For Christian parents only, please

[Monty J]

Geoffrey wrote: "As for Wolfsheim being ungrateful, although that is how Nick sees it, he has limited empathy to Wolfie´s position. The cops are closing in on the fencing operation, and yes, he would have tilted his hand in showing up at the funeral if the police had been there."

Yes, Wolfie would have to have worn a disguise to the funeral. Gatsby was hot after the capture of Parke. The FBI could trace Parke's phone records to Gatsby, if they hadn't already tapped his line.

Nick, however, seemed oblivious to this. His head seemed in the clouds. Fitzgerald, though no crime writer himself, was no stranger to the genre. The Maltese Falcon was on a list of top twenty books to read he dictated to his nurse when he was hospitalized at age 36.

[Christine]

Geoffrey wrote: "The books current popularity was guaranteed as TGG was standard issue to the servicemen fighting WWII..."

That is a great point. I am sure the GIs would not have been very captivated with a book about bond scams :)

[Monty J]

Christine wrote: " I am sure the GIs would not have been very captivated with a book about bond scams :) "

The bond scam was not a main theme of the book, but those references didn't land between the covers of The Great Gatsby without Fitzgerald's able assistance.

Unless they'd worked for the FBI or were an accountant or attorney, it is likely the average serviceman/woman would only be aware that Gatsby had some kind of criminal background connected with organized crime and bootlegging. If they were sharp, they would notice the references to selling illicit bonds.

Here's the best synopsis I have found concerning the readership boost The Great Gatsby received from the Armed Services Edition: http://mentalfloss.com/article/62358/...

And here's a quote from it:

Gatsby entered the war effort after Germany and Japan surrendered, but the timing was fortuitous: While waiting to go home, troops were more bored than ever. (Two years after the war ended, there were still 1.5 million people stationed overseas.) With that kind of audience, Gatsby reached readers beyond Fitzgerald’s dreams. In fact, because soldiers passed the books around, each ASE copy was read about seven times. More than one million soldiers read Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel.

...For Fitzgerald, it was a great reawakening. The author’s death in 1940 had rejuvenated academic interest in his work, and many of his literary friends were already trying to revive his name. But the military program sparked interest among a wider, more general readership. By 1961, The Great Gatsby was being printed expressly for high school classrooms. Today, nearly half a million copies sell each year.

These new converts—and the generations that would follow—saw in Gatsby something that Fitzgerald’s contemporaries had dismissed as short-sighted. Now that the Roaring Twenties were nothing but an echo, the value of Fitzgerald’s work became obvious. He had captured an era that was long gone, but still loomed large in the American psyche. Few people had written about the Jazz Age so colorfully, and few people had captured that feeling of longing for something you couldn’t have. Fitzgerald did it all so well because he had lived it.

Sadly, having died in 1940 at the age of 44, Fitzgerald never knew how his tragically short career had been boosted by a new generation of servicemen and women.

This is one of the reasons why I am so drawn to the book, to get the fullness of what HE had to offer, not what I've been TOLD he offered.

[Christine]

Monty J wrote: "The bond scam was not a main theme of the book, but those references didn't land between the covers of The Great Gatsby without Fitzgerald's able assistance...."

The bond scam was a small sideline in the greater whole of the novel. F Scott had to cleverly intertwine some kind of logical way that Gatsby could have amassed his fortune.

But -- in truth -- most people do not care about bonds. Most people do not KNOW much about bonds! However --longing and heartache and wanting to re-create the past? That is part of everyone's experience. That is what people can relate to. Maybe that is what F Scott wanted people to relate to!

The American GIs are your proof. I cannot imagine some soldier in a fox hole, drafted to defend his country, knowing he might get blown to bits any minute -- and going all gaga over a book that is about an American criminal! (Hence insinuating that the soldier himself is defending an immoral country full of immoral people...)

Nope! The message of this book is unrequited love and how far one might go for it.

Now we can move on to something new :D

[Monty J]

Christine wrote: "Hence insinuating that the soldier himself is defending an immoral country full of immoral people..."

Actually, I think this may be the key to the book.

Thank you Christine for forcing me to clarify something that's been rolling around in the back of my head for weeks--a central theme around which every scene, every stitch of dialog can be evaluated, the corruption of the American Dream. I've expanded on these thoughts under a new topic.

[Geoffrey]

Monty J wrote: "Geoffrey wrote: "As for Wolfsheim being ungrateful, although that is how Nick sees it, he has limited empathy to Wolfie´s position. The cops are closing in on the fencing operation, and yes, he wou..."

The FBI couldn´t have traced the phone calls as there was no technology for that back then. But, yes, Parke could have squealed or any of his associates picked up and put the finger on Jay or Wolfie.

Throughout the novel, Nick´s weak moral fiber shows itself page after page. He´s a bond salesman yet is not perturbed by either Jay´s offer nor Parkeś participation in the scheme. Nor is he adverse to being the go between in a married woman´s extra-marital affair. And as for a riposte to Tom´s white supremacy rant, not a peep. But when it comes to friendship, those who have unburdened their heart to him, their innermost being and thoughts, his allegiance is sacrosanct. Only Nick´s perfidy regarding Jay threatens Nick´s allegiance to friends, and Tom´s heartfelt, open response to Nick´s accusation endears him as a true friend. Despite his aversion to continue being friends, he does shake Tom´s hand after Tom pleads his case for being accessory to murder.