Comparing Major Pettigrew and Great Gatsby

[Judi]

I finished the book, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. This was a funny book at times, if you like dry British humor. It's also a charming love story between 2 people whose spouses have died. They have been acquaintances for many years in a small village in England. People are overly class and race conscious in this village. But the Major is retired soldier and he falls in love with a woman who is Pakistani in heritage but born and raised in England. It's her heritage that people in the town have always looked down on. I love the contrasts in the characters. Because the Major discovers that she, Jasmina, is actually an intelligent, refined, and elegant woman. He enjoys her 58 year old beauty. He is 68 years old. This is a well written and enjoyable story.

On the heels of that wonderful book I am reading the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby. And guess what, I have never read it! It's prose is gorgeous. I am enjoying it more than I expected. We won't meet on it for a month so I might read it at least 2 more times before then. It is multi layered and there is so much more there than you think at first. I think it is interesting to read this book after Major Pettigrew because Gatsby is a book full of overly class conscious people. Shallow, materialistic, people who live on the surface of life.
Has anyone else thought about the similarities between these 2 books???

[Kristina]

I never thought to compare them, but you are right. The Major tries to overcome social constraints and what he thinks a man of his class should do while his son, Roger, doesn't even recognize his own shallowness even when it hurts those around him. The Great Gatsby is full of terribly shallow and hurtful characters, too. I prefer Major Prettigrew's Last Stand because many of the characters overcome their flaws.

[Judi]

Yeh, I can't say that I like any of the characters in the Gatsby, except possibly Nick. I think I have given Jay more leeway in my mind because I keep seeing him as Robert Redford... I hate to see a movie before I read a book! But particularly telling for me is when I read Jay say that Daisy's voice sounded like money. How shallow - was he realizing that he really didn't love her after all, just what she represented, the attainment of a social class he thought he could buy his way into? But still Fitzgerald's writing is so well done...

Perhaps Jay Gatsby could be compared to Roger Pettigrew???