is based on assumptions and judgments. And let's be clear. You assumed she didn't consider your questions before you asked them. You are not provoking thought, but pushing an agenda. Open discussion requires understanding of other viewpoints, not pounding yours every chance you get.
How does the below exchange provoke thought and discussion?? Go ahead, tell us- how does your response to Rina's dislike of the book's bitter ending provoke anything other than you assuming, in a condescending way, that she thinks Daisy should have overlooked the fact that Gatsby was a crook? And then accusing her of overlooking the fact that Gatsby was stealing? How does this encourage her to discuss this with you?Rina wrote: "I didn’t like its kind of bitter ending."
Monty wrote;
"So you think that Daisy should have overlooked the fact that
Gatsby was a crook?"
Rina wrote; "I was shocked that Gatsby wasn’t deserved anything."
Monty wrote;
"Do crooks deserve anything but jail? Did you overlook, as others seem to have, the fact that Gatsby was stealing from innocent people in small towns by selling them worthless bonds?"
Karen wrote: "Monty wrote;"If I were Tom, and a deranged gun-totting Wilson had just left my house, I'd have myself and my family driven to the train station immediately, leaving instructions to the staff that ..."
Why would that have happened? Tom knows that Wilson is going to plug Jay. What danger would there be to him? I don't understand your comment.
Had it been me I would have stayed put. The fact that Tom and Daisy scahoot arises out of their efforts to put it in the past and remove themselves from any reminder of the damage they have done to the marriage. Will Tom reform? Most likely no. Serial philanderers don't stop just because they almost get a piece of lead between the eyes.
James wrote: " Geoffrey wrote: As for what caused him to his life of driven success, shame of his roots ground in the soil. His father was a farmer. What a slimebag! His father was an honest man doing a job what..."Would it matter whether he was abusive or not? One is still responsible for one's own actions. I've had a number of friends whose parents were particularly abusive in their childhood and they didn't become criminals. To varying extents, they became productive, honest people.
Karen wrote: "Geoffrey wrote;"Sometimes those academic journals will take forever to get back to you. I've had a 4 year wait on a few."
Well, these academics could be going in order of importance."
For any number of reasons. They may decide, well we will hold off on publishing articles on SF until we get three good ones, or maybe the publication is so prestigeous that they are booked two years in advance with great articles that they want to publish.
Or they could put a project on hold as there isn't sufficient editorial interest but they recognize the article's worth and then lo and behold there is a change in staff and the new guys just love the piece.
Geoffrey wrote: "Would it matter whether he was abusive or not? One is still responsible for one's own actions. I've had a number of friends whose parents were particularly abusive in their childhood and they didn't become criminals. To varying extents, they became productive, honest people. "Well, good for you that they decided not to take out their abuse on you. Yes, it matters very much whether a person is abused or not. An abused person owes absolutely nothing to "civilized" society, and has every right to take advantage of it in any way possible. Otherwise, society just absolves itself of any responsibility of abuse that it permits within its social boundaries. The catholic church comes to mind immediately. Why more people aren't in jail is for you to explain. And if an abused child decides to kill an abusing priest, I will happily look the other way. The problem, of course, is that one can never be sure if the abuse actually happened, so you can't really look the other way. Still, one can find empathy for professed cases. It matters. It matters a great deal. Your judgments notwithstanding.
By the way, I assume by "productive people" you mean those who cow-tow to social norms no matter what. By "honest people" you mean those whose brains you've been able to read. If my assumptions are wrong, please enlighten me.
James wrote: "Geoffrey wrote: "Would it matter whether he was abusive or not? One is still responsible for one's own actions. I've had a number of friends whose parents were particularly abusive in their childho..."James, and this time I have got it correctly, I gather that you think that people treat others as they have been but if that were true then this would be a much more rotten world. Quite a few abused people have gone on to productive, honest, caring lives. The simplest example of that is the tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who were almost starved to death. My own clergyman comes to mind as his daily display of the number on the inside of his wrist.
I should hope that with that mindset, you don't avoid making friends with people with such terrible backgrounds. And keep in mind as well that you, if you have an extensive friendship network, probably have a few who don't speak of it and you will never know.
As for killing an adult who sexually abuses a child, I agree. And let us be clear, abuse is not only about sexual abuse. There are parents who closet their children on hours or days on end, rub their cigarette butts on kids....denigrate every good effort for self improvement made by the child....enough.
Geoffrey wrote: "James wrote: "Geoffrey wrote: "Would it matter whether he was abusive or not? One is still responsible for one's own actions. I've had a number of friends whose parents were particularly abusive in..."What I said is that people who are abused have no responsibility to the society that allows it. That whatever judgment you may have of them should be tempered by what has happened to them. It matters.
That people get past their abuse and refuse to act in kind is a gift to all of us. But ignoring the abuse and saying that is what people are required to do is not only unfair, but irresponsible. If Gatsby was abused or indoctrinated to be a criminal, that must be taken into account. Bald judgments are worthless.
And the fact that we know very little about his past brings any judgments of him into question. And since Fitzgerald wanted his past to remain a mystery just underscores his own reluctance to judge Gatsby as a criminal, even as he alludes to his criminal activity. What kind of a person was Jay Gatsby, really? Certainly not a cartoon villain sketched to make a simple point about american morality in general. The book is far too full of other villains for that. Far too complex.
I also think the illustration of the masses coming to the parties but not the funeral is more of a damning of america than it is of Jay Gatsby and his criminal activity. People came to his parties without concern for where his money came from. They just wanted to be a part of the "dream." And Fitzgerald is quite critical of these people, while painting Gatsby as a bit of a victim in the scheme of things. And he was a victim. He lost his life, while the people who skipped the funeral went on with theirs.
Monty J wrote: "Agreed. Every religion I have studied, and it's a pretty broad spectrum, employs various degrees of brainwashing and mind control. ."You do understand this was just an example of why people don't choose their lives. People are brainwashed and otherwise influenced in their lives. Not all decisions are rational, but the result of upbringing. Gatsby might be an example of this. We can't know because we aren't privy to his past. So judge him all you want. It doesn't matter.
This applies to the people who attend the parties but not the funeral as well.
Karen wrote: "How does this encourage her to discuss this with you?"If you can't see it, I'm not going to spell it out for you. From past experience that would be a waste of time.
Wikipedia will have to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrati...
"The Socratic Method ...is named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. It is a form of inquiry and discussion between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. "
You could have looked this up on your own. There are other links, such as this: http://www.philosopher.org/Socratic_M...
Geoffrey wrote: "Why would that have happened? Tom knows that Wilson is going to plug Jay. What danger would there be to him? I don't understand your comment."Tom has no way of knowing what the outcome will be. What he's certain of is that a deranged man with a gun has just left his house. Maybe Gatsby won't be conveniently available, and he'll return, thinking I know where he is.
No way would I have stayed put, not until I knew Wilson was no longer a threat.
James wrote: "Your whole thesis is based on assumptions and judgments."My assumptions are about the book; not its readers. There's a slight difference.
Monty J wrote: "I don't self immolate either. Why would I emphasize someone else's method or opinion? That's their job. Am I supposed to go around stroking people until they purr, so they'll stroke me back? Forget it. I don't need stroking. And neither should other adults. ..."Zealotry, zealotry. You barge onto a website with a very intolerant viewpoint, clout everyone over the head with it...but its 'stroking' or 'coddling' to listen to ...or even admit the validity of the views of others...if they might possibly challenge your own?
The reason you would do this is for fair and democratic forum processes. That's why.
Monty J wrote: "Yes, I have teeth. And will bite when bitten or growled at. You can count on it."I follow that policy as well. I always meet the tone of the voice used on me, with the same exact tone in reply. That's why its a slippery slope, once polite discourse is departed from. That's why I point out to you that Geoffrey is already wobbling on the brink. Just look at him. He can barely restrain himself. He's aching to fly off the handle.
Here's what. I'll pay him my attention to Monty as much as possible for the immediate future. A policy of mutual non aggression towards his cohort. That might help keep the lid on.
Monty J wrote: "Ever hear of the Socratic method?..."Ever heard of someone being mighty kind to themselves?
It's not 'Socratic' to replace someone's ratiocination wholesale, grafting in your own, disallowing theirs to come to the full...insisting it follow in your train. Not when yours is wild-eyed, leaky, and unproven in the first place. You've got nothing more than a pet theory, far from the only viable one, either--just as we've been saying. It's vetted by no one but yourself. You hijacked her thought. Face it.
That exchange was brutal. Heinous. And if you can't admit you overstepped, you're a bit too far gone in your pursuit of the green light, ole sport.
Feliks wrote: "...disallowing theirs to come to the full...insisting it follow in your train."Show me where I did this. You're blowing smoke, as always.
You didn't wait to listen to her, you dictated to her the way she should perceive the character. You can't see that? Pretty starkly recorded right there in black & white?if you want to be considered 'Socratic' try not leading people directly to the frame-of-mind you want to see them adopt.
Feliks wrote: " try not leading people directly to the frame-of-mind you want to see them adopt. "I asked simple questions that were directly related to the topic that interested me. Why would I ask something else? It would be a waste of time.
Monty J wrote: "I may not be a Bloom or a Bertrand, but I have studied this fascinatin' friggin' novel...."For how long? This sounds to me like the common condition of the retiree, (no offense) or perhaps someone laid up with a career-ending injury of some kind. The way some men --with too much free time--build enormous Lionel train sets in their basements.
If not, then it smacks of hubris. Studying Gatsby was not your career, I wager. You said something about finance. That implies a finance degree. So why this obsession of such recent vintage? Reading three books of lit-crit on Gatsby doesn't make you an expert. It makes you a dabbler. If your career had been that of an American English professor, then you might receive the regard you're ...craving? Bloom had that esteem, (and I surmise he earned it). Are you ticked off by this for some reason?
Monty J wrote: "You can at least show enough interest to spring a few bucks on Amazon for a used paperback...."
Wouldn't that be 'stroking' you?
Monty J wrote: "I may not be a Bloom or a Bertrand, but I have studied this fascinatin' friggin' novel...."Let me put it this way. The topics I went to school for, I still consider myself very well versed in. I still study them. But my self-esteem halts there. I don't rank myself as good as a standing professor. I'm out of school and in my career field. I don't still write papers on the topics I enjoy, and that makes me someone of amateur standing. Better than a layman, but not better than an expert. I still do research, but work-related.
There are several things that I am expert in though-- thanks to career experience. I can be called on in court as expert testimony. But I still don't think I know-it-all. No. Not every possible question. So I don't go around looking to challenge strangers to 'draw on me'. This isn't the old west.
First time I met you, I was glad & impressed to find someone who seemed very up on John Steinbeck. We eventually found ourselves on opposite sides of some Steinbeck question. Guess what? If you had been promulgating disinformation, --a menace to others--I would have known enough off the top of my head to combat you; but I actually thought your views very sound even though different from mine. I didn't feel I had to try to 'beat' you. Moreover, I felt you were simply 'more up on' Steinbeck than me. I still think so. So not having any ego driving me, is a virtue. After all, there was no issue. My views not only can live alongside others, they have to live alongside others. Why not? I don't need my name written in gold leaf anywhere.
Can you say the same? Or is being a talented amateur, 'just not enough' for ole Monty? You have some 'need' to study Gatsby for five years and have it carry you somewhere?
Monty J wrote: "I asked simple questions that were directly related to the topic that interested me. Why would I ..."Lol because that is truly Socratic! Ya start them off, down the hallway...and then sit back... and let them maybe find a 'new way' for themselves, possibly a new way also for the rest of us to admire,...possibly a 'new way' for you yourself to recognize or be surprised by. Not just show them to door you choose.
You really don't grasp this? You're not an academic then. Dude, heckuva nice guy and all that...but remember..you're a nobody. No one cares how long you've been studying Gatsby, you don't own the final word on what this book means. Nor will you ever.
It really sounds like you're so infatuated with your pitiful 3-5 years of amateur research you're in that old, old, trap: "when all a man has is a hammer, the whole world resembles a nail".
Said another way: you arrive at the discussion with the answer already identified. YOUR answer of course. You're 'bringing a ham sandwich to a banquet'. I've seen this countless times in professional practice.
Apropos quote... "you can choose any colour you like, as long as it's black"
Monty J wrote: "How profound. And your point is what? To teach us something you thought we didn't know? ..."My point goes back to your early posts. You galloped very far ahead with your court exhibits without seeming to recognize the whole method neglects this. The sentences you cherry-picked... 'float in space', without any relationship to the rest of the text, yet you constantly insist on just examining the text.
Don't you see how carefully you've rigged it all up, so as to only favor your own findings? Seriously?
"Fitzgerald mentions Chicago. He obviously must mean Chicago in the sense I describe to you. Please don't play dumb."
What are we supposed to do? Hunt down some instance in the story where the city of El Paso is mentioned? You're counting beans, like I first said. There's not a one-to-one relationship between a single word's presence and the meaning you assign to it.
Monty J wrote: "James wrote: "Your whole thesis is based on assumptions and judgments."My assumptions are about the book; not its readers. There's a slight difference."
Now you're just being deliberately dense. You assumed Rina hadn't thought about the questions you asked her when you were playing socrates.
You assume we are all missing the point you are making, when, in fact, we hear you and simply don't agree. You assume we should all accept your strict moral code in this discussion. You make all kinds of assumptions that have nothing to do with the book. Your own words betray you.
Monty wrote;"If you can't see it, I'm not going to spell it out for you. From past experience that would be a waste of time."
Lol! You have got to be kidding me. Your rationalization for being condescending to Rina is using the Socratic method?
Student: "I was shocked that Gatsby wasn’t deserved anything."Socrates: "Do crooks deserve anything but jail? Did you overlook, as others seem to have, the fact that Gatsby was stealing from innocent people in small towns by selling them worthless bonds?"
Just let me slip my conclusions into my "question" lest you miss the point I am trying to shove down your throat.
"Why do you think Gatsby deserves something?" might fall under socratic questioning.
James wrote;"Why do you think Gatsby deserves something?" might fall under socratic questioning."
Now that sounds more like it.
Feliks wrote: "Monty J wrote: "I may not be a Bloom or a Bertrand, but I have studied this fascinatin' friggin' novel...."For how long? This sounds to me like the common condition of the retiree, (no offense) o..."
There are a number of English professors who are clueless, credentialism wil get you nowhere. I've had profs whose academic writings weren't worth the spit in my mouth and yet you claim that justification for academic writing. Sorry, yes, I am the same Geoffrey with whom you entangled several years ago and yes, I don't like you to be perfectly honest, no beating around the bush about that, and I simply don't care that you don't care that I don't like you. That is a moot point for me.
Your last posting to Monty is a clear exhibit of how nasty and personal you can get. There's a sadistic streak to you, Feliks, and that's why you are so offensive. And yes, I am an attack dog when I encounter people like you. You owe Monty an apology.
Feliks wrote: "So why this obsession of such recent vintage?"I wish I knew the answer to that myself. I can't explain it anymore that I can explain my spotaneous combustion/obsession in 1989 to devour East of Eden, which led to a decade of delving in Steinbeck's work (including two biographies of him and the utterly fascinating posthumous Journal of a Novel that he kept while he was writing EE.)
I think what happened was that through Steinbeck I discovered, on my own, without much guidance or interference from academia, the relevance of realistic literature to the human condition, to my life, to the lives of my children and the neighbors on my street.
A door was blown open and I stepped through it into the world of literature. Who cares what life one leads before they discover a passion? Why should that matter?
After Steinbeck it was Raymond Carver, then Salinger, Golding, Hemingway, then Fitzgerald. I don't know why. Hell, it just happened.
I even revisited Jack London's White Fang and spent a day touring his Wolf House museum near Glen Ellen, Ca, learning later that Carver did two tours at Duffy's, a recovery center in that tiny wooded burg. I visited China Camp State Park in San Rafael, where I learned about the abuse by Jack London of Chinese shrimp fishermen. Four years later I met an alcoholic Viet Nam-era former Marine who had spent a few weeks at Duffy's during the same time frame as Carver (but didn't know him.) Col. "Burkhardt" had been in charge of a sapper battalion. He sent ninety-eight men down in the tunnels. Ninteen didn't return. He couldn't get over it. He'd been in AA for decades and in and out of various recovery centers six times and was scheduled for another round. He was my age. He'd met his Sorbonne-educated French wife while stationed at the French embassy. He was a physical wreck and sucked on a bottle of wine as we talked, sitting in plastic laundromat chairs while the clothes went round and round.
It gradually sunk into me how relevant literature is to our lives and to our future generations' lives.
I watched and studied films based on the works of these people, learning how an author's work can be distorted, noting the effect of that distortion on the public consciousness, a prime example being Of Mice and Men.
The revelation has increasingly come to me that literature, if studied closely, can hold uncomfortable buried truths about the milieus they cover. Truths that have been buried make me curious. Why go to the trouble to disregard part of what a writer wrote?
Incidentally, I learned all this about Col. "Burkhardt" (we both went through boot camp at MCRD San Diego in 1967), by asking probing questions.
Monty J wrote: "Feliks wrote: "So why this obsession of such recent vintage?"I wish I knew the answer to that myself. I can't explain it anymore that I can explain my spotaneous combustion/obsession in 1989 to d..."
Yves Tanguy, the French surrealist painter much vaunted by art critics but unfortunately mostly unknown to the general public, was an untrained artist. He had been vagabonding at a multiple number of different white collar jobs and as a seamen when passing by a gallery window in Paris, spied a surrealist painting by the Italian great, Giorgio de Chirico and without any formal training, decided to become a painter. He is one of the 20th century's great artists.
Jean Paul Basquiat also was totally untrained as an artist.
The point being that credentials are not always necessary. A claim otherwise portends elitism.
Karen wrote: "You have got to be kidding me. Your rationalization for being condescending to Rina is using the Socratic method? "James wrote: "Just let me slip my conclusions into my "question" lest you miss the point I am trying to shove down your throat."
Did it ever occur to you that I just wanted to know how she arrived at her conclusions about the book? How am I to find out without asking questions?
Jesus, you guys are judgmental.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "You have got to be kidding me. Your rationalization for being condescending to Rina is using the Socratic method? "Did it ever occur to you that I wanted to know how she arrived at ..."
Exceedingly so.
Maya Angelou, Charles Dickens, Ray Bradbury and Mark Twain never went to college. Despite never having finished h.s. but enrolling at a university for 3 semesters, Faulkner can be added to the list of those deficient of a BA in literature. Steinbeck never finished university either.Truman Capote went to a military academy and HG Wells never saw the inside of a university classroom.
As you were saying Feliks.
Monty J wrote: "Did it ever occur to you that I just wanted to know how she arrived at her conclusions about the book? How am I to find out without asking questions? "Nothing wrong with that, if that was what you actually did. But it isn't.
James wrote: "But it isn't. "Another assumption. Boy, you REALLY need to judge people, don't you?
Monty J wrote: "James wrote: "But it isn't. "Another assumption. Boy, you REALLY need to judge people, don't you?"
Just call it as I see it. Your need to label it incorrectly notwithstanding.
James wrote: "Monty J wrote: "James wrote: "But it isn't. "Another assumption. Boy, you REALLY need to judge people, don't you?"
Just call it as I see it. Your need to label it incorrectly notwithstanding."
See? You mean "assume." (Unless you're declaring yourself clairvoyant.)
Monty J wrote: "See? You mean "assume." (Unless you're declaring yourself clairvoyant.) ."There is no point in continuing this discussion. Points have been made, and I see no reason to go back over them.
Whether you like Feliks or not, he's right about the way Monty has hijacked threads, and he's right about Monty's amateurish approach to literary criticism. Whatever anecdotal evidence Geoffrey may provide about poor professors he's encountered, too bad so sad, but my own experience has been that every English prof I've had has been a master, and I'm a better person for having been in their classrooms.So much for anecdotal evidence; my experience cancels out yours and we are left with merely the facts: when a person dedicates himself to a discipline and spends a lifetime learning about that discipline, obviously his point of view has more to offer than the informed layman amateur. This is why we do not let guys who have learned to tile their bathrooms win construction contracts for building office parks. This isn't elitism; it's what is called expertise, and it matters.
What Geoffrey says about the artistic inspiration on the part of a Dickens or a Dickinson is irrelevant to our discussion. I doubt Harold Bloom is much of a poet, but yes he has more to offer to our understanding of Gatsby than amateurs who post on discussion threads. No, there is no conspiracy coming down from the ivory towers to inhibit our understanding of Gatsby.
What Bloom (and apparently Feliks) can do better than Monty has nothing to do with artistic inspiration; it's the ability to construe meaning from a series of signifiers and symbols arranged in a pattern by the author. And Feliks is right; Monty is trying to posit meaning where there is none, and he's going about it in a rather heavy handed manner which, rather than encourage discussion on these threads, is contrary to the spirit of inquiry and certainly not "Socratic."
The problem is that Monty has begun with his conclusion--Gatsby is a criminal; criminals deserve punishment; Gatsby is punished; Gatsby got what he deserved--and from there attempts to force a reading on the entire book that just does not work because it fails to take into account nearly everything else in the novel regarding character, motif, theme, allusion, etc. And then Monty wants to beat people over the head with his "textual support," and that's usually good, but not when the support is offered in isolation, ignoring the framework of the novel as a whole. This is why, in a sadly funny kind of way, Feliks can talk in a more informed way about Gatsby than Monty even though he doesn't have a copy of the book with him. Feliks understands what Fitzgerald is doing in the book as a whole, and his holistic approach to the author's craft trumps Monty's attempt to bludgeon readers with quotes stripped of overall context and meaning.
If we take Monty's approach to interpretation, we might as well argue that Nick Carraway's character is Fitzgerald'a angry critique of the pumpernickel baking industry during the 1920s--it's so obvious with the misspelling of the seed's name! Pulling specific detail without considering authorial intent or the meaning of the work can lead to some odd conclusions.
And there's nothing wrong with getting your ideas out there. But you (Monty) probably should listen to James and Feliks and stop wielding those odd ideas like a club on other people's threads.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Whether you like Feliks or not, he's right about the way Monty has hijacked threads, and he's right about Monty's amateurish approach to literary criticism. Whatever anecdotal evidence Geoffrey may..."Thank you for taking the time to put together such a thoughtful post, and thank you for the support.
Monty post #89"I never mentioned a moral compass. That was Geoffrey."
No, you never 'used the exact phrase'. Pardon me while I choke. Do you think that means you escape the accusation? Because of a mere technicality? That the way your mind works, hmm? Look at the posts with which you began the entire thread. According to you, we're all in some kind of moral jeopardy.
---------------------------------------------------------
Monty post #3
" I've begun a search for articles about Gatsby's dark side."
Monty post #12
"No wonder crooks get away with what they do so often for so long."
Monty post #20
"The reason I think it's important not to gloss over Gatsby's criminality is the relevance it holds in today's society. Ignorance of Gatsby-like duplicity enables people like Bernard Madoff, Michael Milken and Charles Keating to exploit peoples' naivete and trust.
Films like The Wolf of Wall Street have helped to open people's eyes to what goes on. We need more like them."
Monty post #50
"Have we become so conditioned, de-sensitized, to corruption in America that it's become that invisible? Do people not see it because they just don't want to, and look away?
It's no wonder the Boesky's and Bernie Madoff's of the world continue to proliferate"
---------------------------------------------------------
So okay. You don't specifically use the phrase 'moral compass'. But what do the above posts show? What else if not your concern with 'our slipping morality'?
See the deeper trend emerging here, people. Monty's always very literal when looking at Gatsby. No evidence except what is literally on the page, impresses him as legitimate. If Gatsby engages in an activity, but it is not cited directly by FSF, Monty deems it may not actually have happened. Or vice-versa: merely the mention of a deed, is enough to certify that it occurred for MJ.
Literalness permeates his thought. When accused of anything himself, (even a trifle) he retreats behind what he knows he 'literally' said. Yet, his behavior and posture, tells a much different story, a larger story, an alternative story.
Just sayin'
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
The Great Gatsby (other topics)
Books mentioned in this topic
A Life in Letters (other topics)The Great Gatsby (other topics)
Hmmmm. (I haven't seen that post yet, but I'll look for it.) Other people's opinions are valid. I like that coming from you.
Rina wrote: "I didn’t like its kind of bitter ending."
So you think that Daisy should have overlooked the fact that Gatsby was a crook?
"I was shocked that Gatsby wasn’t deserved anything."
Do crooks deserve anything but jail? Did you overlook, as others seem to have, the fact that Gatsby was stealing from innocent people in small towns by selling them worthless bonds?
Funny. If I were interested in other peoples' valid opinions, I would ask why she thinks that. Not shove my own opinion down her throat without an afterthought. Especially the comment "I didn’t like its kind of bitter ending." This comment is so open ended that it begs asking what she means. But you don't care what she means. Not even a little bit. It gets in the way of your agenda, I suppose.