The Pretty Good Gatsby

As usual, my review of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby will be highly opinionated and minimally educated. ;)

Plot: Loud parties, fast cars, blatant infidelity, homicide, murder…all in under 200 pages.
Motto: Having it all means nothing at all.

Opinion:
I think the biggest strength of this book is its brevity.* Which is not to say I didn’t like it. But I think Fitzgerald does a good job of getting all his plot points & character development out without dragging on unnecessarily. His prose is rather more florid than I generally like, and I’m not particularly interested in the Jazz era, so most of the literary merit is lost on me. I really couldn’t see why this book is considered the quintessential Great American Novel. In my book both Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind are far superior books… but this post is not about those books.

The characters are well developed, considering the point was that they were shallow, self absorbed, and amoral. I’m all for giving your characters flaws, that’s human, but they lack pretty much any redeeming qualities. Nick is the ‘innocent bystander’ but the only noble (for lack of a better word) thing he does in the whole book is to take care of the funeral arrangements at the end. Tom is a stereotype, the brash, racist, two timing jock – just past his glory days. Jordan is also rich, spoiled, bored, and well, a liar… but beautiful, so that makes it all better. I dislike Daisy the most I think. Not so much because she married Tom rather than wait for Gatsby to come home from the war (although that did not endear her to me), but for her indecision. She loves Gatsby… until he’s been gone too long, then she loves Tom… until Gatsby comes back, then she wants to be with him… but she doesn’t really want to leave Tom because she still kinda sorta loves him. I most empathize with Jay Gatsby, as I’ve carried more than one torch for someone much much longer than would be considered healthy. But even I know when to give up the ghost – namely when the object of your affections gets married and has kids. Time to move on! Furthermore, if you have to sell your soul to be considered worthy by the person you love, you’ve got to ask yourself if they’re worthy of the sacrifice… and nothing about Daisy indicates that she is. As I’m sure it was Fitzgerald’s intention that these be unlikable characters, I give him full marks on that score.

One of the reasons this book has been called a Great American Novel is that it is a window into life in the Jazz Age. And I’m sure it is… to some degree. It could be argued, though, that the life of the young, rich, beautiful New Yorkers is not necessarily representative of life in general at that time. But it is interesting to think of this as the calm between the storms of two world wars. I found the descriptions of the parties to be insightful (and timeless); start with hordes of shallow strangers, add alcohol, turn up the music and everyone’s having a great time! No one really knows anyone, no one knows anything about the host, and no one cares at all. My favorite line is when Jordan says

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

I think it just points out the lack of genuine intimacy in their lives.

Overall, I think this was a very good book, far from my favorite, but absolutely worth a read. There’s a lot of food for thought in this very short book. On Jenn’s advice though, I don’t think I’ll read The Beautiful and the Damned.

*The other thing I love about this book is the author’s name F. Scott Fitzgerald, he gets points not only for having a three-name name, which is cool in and of itself (Mario Vargas Llosa is another one I like) but for using a single bold initial as his first name, and also for having a ‘z’ in his last name. Pretty awesome. Tons better than Herman Melville… what kind of a name is that??