F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

[Sybarite]

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald


It's always slightly difficult to come to a famous novel for the first time, when there's such a vast body of acclaim effectively saying that it's one of the best things ever written.

Fortunately for this reader, I hadn't seen any of the screen versions and knew nothing of the plot, so it was fresh as a daisy for me.

The plot itself is really quite straightforward. Narrated by Nick Carraway, it opens in the summer of 1922 as the 29-year-old moves to New York to work in finance. Living in West Egg, one of two wealthy (and fictional) seaside communities on Long Island Sound, he socialises with Daisy, a cousin, and her husband, Tom, in East Egg – which is full of the old aristocracy – before meeting his own neighbour, the prodigious party-giver Jay Gatsby.

There begins a friendship, which proves convenient when it emerges that Gatsby had a relationship with Daisy before her marriage – and wants to renew it.

F Scott Fitzgerald's novel is often portrayed as being about the Jazz Age – a phrase that the author coined. And the first half is a remarkable portrayal of that era – the brittle shallowness of it all; social chaos and experimentation following the chaos and horror of Flanders.

But this is not the book's big theme. That is the American Dream shattered – betrayed, even. The key is right at the end when Carraway is musing over the events that he has narrated. He looks around him at the beauty of the shore and considers how the first European eyes to see it (Dutch sailors) would have been filled with an awe that only the sheer size of the continent spreading out in front of them could match.

And yet they, and those who followed them, brought the same old class prejudices. The self-made (in more than one way) Gatsby is able to rise to the top of Jazz Age life – an 'alternative culture' of its day – but his fatal mistake is in trying to follow his dream and break through into the aristocracy of the day to claim Daisy for himself.

For all its glamour, the Jazz Age that has raised up Gatsby cannot withstand the old lines in the social sand.

Hypocrisy is here – not just the sexual hypocrisy of the time, so clearly pointed up by the author, but also the social hypocrisy. Hundreds may love Gatsby when he throws his parties and plies them with illicit booze, fashioned into sophisticated cocktails, but only one of his guests, the bookish "Owl-eyes", joins Carraway and the servants at Gatsby's grave.

And so in presiding over Gatsby's death, the New World becomes the old. But perhaps there is a little hope: as Carraway looks forward to the next decade of his own life, we hope that he continues to remember his own father's advice – to avoid judging people.

Fitzgerald's prose is wonderful and his dry, subtle wit shines through. Deceptively simple, but with so much to consider. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[Irene Wilde]

It's been decades since I read Gatsby but my recollection is that the so-called "American Dream" isn't so much betrayed as it is revealed to be morally bankrupt. That the pursuit of personal happiness through the almighty dollar, whether inherited or not, leads to no good end. The Buchanans are as amoral as Gatsby, so that it isn't a matter of "old money" vs. "new money" but the absence of any values beyond acquiring and consuming -- nothing good can survive it.

When I first read Gatsby, I think I was as impressed as you are. When I re-read it later, I was in the throes of discovering writers like Joyce and Faulkner. In fact, I think I had recently completed Ulysses and Fitzgerald suffered in comparison at the time. At some point, I'll have to go back and give it yet another read, to see what I think of it now.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Irene Wilde

It's been decades since I read Gatsby but my recollection is that the so-called "American Dream" isn't so much betrayed as it is revealed to be morally bankrupt. That the pursuit of personal happiness through the almighty dollar, whether inherited or not, leads to no good end. The Buchanans are as amoral as Gatsby, so that it isn't a matter of "old money" vs. "new money" but the absence of any values beyond acquiring and consuming -- nothing good can survive it.

When I first read Gatsby, I think I was as impressed as you are. When I re-read it later, I was in the throes of discovering writers like Joyce and Faulkner. In fact, I think I had recently completed Ulysses and Fitzgerald suffered in comparison at the time. At some point, I'll have to go back and give it yet another read, to see what I think of it now.

Hi Irene – thanks for your comments.

I don't think that Fitzgerald himself was particularly a believer in 'The Amnerican Dream', but I do think that the difference that he creates between Gatsby and the others is one of having a dream beyond money – that of having a relationship with Daisy. Perhaps that's the point.

It's interesting that Fitzgerald only tells us very late on in the story that Gatsby didn't simply dump his parents, but looked after them financially. That, together with his having a dream that goes beyond money, make Gatsby the more 'moral' character here, I think. I think that he wanted the reader to judge Gatsby differently at first – a reference, in part, to the opening comments about Carraway's father telling him not to be judgmental. Fitzgerald is challenging us to take his father's advice. Gatsby has lifted himself from poverty by providing a service that the rich and glamourous want. As far as we can be aware from the text, bootlegging is his only crime – thus a victimless one in most people's eyes.

Gatsby himself finds that his 'American Dream' doesn't give him what he really dreams of – because the 'American Dream' is about money and status, yet is constrained by the prejudice of the ruling elites; the aristocracy, if you will. Gatsby does well – just as long as he doesn't forget his place. His downfall comes when he does that.

I think that that, together with the hypocrisy, the class, race and sex prejudice, conveys Fitzgerald's feelings on the 'American Dream' – nice idea, but doesn't work in practice. But I would also say that he has an idea of what he'd like it to be and he sees that as having been betrayed – hence Carraway's musing at the end of the novel, where he considers the awe that the first Europeans to see that shore would have felt, noting that only the size of the land itself would have matched it for scale. I think that is Fitzgerald saying that the original 'American Dream' was a dream and that it was about more than money and status etc.

As I said, I do think that it is a "deceptively simple" novel. Very much so.

There's a quite interesting article here about Fitzgerald.


Hope that makes some sense ... a bit of a case of steam of conciousness during a lunch break.

[Irene Wilde]

You may well be right -- as I say, it's been decades since I've read it, and Nick's disillusionment would fit with Fitzgerald's own by the time he wrote Gatsby. It's also interesting that this Midwestern American boy actually wrote most of Gatsby in Europe, somewhat distanced from America both physically and emotionally, and yet he seemed as addicted to the American pursuit of wealth as anyone, chronically living beyond his means.

As you say, this little novel offers much more than it appears to on the surface. That I can still recollect so much of it having read it so long ago is a testament to that. It just proves you don't need the cheap sensationalism and gimmicks of a Chuck Palahniuk to tell a compelling story.

[Funhouse]

There is a wonderful (and strange) graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Nicki Greenberg. See details here. (Disclaimer: Nicki is a friend, but I really do love this work, so don't totally disregard my praise). Unfortunately, it's only available in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (although it may be possible to buy from an online seller here and get it shipped elsewhere).

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Funhouse

There is a wonderful (and strange) graphic novel adaptation of The Great Gatsby by Nicki Greenberg. See details here. (Disclaimer: Nicki is a friend, but I really do love this work, so don't totally disregard my praise). Unfortunately, it's only available in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (although it may be possible to buy from an online seller here and get it shipped elsewhere).

How intriguing.

[Cocko]

I read the book recently, my comments are below. I keep a reading log of all works I've read since 2006 if you would like to read more (ABOUT THE LOG | the reading log (book review) blog: the novel and novella, fiction and non-fiction.).

Set in what Fizgerald coined the ‘Jazz Age’, The Great Gatsby is foremost an analysis of romanticised decadence. This cleverly structured plot works on many levels, two of which struck me as key – the desire for the newly rich to embrace modernity at the expense of their past and how this superficiality is often misplaced as tangible (emotional) wellbeing.

Although we learn primarily about our narrator Nick Carraway through his interaction with the small cast of characters, it is his journey that I see embodies the breadth of themes at play. Although he is of privileged background Nick moves to New York, the centre of modern American commerce in search of further riches, leaving behind his rarely mentioned fiancée. He soon meets Gatsby who in many ways exemplifies the man Nick is heading towards, a self made man. However, the mysterious Gatsby is more than just the American dream, as his dream is to embrace the modern in an attempt to recapture the past. Here is the cautionary tale from which Nick is to draw his ultimate lessons, be they lessons in the dangers of excess and the fragility relationships, the danger of running too fast, or in fact driving too fast.

I particularly like the final conversation between Nick and Jordan where she says ‘You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I?’.