The Great Gatsby
discussion
Why I tried to love this book and instead ended up hating it.
Jeanie wrote: "I've heard of a number of adults, C.S. Lewis among them, who talked about a parent who designated a forbidden shelf of books only to have the child sneak to read them. In Lewis's case, this had been the parent's intention all along. "It is really nice knowing that parents are exploring new and better ways to expose their children to valuable literature. The technique you mentioned is really innovative and brilliant.
Oh, sorry I said they are fictional. They are real and beautiful places our master builders Tolkien and Rowling built for us. I visit them often too. Meet you some day there.
Aditya wrote: "Jeanie wrote: "Oh, sorry I said they are fictional. They are real and beautiful places our master builders Tolkien and Rowling built for us. I visit them often too. Meet you some day there." Yes, let's do meet there! So... Hobiton, Rivendale, Loth Lorian, Rohan, or Minas Tireth in Tolkien's world? At Hogwarts, I think we should start our tour together in Hogsmead at Honey Dukes--yum!
AdityaTo address some of your comments concerning certain passages-
Yes, I agree with you on some of them but not all. Fitzgerald had a recurring point of view device that permeates throughout the book. He tries, often unsuccessfully, to adopt a birds eye of view to convay an evocative atmosphere that he falsely infuses with heavy significance. He did that with the passage of the highway sign overlooking the repair garage and he does it again with that silly passage "sucking on the pap of life". He´s attempting to give Gatsby an amazing,worldly and wise. omniscient overlook of life, but considering how dim the man is in his obsessive love for an overly narcissist Daisy, rings so very false. This is but another case of Fitzgerald´s poor handling of character development and speaks of yet another failed attempt at a "heavy significance" to the novel. It´s more pretence than honest of Fitzgerald at writing moment like these.
The line "silver pepper of the stars" is but bad imagery of which Fitzgerald is redundantly guilty of.
However, the line, "unlike Tom and Gatsby...I had no girl whose disembodied...." is brilliant. I got that one immediately as it cleverly unites unconscious desire, memory and waking moments.
GG is a tragic novel, not only in its tone but in its success or lack thereof, for it is a tragically flawed novel. It´s success among the American public is credited to its "alleged explanation" of the crass social pretensions and rampant materialism of the 20´s which brought on the ´29 crash. That is its only claim to fame and can be compared to THE INFORMER by Flaherty, which is even more flawed as the latter needed more careful editing prior to publication, but is the best novel of the Irish revolt of 1922.
Luke wrote: "But also, it's set in a real location in a real time, so there should be little need for world-building.Personally, I've never been to Long Island or even NYC short of driving past, yet I had no trouble picturing it. In fact, I thought the setting was a highlight of the book.
Also, not to sound like I'm picking on you, but in your first post you decried unnecessary description, and now you seem to be wanting more. :) "
First of all I want to start by mentioning that it took me some time to reply to your comment only because it made me think again about what exactly troubled me while I was going through 'The Great Gatsby'. Just saying.
Ha ha. You made a good point Luke. When I read your comment, even I said to myself that I was contradicting myself. And then I figured out that I'm contradicting myself after all. I shouldn't have expressed my frustration at Fitzgerald's explanation of almost everything. What really frustrated me is that his explanations are just too hard for me comprehend. And such explanations can easily be even more frustrating when he's explaining almost everything.
When I was reading Gatsby I felt like I'm reading Shakespeare and Dante's original version of his Divine Comedy. And some places, I felt even like I'm reading Don Quixote in it's original language. I'm sorry for being so hard on this book, but I just really wanted to like this book and adore it and cherish it. And knowing that the reason for why I can't do it is the description and not a lame Story and events has really made me sad. The Story is good. Super in fact. Just because of his too ethereal descriptions, I feel like I'm missing a great book. It's like I want to study Einstein's and Bohr's theories so passionately, and there's nobody around to translate them for me. I know they are great, they are there just before me, and I can't comprehend just what's written there. (I really thank Edith Grossman a lot for her beautiful and easily comprehendable translation of the exceptional book - Don Quixote. I managed well to understand Tobias Smollet's version of that book too. And Richard Pevear and Volkhonsky gave us a very nice translation of Anna Karenina.)
This book's prose is heavily based on the descriptions of the surroundings and the culture. All his characters's movements and thoughts, Fitzgerald based them so much upon how the surroundings and culture are. Well, the culture is something that he's basically trying to portray through this book. And he took for granted the Readers's knowledge regarding the surroundings. So, when it's so much based on the surroundings, I would've liked a better description of the surroundings.
I have to say - I'm from India. Here, we have lush green fields, dusty busy roads and packed buildings overly crowded in and out. We don't often see houses with lawns here. It's a wonder for us when we hear that you get a ticket there for sounding horn in the middle of a road. We are loud here. Noisy. Like a construction work going on always beside the road. It's not an easy thing for me to understand the surroundings in New York. New York is a lot different from India in many aspects. For me especially, America is a place which I want to visit and see directly at least once before I die. To witness and know that it is all real. It's like a dream. It's kind of a Fantasy place for me. And before I go there, I try to get a glimpse of it in the movies and through beautiful descriptions in books. It's not real for me. So, I can understand it and clearly visualise it only if the description is vivid and understandable. Fitzgerald tried to make it sound very ethereal, which is something already ethereal for me. That is something that really frustrated me in this book.
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, didn't help much in putting me at ease with the events going on in there. It's like saying, "You gotta be one among us if you have to know what we are talking about." After completing it, I closed the book feeling I'm an uninvited guest to the party. I read Grapes of Wrath. Believe me, I was totally able to visualize every single event in that book. The dust felt real. The people. And their basic needs. Grapes of Wrath made me feel that America is real. That America is a continent just some thousand miles away, but if I travel that distance, I'll definitely find it because it's real. Once there, I can even try to help those people there. I know Gatsby has a completely different message. Unlike the Steinbeck's Novel, Gatsby's Novel is mainly about how people are forgetting the reality, forgetting the hunger, the real basic needs of life and are concentrating more on the unnecessary fancies of life and in that age of disillusionment, most of them are even wasting their lives in their pursuit of the unreal, setting useless goals for themselves, forgetting the true urges of the soul, and just like said in the Novel -- they beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past -- they continue to fight unsuspectingly never being able to reach their destiny only because they are chasing a phantom reality.
A Universal theme this. Applicable to everywhere on this Earth. And The Great Gatsby made me feel that this theme is relatable only to America. I know that a Writer illustrates his point by taking a particular thing of his own choice and allowing the audience to relate the basic message to themselves. But here, Fitzgerald's carelessness to make the surroundings comprehendable to everyone, really made it difficult for me to understand and enjoy the book and make it my own. I knew the surroundings have to be real but just can't accept it because I never visited them and because Fitzgerald was too careless to make them feel real to me.
My point is this - If you have to see how the people are trying to escape reality with silly luxurious parties and stupid goals, first of all he has to show me what the reality is. It's like Fitzgerald started the Novel by writing - Assuming that you all know what fate America is really going through at a particular time, I'll show you some interesting and aweful facts about how most people are reacting to it.
I, for one, don't have a clear idea about what reality people like Gatsby are going through at that particular time. I've been through the dusty lands of America, thankful to the beautiful narration by Steinbeck, but never visited the reality of corporate places of the country. And I found it really frustrating to comprehend what particulars Fitzgerald was silently mocking there. I know it's a powerful book and I can get the basic point Fitzgerald was trying to say, but I could've gotten it even better by comprehending the particulars of the book.
Luke, thanks for pointing out my mistake. I should've expressed my frustration (in my very first comment) about the too much etherealness in Fitzgerald's descriptions in the book, which in turn made me frustrated by his attempts to describe every single thing in the book, which I can't comprehend anyway and is only an additional burden for me to go through.
re - reading it, after loathing is 8 years ago. it's not as bad as i recall. i'm still not hot for it but i am certainly better than the frozen reaction i had to it last time
You make some good points, Aditya. I can't really comment on the accessibility of this novel from a foreign perspective, but I do know that writers tend to write to an audience, and it's usually themselves. That is, they trust the reader to meet them halfway and have an idea what they are talking about instead of talking down to them and explaining every little thing. Do you know how tedious such a book could be for those of us who are at least passably familiar with the Roaring Twenties and the opulent Long Island culture of that time? I guess it could be done well, yet I don't think this story required it. As you said, it's a universal theme. If it seemed to you Fitzgerald made it an American-only theme, I would argue that this is your frustration showing through. Just because the setting and the characters are American and the situation is unique to a particular time and place in America, does not mean he intends to imply the theme is strictly American. That seems a leap to make.
I hope you visit here someday and don't judge us too harshly. The US is a big country--larger even, I think, than India, a place I'd likewise like to visit. As such a large country, it varies greatly from city to city, coast to coast, New England to The South, Phoenix to Seattle, Appalachians to plains to Rockies, etc. I'm sure India also varies from region to region, city to city. And of course, America refers to a much larger area than just the U.S., two continents worth.
I found The Great Gatsby to be tragic in its conclusion and greater theme, but comic and somewhat fantastic in its telling. It's a brisk read, and a fun one. I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue and situations, and I felt Gatsby's heartbreak at his unrequited love. The novel is known for its portrayal of 1920s lifestyle in Long Island and Manhattan, but it lives on because it's so relatable and enjoyable.
At least, to me it is.
Anthony wrote: "May I share a story? I read The Great Gatsby when I was in High School, along with the works of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Next to the two great titans of style…Fitzgerald's writing s..."
I can appreciate many styles, including this one. You did a great job analyzing Gatby's method and his drive; however, some books are just not everyone's cup of tea. I don't like country music, but I can appreciate the talent of the musicians and artists. The Great Gatby was indeed idealized and romanticized, and as you said that was one of Gatsby's flaws.
I read it last year for my English class and I loved it. All the drama reminded me of the soap operas my mother watched when I was younger.
One memory I took with this book was its style of language.That is probably the problem you may have with this book.
I remember liking it (it was gone over at my school and I had a teacher who was great at making it understandable) but finding the way it spoke difficult to understand.
I hope that you grasp it better if you want to get into it again in the future. Happy reading. (Whether it is this book or not).
I remember this book vaguely, as I read it with so many other books in High School way back when. I think I might have liked it a lot, but it isn't an e-book so I can't get my hands on a copy to re-read it. Reading the quotes though, I can see how I would be more apt to like it after being taught what to look for in terms of themes and why things were said the way they were, which I can agree can be frustrating at times. I think the Great Gatsby is one of those books that needs to be read and reread before everything is understood, because the language can be difficult but it's there for a reason.Example:
"Wilson hurriedly went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity—except his wife, who moved close to Tom."
There is more going on than just telling us that he's walking away. We are being told that Wilson is a plain, dull man that has the ability to sink into a plain colored wall, and the descriptions of things using ash and white helps to reinforce this, and give him an almost ghostly presence. Then you see that his wife isn't affected by his demeanor, and instead is presumably a more vibrant and entertaining person. It not only tells you he's leaving, but introduces the characters in a more detailed way without taking time to explicitly go into their character.
This is one of the best books ever written, in my opinion anyway. I read it in 9th grade and hated it originally. I reread it a year later and fell in love with it. I can't explain why. I just know that now I have read this book more times than I can count and love it more and more each time.
just finished reading it for a second time and can honestly say i flat out loathe it. the writing is terrible - in my opinion anyways.
A little over-rated. A lot of people like the nostalgia of the 20s but I always thought Daisy was a twit and preferred Tender is the night better!
This is a fantastic, lyrical book. To best appreciate it, you probably should have had a crush on someone unattainable and thought about them all the time. Also, it doesn't hurt if you started out with nothing and strove with everything you had to become the person of your dreams.
Pam, I understand what you are saying. But, as I've discovered from this valuable discussion, my trouble with this book is not with the theme or the story. It's with the prose. I loved a slut and faced the heartbreak. Believe me, it didn't help much in putting me at ease with the twisted and exaggerated nature of this prose. I also decided, along this discussion that I can consider myself a matured reader once I start getting this book totally. Now I'm just in the initial stages of reading. Thanks for reply Pam.
Aditya wrote: "I don't know if this book is trash or if I'm dumb enough to not understand it's greatness. I want to admit that I genuinely tried to love this book but just couldn't and by the time I finished the ..."It is shit. He is talking bollocks. You don't have to understand anything he wrote that anybody can explain and even if they did who cares. You are absolutely right, he is a fool, move on to someone else and stop wasting your time with it.
Cecilia W wrote: "A little over-rated. A lot of people like the nostalgia of the 20s but I always thought Daisy was a twit and preferred Tender is the night better!"Thanks for replying Cecilia. Daisy was meant to be a twit by Fitzgerald. I too am of the same opinion, for now, that this book is highly overrated.
Aditya wrote: "Luke wrote: "But also, it's set in a real location in a real time, so there should be little need for world-building.Personally, I've never been to Long Island or even NYC short of driving past, ...
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This post helps it all make sense Aditya. I did not know you lived in India. I can only imagine the enormous difference between contemporary India and 1920' New York. Setting, culture, mind set, everything is probably different...then to add all the poetic description on top. I can see how it rubs you the wrong way.
You know, I never fell in love with The Great Gatsby, like I felt I was supposed to, either. For me, it wasn't the language that put me off, I just wanted one decent (likeable) character. Reading Gatsby was like hanging out with people I was uncomfortable with and couldn't stand. Even so, I think they all got a little more than they deserved!
Also, other than Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy and Rushdie, what Indian authors do you recommend? I like what I've read so far!
Julia wrote: "I just wanted one decent (likeable) character. Reading Gatsby was like hanging out with people I was uncomfortable with and couldn't stand. Even so, I think they all got a little more than they deserved!Also, other than Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy and Rushdie, what Indian authors do you recommend? I like what I've read so far! "
Julia, I smiled with content when I read your reply. Thanks.
I see that you didn't like that Characters in the Novel. I didn't either. That's exactly Fitzgerald's idea. He didn't want us to love any of these characters. He wanted us to loathe them and learn from their mistakes. And I can very well understand how difficult it is to love books without lovable characters in them. But Fitzgerald's got a noble idea.
Ironically Julia, I didn't read much Indian literature (except Rushdie). Dostoevsky is my favorite author. Crime and Punishment is my favorite Novel. Tolstoy and Chekhov. I like these Russian authors a lot. And I think Steinbeck is awesome. If you ask me, I think Indian literature is pretentious. Not everybody, but most are. They try to imitate the western literature too much. Russian literature, I find all original. No comparisons. Dostoevsky is a genius. I'm sure you've read him already, but if you haven't, you must. He's the best Writer ever. Sorry, I can't recommend you much Indian Literature. May be I'm prejudiced after all against my own country's literature. I must make open my mind and read them again. But I still find them pretentious. R.K. Narayan is the only Indian author I find as an original. Hey, Julia, how did I forget. How did I forget this one? There are two books written in India, way back, way back in the past, I don't exactly know when, long time ago, two all time classics were written in India. Most people in India even believe they are non fictional documents, like Christians believe Bible is non fiction, but whatever, I can delightfully suggest you two masterpieces from India - Mahabharata and Ramayana. I really like to see if some Hollywood director, like Peter Jackson, made them into movies. These two are exceptionally Goodreads Julia. I'm glad I've something very valuable to suggest you. Please try to read them and tell me what you think about them.
Thanks for the reply Julia. :)
By some quirk in my personal history, I'd never read Gatsby. It has many beautifully written, poetic passages, and Gatsby's demise retains an ineffable sadness that moved me in the final pages. The absence of mourners at his funeral was particularly poignant. Fitzgerald's theme of pursuing an incompletely realized dream is universal, with the corollary that if one's timing is off, the dream may forever remain out of reach. Add to this a crushing irony: in order to win Daisy, Gatsby strove to make himself a member of her wealthy Long Island society, but she is shallow and frivolous and her husband is brutish and racist. The others in their group show no loyalty to Gatsby, the man who'd thrown them lavish parties, by deserting him in death.I'll comment briefly on the poetic nature of Fitzgerald's prose. He uses two metaphors involving water that are linked inextricably to the action of the novel. At the beginning of the story, the narrator, Nick, notes that "Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes..." comparing conduct to an edifice that can be built on a solid base ("hard rock") or a tenuous one ("wet marshes"). Foreshadowing is at work here as Gatsby's springboard into affluent society turns out to be a yacht in a dangerously shallow mooring. Unfortunately, Gatsby is floating in his pool at the end when he is shot to death. The novel concludes with another "wet" metaphor in the justly famous line "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Humans are boats struggling to row into the future, while all the while carried backward by Time's river. Figures of speech are only effective if they complement the surrounding language and action.
Another vivid display of language occurs at the beginning of Chapter III with a 2 1/2 page description of the preparations for and beginning of a typical Gatsby party. "On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold." Later, the narrator notes, "The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names." A milieu built on the "wet marshes" indeed.
@ George - You frightened me away from this Novel, more than I'm already frightened of it. All those metaphors. I'm trying to read a Novel George. I didn't want to solve a puzzle. But by what you wrote, I can say you understood the Novel very well. Thumbs up mate.
Yeah Aditya, but I mind that she is a Stereotyped kind of 20s female Twit...for a writer as seasoned as Fitzgerald there is no excuse to not layer up her character....Hemingway did a much better job of Lady Brett Ashley in "The sun also rises..." There's more complexity to her hedonism.....and it is the same kind of "period" style...as I said Tender is the Night...so much better. :)
Cecilia, I'll read Tender is the Night for sure now. :)Yes, may be he could've added more depth to the Character. I'll also start reading Ernest Hemingway. Old man and the sea is the only book I've read of him.
sure. Old man and the sea is so-so....I prefer Robert Ruarke's old man and the boy.....to Hemingway's OM&S....though Ruarke is considered a working class poor man's Hemingway....enjoy. cya later! :)
Cecilia W wrote: "sure. Old man and the sea is so-so....I prefer Robert Ruarke's old man and the boy.....to Hemingway's OM&S....though Ruarke is considered a working class poor man's Hemingway....enjoy. cya later! :)"I do love Hemingway. I actually love his short stories, to be more precise. His short stories are absolute works of art, gorgeous masterpieces. Stories like The Snows of Kilimanjaro and the Big Two Hearted River and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber...are just perfection. His early novels are really excellent, written in a very tight, muscular prose style. But when I go back to Hemingway, invariably, I am drawn back to his short stories moreso than his novels.
Aditya wrote: "Julia wrote: "I just wanted one decent (likeable) character. Reading Gatsby was like hanging out with people I was uncomfortable with and couldn't stand. Even so, I think they all got a little more..."Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Fitzgerald was very successful portraying loathsome high society in all its hypocrisy...I just needed something more than a little bit of pity for Gatsby to get me through.
I love Russian literature. You are right, they have a style all their own. Dostoyevsky is great - Crime and Punishment is a favorite. Back to the "character" issue - Maybe I didn't like Raskolnikov, but I was invested in him. He wasn't all bad. He was partly selfish, naive and neurotic, but hed was also a victim of society. He wasn't completely descpicable, even though he committed (a very strange) murder. THAT is rich character development to me. However, there is more than one way to develop a character.
Yeah, Rushdie is pretentious, I haven't read many of his books. He is a great writer though. I didn't get that vibe from Roy or Lahiri though.
Mahabharata and Ramayana, I will read them Aditya!
I only got into Hemingway by way of school when I went there in High School.My bro "kept" a copy of the book from school (hmmm :P lol) because I think he liked all the symbolism and poetic stuff within the pages. He likes that stuff. When he goes to a library that is one of two things he will like reading about.
That and probably boxing or martial arts. . . my younger bro is interesting. lol
I read it thinking I'd love it. It sounded like my kinda book, and I was so excited, but I ended up hating it. I was very disappointed.
Anthony wrote: "Cecilia W wrote: "sure. Old man and the sea is so-so....I prefer Robert Ruarke's old man and the boy.....to Hemingway's OM&S....though Ruarke is considered a working class poor man's Hemingway....e..."I think it is because his personality came through more when he did not have to "focus" on the crafting...his short stories were like his "spontaneous reflections".e.g. I liked the way he describes the creative process and how it excludes significant others AND the extremely sarcastic way he talked about getting his Nobel prize in Literature! lol.
With a writer always comes a style and some styles are more noticeable than others. It seems people think that his prose was nonsense or hard to understand. I only "got" it because I had a smart teacher. . . I probably would have been tearing my hair out had I read it on my own! lol
I remember telling one of my teachers my last year of high school, "that book by Fitzgerald was good. . . but I remember now how hard it was to read." and she seemed shocked that I put that book down in such a way. She liked it. . .
Yeah, it's a little wordy and maybe a little full of itself, but there are not many books I quote as often, unless you count "I think about that tomorrow." I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Rich girls don't marry poor boys, Jay Gatsby." This is a very look-backy (is that a word?) novel. You have to be in a introspective mind set to appreciate it.
I honestly don't remember the book significantly. Which is safe to assume means I didn't love it. In general I don't care much for that era of writers. The group of young writers who moved to Paris as part of the "lost generation" post WW1 just had a style of writing that does not appeal to me. I did enjoy "The Paris Wife" a novel about Hemingway's first wife and his circle of friends that included Fitzgerald.That group of young men had been through a war and were now rebelling against a society they blamed for stealing their youth (and possibly rightly so). They were caught up in the vanity of indulgence prior to the Great Depression and market crash. They kind of exemplified the ideal of "live fast die young and make a great looking corpse." Which appears to be an element in their writing.
I read this in my teens, got to the end and it suddenly hit me what I had just read. The story is understated and I somehow managed to miss just how great it was as I was going through it.Recently I read it again, and believe it to be a great novel.
The original poster's view of it I find incomprehensible. The quoted sentences strike me as beautiful, clear and significant.
Obviously tastes differ.
Aditya wrote: "I don't know if this book is trash or if I'm dumb enough to not understand it's greatness. I want to admit that I genuinely tried to love this book but just couldn't and by the time I finished the ..."You say you couldn't connect with the characters. If this is so, I would say that Fitzgerald has done his job well. None of the characters can connect with anybody. That's one of the novel's main themes. Why do you think Nick narrates? He is a minor character. Why would Fitzgerald put that barrier between his readers and the major characters? I also agree with Anthony. Maybe this novel isn't for you now. Please, please come back to it later, and if you still dislike it, at least you gave it another chance. Don't think you have to love every classic. You don't. I gave Huckleberry Finn another chance, and I still hate it. I appreciate it, but I hate it.
It's like Fitzgerald just wrote whatever he wanted to.It's funny that you say that--Gatsby actually went through a rigorous editing process with Max Perkins making suggestions to Fitzgerald. The book underwent enormous changes, and Fitzgerald distilled his prose again and again as he rewrote. If you want to read about it, here's a link (I think you can post links in here, yeah? it's not to my own site): http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2...
Licha wrote: "Anthony, you bring up a very good point about high school kids not being taught correctly. I am with you that kids should be taught such things as real life finances, even autoshop (I say this bec..."Hmmm...that sounds like a rather pragmatic view of education. In my opinion, most of schooling is meant to teach children how to learn, not just to teach them "something" to "know"...Being forced to read a difficult classic, disciplining the mind to write on a particular aspect of it, is something that trains the mind. It's not just to acquire knowledge, it's to learn *how* to acquire knowledge. Anyway...soap box over. :)
As for The Great Gatsby, I tried to teach this to a group of unenthusiastic high school juniors. It was pure torture for them and for me! If I were to do it again I would not try to make them "get" the book, but to simply appreciate it for what it contributes to literature as a whole, for good or ill. Exercises in analysis and critique are the way to go with stuff like this. Besides, 16 year olds have an opinion about just about everything. :)
Anthony wrote: "Luke wrote: "I'm with Anthony. That was a great reply.I think part, if not most of the problem lies in how it's taught. Teachers often stress every sentence, trying to wring meaning out of every ..."
This is concerning to me because, as I said before, being expected to read difficult works as a young teen is meant to be a disciplinary task. It's meant to train the mind to do something hard that it doesn't normally do.
What you are suggesting is to give a baby candy so that it will appreciate meat. More often than not, a child given candy will learn to need it and want nothing else. It's a heck of a lot easier to eat marshmallows than peas and carrots! In the realm of thought and the mind, a child who is fed junk will not be challenged to think hard, to master difficult language, and ultimately enjoy all works of writing, old and new. Why read Beowulf *ever* if Twilight fodder passes as good enough literature to train the mind for the future...
It wasn't the most wonderful classic I've read, but I didn't think it was that bad.
Maria wrote: "All the drama reminded me of the soap operas my mother watched when I was younger."Yes, that's for sure. ;)
I hated it in HS. I hated the characters. None of them had any redeeming qualities, imo. I re-read it as an adult and I still don't like the characters but I think I understood the book more. I think this is because the book is about adults with adult problems and flaws that I really coundn't identify with as an teen. I have the exact same feeling about The Catcher in the Rye. As a teen, I really liked it. As an adult, I find his level of angst extremely annoying.
Well i couldnt associate myself with the book at all.. i have read loads of so called tedious novels in the past but Gatsby was almost like a figment of dreams initiated into an utterly plausible context that kind of makes the characters unreal.. at least thats what i felt.. even though completely surreal are fine, aka murakami, but this weird juxtaposition coupled with overlong description draws the fluidity out of it and marrs the overall beautiful scenario... thats what i felt and glad to know that so many others too dont like this book :)
There is a movie coming out with Leo DiCaprio this year. I am interested in seeing it. . . as long as it will not be terrible like the one made last with Robert Redford.
Interesting debate.Thankfully we are of course all different and enjoy different writing styles.
I have often debated being forced to read "classics" when I was too young/inexperienced.
I have thankfully often returned to re-read a book which previously left me cold only to have my socks blown off upon re-reading it.
Don't worry about it put it aside and continue the hunt. I personally love The Grapes Of Wrath, but Steinbeck's first novel is a struggle to read.
My grateful thanks to all authors past, present and future who enable me to keep up my reading addiction.
CJ, I am waiting for the DiCaprio film too. And hey, I'm very sure it will be awesome. It's Leonardo DiCaprio. He's an awesome actor. Always felt he's suitable for these kinds of mysterious roles. Jay Gatsby was named the greatest Character ever created in some list (Holden Caulfield is second). But the book didn't really make me feel that Gatsby is all that mysterious. But I hope the movie does the magic. Leo DiCaprio definitely has the ability.
Well the problem with Hollywood and casting is sometimes they go for not so great choices. . . only because they are popular or have done great in other roles. Sometimes the actor or actress is new so they get the role as the "hottest item" and so they are given that since they might go on to do great things (a James Bond flick cast an actress I do not believe is a good actress but probably was given the role since she was attractive and was fairly new).Many times they seem to think "Who is popular?" over "Who is right for the role?" It seems Hollywood does it over and over again.
Sorry to sort of go off topic.
I do hope the new Great Gatsby film will be good.
Redford never captured the Gatsby spirit. Fitzgerald very markedly depicts Gatsby as an inconspicuous personage. Nick has a hard time identifying him and it takes Gatsby`s introducing himself for the two to make the acquaintence, unlike Redford the self-assured. Gatsby is not larger than life in the flesh.
Completely agree. Tom also poorly cast and not exactly "hulking". It's always fun to see the Hollywood re-imagining of a work, but I never expect too much.
I have this on-again-off-again, love/hate relationship with this book.Unlike many, I loved this in high school. Maybe because I so despised the other assigned reading at the time.
At other times, I have found most of the characters so unlikeable and their actions so contemptible, I wanted to throw it across the room.
My latest read, I focused more on the writing, and came away with a new love and appreciation for the book.
I think that's what makes this novel great. Encountering it at different times, in a different mindset, from different perspectives is still a fruitful and stimulating activity.
It also makes me appreciate, as a writer, that with a strong ending and closing you can gloss over rough patches along the way, and I find Gatsby still has those.
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I think we need to keep in mind that Gatsby is a much, much shorter novel than anything Harry Potter or LOTR has to offer, and so it has much less place for world-building and description. But also, it's set in a real location in a real time, so there should be little need for world-building. The story, the characters, and the location, described as needed, make the setting.
Personally, I've never been to Long Island or even NYC short of driving past, yet I had no trouble picturing it. In fact, I thought the setting was a highlight of the book.
Also, not to sound like I'm picking on you, but in your first post you decried unnecessary description, and now you seem to be wanting more. :)