June Post #1: Perfection and The Great Gatsby

[Artur]

The book opens with a short introduction of who is assumed to be the main character. It brings up a few of his ideals such as, "If you ever feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." (Fitzgerald 1). But these ideas never seems to ever come into action. He mentions his father saying that he was a man of few words and we never hear from him again. And though it is a fine start, it leaves us with no real clue as to what our main protagonist is like in casual social situations, but further more he doesn't even mention his name in this intro, but is instead introduced by another character, Tom Buchanan, later in the book as he casually drops the line, "What you doing, Nick?" ( Fitzgerald 10). And though clever it may be, it clearly paints the rift between this character and the audience. Nick is so reserved that by the end of the 1st chapter Tom's brutish and arrogant behavior, Daisy's eccentricity, and the dilemma of their relationship outdoes everything that we hear about Nick.

The most of the book is tolled by Nick as his opinions slowly become less and less unique always allowing for room for all the more dramatic and charismatic characters of the book. He is more of a narrator that is there to introduce settings and describe characters, major and minor, in more detail than e ever will describe him self in. Even getting into more specific memories (which the narrator never shares his own with the audience). It is as if Nick is being reluctantly dragged along by all the other characters from one scene to the next and always tends to blend with the background as he makes rather general remarks that rely on the reader filling in the blanks as to what emotion they associate with the occurring. One could interpret it as keeping the leading character relatable in theory, but in practice it left me as the reader confused as to what were the main character's intentions and his general sense of character.

[Maxwell]

The Great Gatsby is a very easy book to read, as every detail was so well plotted out and structured that it would be hard to not follow along and miss the points that the novel is trying to convey. The story has the right beats at just the right moments, and wont stay on one particular scene or story beat for too long. Characters like Nick are developed somewhat more than others, and Gatsby being an intentionally vague character with a layer of mystery around him, lacked development. Daisy can be seen as an essential character to the novel, but can be summed up at a modern day ‘valley girl.’ While the story of Gatsby and Daisy is supposed to be an almost anti-love story, even Nick Carraway finds Gatsby utterly unlikeable, and states this many times, and only compliments him one time in the 3 months they knew each other. This is the one underlying problem for me, the book more or less starts with some sort of relationship with Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway, which I find more interesting, Jordan Baker seemed to have more of a snarky charm and character to her, and simply knowing more background on who Nick was made me more interested in the relationship between these two would be like.

I found every character more interesting than the two characters that the entire story was meant to revolve around; Tom was interesting just from the first three chapters and his introduction into the novel, Mr. Wolfsheim was interesting because of his Molar on his suit at his lunch with Nick, and even George and Myrtle Wilson were more interesting to me than Gatsby and Daisy. Maybe this was the point however, that they would both be easy characters to relate to, as lost love and old dreams are things many people can relate to. The only thing that makes Gatsby likeable is his great ambition toward his dreams, and being poor before his riches. An ability to relate to his problems makes me slightly more interested, but Daisy has always been just some rich girl who plays with multiple men, and she becomes even more unlikable letting Gatsby die for her, and running away with Tom.

Not to discredit this novel of its achievements, it is very easy to read and that’s because it is damn near perfect. The plot is easy to believe as a real world story, and the characters equally believable. I found myself at the end of the book, where Nick was saying goodbye to Jordan, and I noticed it was supposed to show nick not holding onto a dream, saying goodbye to a girl he “halfway loved” but there was more resolve in the story there for me, than when Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship ended with Myrtle and Gatsby’s death.