Why I tried to love this book and instead ended up hating it.

[Geoffrey]

I objected principally to the imagery of peppers in the sentence. I can`t envison the heavens as being a salad plate.

[Lindsey]

I read this book, like many people...trying to love it. There seems to be such a large following on this book, so it has to be good, right? But once I was reading it and and even once I was completely finished reading it I found that I had a completely neutral stance. I found this book to be neither bad nor extraordinarily amazing. I'll admit that Fitzgerald did an amazing job writing a complicated story without being long winded, but I still felt no real connection to the characters or the events that happened. I kept waiting for it too, searching for the feeling of greatness that seems to be associated with Gatsby's very presence, but it never happened. So, feelings of neutrality have settled over me.

[[deleted user]]

"There seems to be such a large following on this book, so it has to be good, right?"

Wrong. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. If that were true, Stephen King would be the greatest writer of all time.

[Asha]

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..."

Perfect description. The very unselfconscious writing is what makes Gatsy a classic. I've read it a few times and with every new read, I surface with a feeling of breathlessness over his descriptions. I LOVE it.

[Robert]

Geoffrey wrote: "I objected principally to the imagery of peppers in the sentence. I can`t envison the heavens as being a salad plate."

LOL. Geoff, it's pepper, not peppers! Like little silvery flecks of ground pepper, not the peppers you'ld get with an antipasto plate.

Still, you made me laugh. Kudos to you.

[Geoffrey]

Yes, Robert, we put pepper in our salad as well, the condiment and that is what I was referring to. You need to get yourself a recipe book. And yes, he was referring to the imagery of peppers in the sky because there is more than one star.

[Kendra]

I liked it to a point...I didn't like the ending at all and I didn't like Daisy....more like I absolutely hated her >.>
And the other characters were hard to like as well.

I don't know I liked the theme but not the book as a whole.

[Akherousia]

Marisa wrote: "Luke wrote: "Marisa wrote: "Catcher in the Rye was a book that I read at the same time as Gatsby and I absolutely adore it. Gatsby is overrated."


See, I feel the same way, only inverse. I found ..."

Catcher in the Rye was as exciting as watching paint dry on the wall. A book about the internal struggle yadayada of a teenager in the face of the Adult's indifference and self-obsession yadayada. Having been a teenager at one point in my life, I don't recall seeing teenagers or hearing of teenagers concerned with anyone but themselves.

Back then, what these pimpled-faced individuals concerned themselves with was: who got laid(for boys)and who got the most male attention(for women).

[[deleted user]]

Had to post this after reading the latest comment.

Catcher in the Rye was like a shot of adrenalin for me. I immediately bought everything that was available and read it multiple times, hungry for more.

I've always asserted that Salinger continued to write and that his self-imposed exile wasn't tortured, it was ideal for him to realize what he wanted to say.

Now, there's a documentary, a biography and original work to come. I am more than excited, I am blissful.

[Gerry]

Read it because of the hype of "WHAT A GREAT CLASSIC" Ugh... A reminder of why I hated American Literature classes in college....UGH!

[[deleted user]]

"A reminder of why I hated American Literature classes in college....UGH!"

Gerry, try not to hold that against great American writers like William Faulkner.

[Sam]

I am glad that I was not the only one that didn't like is based on his sloppy writing style. I also wanted to love it, but couldn't.

[Sam]

James wrote: "There are several strands of thought in this thread. I'd like to pull on two: the judgment of the novel and the use of the novel in teaching literature in high school.

Whether one likes or dislike..."

You sound like an amazing English teacher, by the way. Schools need more teachers like you.

[Vector Sigma]

I thought it was an okay book. I always try to see the beauty in something I probably would not connect to as much as other things, but I have a brutal neutral stance for this book. I probably didn't like this book as much because I'm a hardcore sci-fi person (I'm not saying this is true for every sci-fi person) but I still think this was a good/okayish book.

[Anna]

Lando wrote: "Sorry if any of my points have already been commented on. I haven't read every single post. And I am by no means a professional book critic. But I digress…

I personally did not like the book. I un..."

Well-said; Bravo! It is Extremely important to relate to the characters in a story in some way, however small. I couldn't in any small way; not even microscopically.

[Anna]

Lynda wrote: "I really tried to like this book but I didn't! I wanted to read this classic becsause of the new movie out with Leonardo D'Caprio, but I was very disappointed. I was so distracted by all the word..."

Wordiness, yes. It was very distracting.

[Jonah]

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 ..."
First of all, let me say that I too think Gatsby is over-rated. That said, however, the passages you have enumerated are perhaps the very reason that so many people like the book. These are, to my thinking, very excellent metaphorical descriptions of both character and motivation. These are the reason Fitzgerald stands as a great writer. My problem with Gatsby is that I found the characters two-dimensional and a bit shallow. Now that was admittedly part of the theme of the book, but I think, to stand as great literature, the characters ought to be more finely drawn and exhibit some depth and individuality. The only depth they get from Fitzgerald are the very metaphors you have pointed out as difficult to grasp. I think that, without them, the characters would be flat as carpet stains. Just my two cents worth.

[[deleted user]]

"I think, to stand as great literature, the characters ought to be more finely drawn and exhibit some depth and individuality."

I totally agree with this. Gatsby can entertain, but does not reach or reach for the necessary depth to qualify as great literature. Fitzgerald is a glittering figure of the 20's and Gatsby is his alter ego.

[Geoffrey]

Right on, Jonah. Yes, there are brilliant passages in this book that need to be earmarked as memorable in the annals of great literature, but the book itself leaves much to be desired.

Plus, there are too many contradictions in charácter development which have caused the book`s poor translation to the flics.

How is it that a Sharp operator like Wolfsheim who successfully pulls off a nationwide caper such as the fix on the 1919 World Series is not able to discern that Gatsby is but a poseur. Oggsford man my ass.

And what is it so talented about a bumbliing Gatsby that speaks so highly of his connivance? Why he can`t even convincingly lie to Nick about his gallivanting Europe as a prince of riches. Nor is he convincing as the hero of Montenegro, the only country in the world that doesn`t award medals in its oficial language. Please, FitzGerald, when they resurrect you from the grave, please edit your book more carefully.

[Brenda]

I'm so glad to see these posts. I thought something must be wrong with me to dislike what has become a classic. I forced myself to wade through the meaningless descriptions because the story itself was full of possibilities. But in the end I was disappointed.

[Anna]

Brenda, I felt the same. This entire discussion has been nice in that I see I'm not a weirdo in disliking this classic. :)

[Barbara]

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..."

[Barbara]

I agree 100% with your post. It's a true work of art; the writing is near perfect. Thank you for a wonderful reply.

[Aaditya]

@ Barbara - Same opinion about that Barbara. :)

[Tony]

I respectfully hate The Great Gatsby. :) The movie was pretty, though.

[Melinda]

I agree that the books chosen for students, and the way they're analyzed to death, often turns people off from reading. And that's the last thing we should be doing in English classes.

I was one who read the Great Gatsby in high school and thought it extremely tedious, short on plot, and full of vapid characters I couldn't make myself like.

I just read it again, more than 15 years later. I appreciated it a lot more this time, and found some of the language beautiful, and some of the insights profound. But I still found the characters too unsympathetic to really carry home the theme.

It's far from the worst book I've ever read, but it's definitely not the best either. In a word, overrated.

[Gloria]

we did it for school and at first you don't really appreciate the book and see it as a great piece of literature (cos it has to do with school, that alone kinda ruins everything! :P ) but once you really think about it, it's a really good book

[Robert]

Gloria wrote: "we did it for school and at first you don't really appreciate the book and see it as a great piece of literature (cos it has to do with school, that alone kinda ruins everything! :P ) but once you ..."

As I read 'Great Gatsby,' Gloria, and realized it was written in 1925, I realized that innumerable television shows, movies, and books had stolen its plot, its storyline. And that is why I believe so many younger readers, I'm 63, don't realize that F. Scott Fitzgerald was 60 years ahead of anyone else.

[Marguerite]

I was forced to read this in the 8th grade, back in the Ice Age, along with Billy Budd and some others I gladly forget. I tried to read Gatsby again when the movie came out, but I couldn't, I just couldn't! If you ever want to make someone hate a book, force them to read it!

[Sarah]

I totally understand your sentiments here, although I actually quite like this particular novel. Although I think Gatsby is pretty good, Fitzgerald never really created anything that was astounding (I really hate the other two novels I managed to read by him). Gatsby is overrated for sure.

[Rob]

I don't think Gatsby is so great. It's just not a great story, and you never really get to know how the characters think, and frankly don't want to anyway. I don't see how it's considered a classic.

[[deleted user]]

Fitzgerald dazzled people in the 20's, but he never had the depth of Faulkner, Steinbeck, Wolfe, Dos Passos, Hemingway and, IMO, becomes the most interesting only when his life falls apart. When the veneer of spectacular success collapses, what's exposed is real and unfeigned. The Crack-up has none of the glitter, but all of the pain.

[Olivia]

You should try watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio it is aswome

[Monty J]

Adi Narayan wrote: --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.--
(why does he have to explain every single thing in ths book so much? Why can't he just say that man walked away along side the wall into that room or wherever. Just because he can explain things, he shouldn't explain every single thing.)"

I'll try and answer just this one point and suggest that similar analysis may apply to other points the IP made.

More than anything, this novel is an expose of the social decay and corruption of the 1920s. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald relentlessly uses ashes to symbolize this decay and corruption, with the valley of ashes being the most prominent. He even invokes the idea of ashes with phonetic references, such as the time Daisy "flashes her hand." She waved her hand, but Fitzgerald chose the word flash instead because of the poetic connection with word "ash."

This is not something the average reader would pick up on. But if you read the novel closely the symbolism hits you in the face repeatedly. It is a highly complex novel.

[Monty J]

Adi Narayan wrote: "--But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.--
(I can understand this sentence, but all through the Novel I find that the Writer only tells about Gatsby's astonishingly unique nature. He almost never shows it. It's like he's trying to make us imagine that Gatsby is a special personality rather than showing it to us directly. I find that Gatsby is overly hype.

Remember, the book is about Nick, not Gatsby, and Nick's overblown perceptions of Gatsby give insight into Nick's character. Nick represents, I propose, the gullible average American who has an unrealistic admiration for the wealthy class. Nick is so in awe of Gatsby he's unable to comprehend Gatsby's flaws, such as lying, bootlegging, adultery, running over and killing Myrtle, consorting with organized crime figure Meyer Wolfsheim and working a bond scam.

Nick can only give us superficial details about Gatsby's life because he has such limited knowledge of him. This limitation handicaps him as a narrator, causing Nick to use his fertile imagination to fill-in some gaps in Gatsby's life, like his moonlit walk with Daisy where the sidewalk levitates.

Almost invariably, Nick overlooks clues of Gatsby's corruption and pays attention to the superficial trappings of wealth that Jay Gatsby wants him to see. It's showtime. A performance. This is analogous to the way an average American on the street views the wealthy--superficial details like fancy clothes, nice house, nice car, a trophy wife or girlfriend, large parties, gestures like the purchase of an expensive dress for a guest or a ride in a seaplane.

[[deleted user]]

Olivia wrote: "You should try watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio it is aswome"

Hi Olivia,
I've seen the DiCaprio film of Gatsby and didn't care for it. Not his fault. The novel is thin and all the trappings and glitter of the film can't make up for it.

[Anne]

I agree with Olivia, the latest film is excellent; Leo di Caprio makes a surprisingly convincing Gatsby and Carey Mulligan is an exquisite Daisy. Much preferred it to the Redford/Farrow version.

[Monty J]

Olivia wrote: "You should try watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio it is awesome"

DiCaprio did a great job of depicting the script's version of Gatsby, especially in the climax Plaza Hotel scene when he draws back a fist at Tom, then recomposes himself. This is the scene when he loses Daisy because Tom has unmasked Gatsby's facade, revealing his hidden true low character. He's nothing more than a common criminal, and therefore not good enough for Daisy.

The popular notion of her rejecting him because her "old money" is better than his "new money" is not well supported in the text. She rejected him only after she learned he was a crook, immediately and without a backward glance.

I think the script could have done a much better job of adhering to the book by showing the conflicting testimony over who was driving, thereby pointing the finger of doubt at Gatsby. The script did very little in the way of fleshing out Nick Carraway's complex, conflicted character, who ended up in McKee's bedroom after wiping shaving cream off his jaw.

Instead, Baz Luhrmann went for the low-hanging fruit and grossly overplayed the partying, creating a circus-like atmosphere roiling in glitz but supplying little depth of plot or character development. (The last two movie versions entirely missed the purpose of the parties, which was to provide a sales platform for illicit bonds. Showing the sales team in action, as the book did, would have provided intrigue and foreshadowed the sinister side of Gatsby.)

I've seen two of the four films made about The Great Gatsby and parts of a third; some day, maybe someone will have the guts to portray what was actually between the covers of this iconic novel about the American condition.

[Geoffrey]

We´ve spent much of our ire on this subject, but what I would like to add by distraction and corollary is another book about the business shenanigans of the 20´s, namely Babbit by Sinclair Lewis. The morality in play is not as aggrieved as in TGG. Lewis neither camouflages the duplicity nor immorality but directly speaks of the hypocrisy and conformity of the capitalist class. Had TGG never been written would B have become the paragon of the decadent 20´s in a novel? I believe it would have been but would never have measured up to the success of Nick´s novel.

[Monty J]

Geoffrey wrote: "We´ve spent much of our ire on this subject, but what I would like to add by distraction and corollary is another book about the business shenanigans of the 20´s, namely Babbit by Sinclair Lewis. T..."

Good points. I will put Babbit on my list.

What amazes me is how TGG has been twisted by the film industry into a celebration of the pursuit of riches instead of a cautionary tale about the corruption that flows in its wake.

In a way, Dashiell Hammett is a better writer than Fitzgerald because in The Maltese Falcon there was no confusion about the message of the story--the blind pursuit of wealth leaves a trail of destruction.

The Buchanans went on to pursue their opulent, careless lives, just as before. Nick licked his wounds and became less gullible, but he refused to hold Gatsby accountable, shook hands with Tom and accepted what happened as part of the lifestyle of the wealthy. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”--self-centered wealthy people repeating the same careless mistakes in the preservation of their opulence.

(Melania Trump would have a few choice words about that lifestyle about now.)

[[deleted user]]

"What amazes me is how TGG has been twisted by the film industry into a celebration of the pursuit of riches instead of a cautionary tale about the corruption that flows in its wake."

Couldn't agree with this more. That's exactly what I found to be a problem with the film and why I couldn't warm up to it. I'm also a big fan of The Maltese Falcon, book and film, and an argument could be made about the writing in comparison.

As for Melania, I think she'd like to keep the lifestyle, but switch her partner.

[Anne]

By the end of the film, Gatsby is dead in his swimming pool, Myrtle -
and possibly her unborn child - dead in the road, Wilson is a murderer, Tom a murderer once removed, Daisy is chained to her husband forever by guilt or enervation or both, and Nick is an alcoholic in therapy. In what possible way is this a celebration of the pursuit of riches?

[Geoffrey]

Anne, yes, that is how the reader takes the moral of the tale, but SF doesn´t. You have to read the last three pages to see that he doesn´t bring our take to the novel´s end.

[Monty J]

Anne wrote: "In what possible way is this a celebration of the pursuit of riches? "

My comment was in reference to the contrast between the film versions and the novel, not of any one on a standalone basis.

Relatively speaking, the films focus less on Gatsby's criminality while emphasizing his romantic appeal (e.g., his dream-like hopefulness), thereby making him appear more sympathetic.

Neither film shows the sales team Nick spends seven lines describing at the first party. The Luhrmann film exaggerates Tom's involvement with Wilson's decision to kill Gatsby and fails to show any of Tom's sympathetic traits--e.g., the way he wept after Myrtle's death. By painting Tom more darkly, the film created more sympathy for Gatsby and Daisy, thereby enhancing romantic appeal over corruption.

Except in Luhrmann's film where he shows the cop saying, "Sonofabitch didn't even stop his car," neither film mentions eyewitness testimony (particularly Michaelis') that said a man was driving, contradicting Gatsby's claim that Daisy was behind the wheel. This drew sympathy toward Gatsby (and condemnation toward Daisy.)

Neither film mentions the intercepted postmortem phone call from Slagel that incriminates Gatsby in the bond scheme.

By the end of the film, the audience is sad because of Gatsby's death rather than seeing his death as a just consequence of his corruption. Per the films, Gatsby's death was a case of mistaken identity. Wilson got the wrong guy. Which is not the case. Per the novel, eyewitnesses testimony indicates it was Gatsby who ran over Wilson's wife.

In the films, Nick is painted more sympathetically by ignoring the bedroom scene in McKee's apartment and his homoerotic response to a train conductor. True, these are confusing scenes, but some recognition of Nick's gender preference ambiguity would have made him less sympathetic. The result is the audience sees Nick as a reliable narrator and accepts everything he says as true, particularly his misguided favorable judgement of Gatsby in the end.

According to Nick, we are to overlook murder and larceny if the criminal is adequately "gorgeous" and charismatic.

(And I cannot escape Gatsby's parallel with Donald Trump, whose adoring minions have an astonishing appetite for his never-ending lies and inhumanitarian insults and abuses.)

[Geoffrey]

Toni, yes, I agree with you on Melania. She may be so much a victim of his narcissistic abuse that she has lost considerable confidence in herself to find another partner. What a shame. A brilliant woman who speaks five languages and is stunningly gorgeous. For the sake of the child I hope she divorces the POS and remarries. She would have dozens of suitors to pick from.

[[deleted user]]

"According to Nick, we are to overlook murder and larceny if the criminal is adequately "gorgeous" and charismatic."

IMO, this is an American value which I've seen repeatedly displayed over the years because, as a society, we worship money to a dangerous degree. And, this value was both embraced by Fitzgerald and consciously promoted in Gatsby, just another reason the novel leaves me cold. Yes, the ending is melodramatic, but it's tacked on. It's not the core of the novel, the purpose of which is to dazzle and the film embraces that to a very disturbing degree.

Fitzgerald's embrace of the superficial is what keeps his body of work from moving past the surface glitter of his life. He never gets under the surface. He's a good stylist, but never a great writer like Faulkner.

Ironically, Fitzgerald did not see his own disaster in the making because he was so distracted by the upward trajectory of wealth and glitter and shallowness that was his early life. The spectacular crash of that followed is the only part of his life that interests me because it's the only part with any depth to it.

("And I cannot escape Gatsby's parallel with Donald Trump, whose adoring minions have an astonishing appetite for his never-ending lies and inhumanitarian insults and abuses.")

Yes, many many parallels here and I believe Trump's own life will also be accompanied by a spectacular fall.

[Geoffrey]

DT will have a massive coronary or an aneurism that will leave him an invalid for the rest of his miserable life. His eating habits and lack of exercise and care of his health will turn against him soon.

[Monty J]

Toni wrote: "IMO, this is an American value which I've seen repeatedly displayed over the years because, as a society, we worship money to a dangerous degree."

Agreed.


"And, this value was both embraced by Fitzgerald and consciously promoted in Gatsby, just another reason the novel leaves me cold."

Understood. Although I feel that Fitzgerald was trying to do something different, albeit clumsily, with The Great Gatsby. He even stated so according to The New York Times:

He had begun to plan the novel in June, 1923, saying to Maxwell Perkins, "I want to write something new - something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."

In a separate thread "Gatsby, By The Numbers" https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... Here, I began laying out evidence that Fitzgerald was trying to draw attention to the corruption that "followed in the wake" of the glitter and glitz.

Few in his era knew more about glitter and glitz than Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, and in the early 1920s he'd tasted the bitter flavor of corrupt living, with his marriage nearly shattered by Zelda's affair (and I assume his own affairs.)

In Gatsby succeeded in showing the glitter and glitz, but he also showed how it was tainted. I think he largely succeeded in telling a cautionary tale about the American Dream, but social critique was a new form for him, and he left too much for the reader to wrestle with. You have to really analyze and parse sentences to get everything. It could have been much more direct, hard-hitting and hopeful. Instead, it was depressing.

I think Fitzgerald was deeply conflicted as he wrote The Great Gatsby, and it threw him for a loop that he never recovered from. He had faced two sides of himself--the Gatsby side and the Carraway side--that he could not reconcile. Gatsby represented an inner part of Fitzgerald, capable of bipolar grandiosity. Nick represented his more reserved public personna. Maybe homosexuality had something to do with it. Fitzgerald had touched on it in Gatsby, and in Tender Is The Night he dug into it more deeply, judging it as hopeless.

For a deep-thinking reader, it is a very complicated book.

[[deleted user]]

"For a deep-thinking reader, it is a very complicated book."

Complicated? Really? Here's the quote you give for Fitzgerald:

"I want to write something new - something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."

Simple is the operative word here and the book is indeed simple. I guess it's "beautiful and intricately patterned" if you like gross displays of wealth which Fitzgerald and Zelda did like. So, Gatsby lives insanely lavishly and, gee gosh, things go south and tragedy erupts. That's the book.

In your explanation, you attempt to instill depth where it isn't by adding mountains of speculation that have no basis or even relevance. Maybe Gatsby is bi-polar, maybe Fitzgerald is, maybe he's gay, maybe, maybe, maybe...

It's possible you find such speculations to be equivalent to deep thinking complications, but the book is very simple.

There are very good reasons why Fitzgerald who was wildly popular during the early part of his career, is never rated on a par with his contemporaries; Faulkner, Steinbeck, Wolfe, Dos Passos, Hemingway. He was primarily a stylist, but never a deep thinker and his novels (like his marriage) have worn thin over time.

[Matthew]

Did I miss much? To address the OP, the book is very much an acquired taste. It was essentially a novel by a modernist intellectual, for modernist intellectuals. It helps to have a primer so one can spot the intricate symbolism, metaphors and historical references in advance. Otherwise, it can be rather inaccessible, and therefore a dull read.