The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source of book: I own this.

This review is dedicated to the memory of my cousin-in-law Jennifer, English teacher and all around great person. The world is a sadder place without her.

The Great Gatsby is one of those books I really should have read in high school, but never did. If I recall, we had to read an excerpt in 11th Grade, which is often the worst way to experience a novel. I mean, there are some books for which a single scene is enough, but for most, a scene out of context loses so much. In any event, I wasn’t impressed particularly, and never went back and read it.

In my 30s, I did read Fitzgerald’s first book, This Side of Paradise, and enjoyed it more than I expected. Since then, I kept saying I would read Gatsby, but never got around to it. In a way, I was a bit intimidated by it, because it was Jennifer’s favorite book to teach her high schoolers, and I worried I would disappoint her. (I have my insecurities, and have a bit of Imposter Syndrome. It doesn’t help that I was homeschooled and skipped undergrad college.) And then, now, I regret that I will never have a chance in this life to talk with her about it. Life sucks sometimes. So, Jen, see? I did get around to reading it eventually.

The Great Gatsby had an interesting history. Fitzgerald wrote it, and submitted it to a publisher, who suggested some revisions, which Fitzgerald made. The title was a problem for him, and many were suggested. Deadlines (and the fact that most of the titles, quite frankly, were lousy) meant one had to be picked. The publisher went with the title we know today, over Fitzgerald’s objections. I’m voting with the publisher on this one, as the title has turned out to be one of the most memorable and iconic in literature. It also is a reasonable introduction to the topics in the book.

The book wasn’t a total flop, but it wasn’t particularly successful. Critics didn’t like it much, and even the ones who did gave lukewarm reviews. It wasn’t until World War II that the book really caught on. The story behind that is fascinating, and I talked about it in my review of When Books Went to War. Without the Armed Services Edition of this book, it is possible it would still be languishing in obscurity.

These days, Gatsby is considered part of the American canon, even if many probably know the Leonardo Di Caprio movie better than the book. Opinions on the book are pretty polarized - a quick google search turns up both “Why I Despise The Great Gatsby” and “Why Gatsby Is So Great.” I’m more in the middle. It’s a good book. It’s not in my pantheon of greats. But you should definitely read it.

Since this book has been in print, it seems doubtful that anything I say could really be considered a “spoiler,” but consider yourself warned. Plot points are rather important to the book, and this review will contain spoilers.

The plot is thus: the narrator, Nick Carraway, moves from the Midwest to Long Island, and becomes the neighbor of a mysterious and fantastically wealthy man named Jay Gatsby. As it turns out, Gatsby - formerly Jimmy Gatz - was a poor young man who made his wealth by bootlegging, and has purchased this mansion and throws crazy parties for the sole purpose of winning his first love, Daisy. She got tired of waiting for him, and married Tom Buchanan, a scion of old money, and a real prick. Tom is having an affair with a married working-class woman behind Daisy’s back. Nick assists Gatsby in meeting Daisy (who is Nick’s distant cousin), and the two flirt with rekindling their romance. Tom and Gatsby confront each other in Manhattan, and Daisy is torn. She drives back with Gatsby, and hits and kills Tom’s mistress accidentally. She leaves the scene of the accident. The husband, thinking Gatsby is the killer, murders him and then kills himself. Nick is left to pick up the pieces Gatsby leaves behind.

The book is pretty heavy on symbolism, and can be read as a critique of both the Roaring 20s and American materialism in general.

The criticisms of the book are, for the most part, valid enough. The characters are loathsome, yet without the psychological depth that makes one like them as characters. Certain points - and motivations - are simply glossed over.

However, I do think that one objection misses an important point. It is true that Gatsby is morally vacuous in many ways. The title character is intended (I would guess) to be admired, despite his flaws. Sure, he may have made his fortune illegally, attempted to break up a marriage, throws orgiastic parties, encouraged a hit-and-run, and so on, but he is true to his first love. Whatever. And true, Nick, who kind of stands in for the reader and acts as the conscience of the book, is pretty morally questionable himself. After all, he basically stands by and watches Tom’s philandering, and much more. And then, after all is said and done, gets to go back to the Midwest full of self righteousness.

I think, though, that this is indeed missing the crucial truth: because we tend to be Nick, and be like Nick, Fitzgerald is actually implicating us in this vacuousness. To come away with a sense that we are supposed to feel good about ourselves, secure in our righteousness, having just gawked at wealth and moralized against it while admiring it, is wrong, in my view. It is taking the easy way out, one without self-examination. One objection to this view might be that Fitzgerald arguably didn’t intend to implicate Carraway - and by extension himself - in this. So what? Honestly, what my reading of Fitzgerald has revealed is that he very often lacked self awareness - and yet somehow managed to tell the unflattering truth about himself. (The last line in This Side of Paradise is fantastic - and there are plenty of moments like that in both books.) It may have been unintentional, but it is still there and meaningful.

It really is an indictment of many aspects of American character as well. The myth of the self-made man - and the idea that the only thing holding the poor back is their lack of character. In general, the conflation of wealth and privilege with morality. Our fascination with wealth and its trappings. Our alternative morality that we apply to our superstars. (See The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named and Evangelicals…) It is easy to see why this book is a popular one for teachers. There is plenty to discuss, and fairly obvious metaphors. It is also short, which has to be an advantage.

Gatsby isn’t as full of zingers as some books, but it does have some delightful word pictures, and some of the most epic (and understatedly written) party scenes in literature. In particular, the line, “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited - they went there.” was fantastic. It sounds almost like something Groucho Marx would say.

I mentioned the final line, which is worth quoting. It follows an extended section where Nick (who has basically had to handle the fun of notifying the few relatives and fewer friends of Gatsby’s demise) muses on the fallout of the whole thing, and life itself. Plenty of books tend to either ramble at the end, or come to a close all too abruptly. This one really feels like it is neither too long nor too short, but a perfect and beautiful conclusion.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning --

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

***

It isn’t too often that a book cover becomes iconic in and of itself. Artist Francis Cugat designed the cover before the novel was completed. Fitzgerald reportedly liked it so much, he claimed that he had written the cover art into the book. 

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source of Book: I own this.
Date originally published on facebook: September 14, 2010

I recall reading a short story and an excerpt from The Great Gatsby in high school, but had never really spent time with Fitzgerald before.

This was his first novel, and launched his career. It is an odd combination of elements, being partially in ordinary prose, partially in blank verse, and partially in the form of correspondence between characters. Fitzgerald built the novel from previous efforts, which explains the feeling that certain parts don’t quite fit the rest of the novel.

This Side of Paradise was also, like several of Fitzgerald’s works, partially autobiographical. The protagonist, Amory Blaine, is essentially himself, and he recounts several of his early romantic affairs. I purposely did not read about Fitzgerald himself until after I finished the book, so I could enjoy the book without being distracted by the man. However, I gained some interesting insights into the book afterward by examining his life, and the parallels with the book.

The plot can be generally summarized as this: a young man grows from childhood to early adulthood, learns of himself, becomes disillusioned with love and life, and is left dissatisfied.

Amory, like the author, was born to a moderately wealthy family, attended Princeton, served in the armed forces at the very end of World War I, and fell in love with a difficult, fascinating woman. In the book, she chooses to marry money, and leaves Amory heartbroken. In real life, she chose Fitzgerald after his book became a success. Their marriage was the opposite of a fairy tale, however. They both partied and drank to excess. She spent the last years of his life in a mental institution with schizophrenia, later dying in a fire. He drank himself to death at a young age.

It was an odd coincidence that I read this book while reading G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. As a young man, Fitzgerald read voraciously; Chesterton was a favorite author early on, and is mentioned throughout This Side of Paradise. At first, Amory cites Chesterton as a favorite, and later rejects him as he loses faith in everything.

The overwhelming mood of this book, as seen through Amory’s eyes, is one of ennui, a boredom with life, people, and himself. Amory is described as an egoist – certainly accurate, and a remarkably self-aware description by Fitzgerald. Amory is always about himself. Even the women he loves, he loves as a reflection of himself – they mirror his own personality and provide a foil for his talent and wit. To a degree, this is a similar character to Sir Willoughby in George Meredith’s The Egoist, who also views others as a mirror for himself. However, while Willoughby evokes pity even as he is ruthlessly exposed for the reader, Amory remains an unsympathetic character throughout.  A real strength of the book is the way Fitzgerald is able to acknowledge his weaknesses, even though he was ultimately unable or unwilling to master them.

The contrast with Chesterton could not be greater. Chesterton is one of those larger than life personalities, like an overgrown child who is still discovering the world for the first time. Everything is thrilling and exciting to him. Conversely, Amory is thrilled by nothing. Even young love seems diminished. The whole narrative seems to give the feeling of a world shrunken and desiccated. The color has entirely gone out.

Another facet of this novel that struck me was the parallels with modern society. Amory could easily be from my generation. He is bored with work, love, and knowledge. He considers himself smarter than everyone else, despite a lack of evidence. He has difficulty believing or caring about anything.

The era, too, fits the modern era. The boom of the gilded age gave way to the war, then to the ‘20s and prohibition, and finally to the great depression. Although the book was published in 1920, Fitzgerald’s personal circumstances already gave a hint of the depression to come. The soulless drinking, partying, and self regard carried through the ‘20s, leading to a cultural hangover much like we are experiencing today. Amory despises the poor, even as he is threatened with poverty himself.

From the aesthetic point of view, this book is of mixed quality. At times, the use of language and description is piercingly good. Fitzgerald’s ability to show personality with a minimum of words can be breathtaking. So too, he captures the emotions of youth extraordinarily well, particularly as he was young himself at the time.

The book has its weaknesses as well. The tone and form is inconsistent, probably due to the multiple sources drawn together at the last. Fitzgerald also has a tendency to drop literary names, simply listing Amory’s current reading list at various times, and expecting the reader to draw conclusions. This works to a degree if the reader is familiar with Chesterton, Swinburne, Brooke, and others of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. However, it lacks the clarity and wit of the passages where he allows the personalities to come through his writing directly.

The most memorable lines of the book come right at the end, in the form of Amory’s thoughts as he walks through a graveyard on his way back toward Princeton. He has just delivered a speech to a wealthy father of a friend from school in which he argues for socialism, despite believing little or nothing of what he says. The irony is that these memorable lines were largely stolen from the diary of his future wife, who never attained his renown, but became bitter over his success.

As Amory reflects on the meaninglessness of modern life, deciding that there was no God in his heart, and little left but disillusion and unrealized dreams, he describes his generation as, “[A] new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” In the final line, he stretches his hands to the sky and laments, “I know myself, but that is all.” Such is the lament of our present age.