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The Great Gatsby

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Harry Marks
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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Mr. P wrote:Well, people honestly believe they have a chance to achieve that level of success by way of the myth of hard work paying off in the end. When in reality, there is no real chance to achieve more than being better off than your neighbor. Rarely will most become truly wealthy...if money and power is your ultimate goal.
I think that's why people support the decadence. That and maybe a little bit of indulgence in fantasy.
All this I agree with. And they do have a chance, just as buying a lottery ticket gives you a chance. You have to be able to make sense of low probabilities to keep from sabotaging yourself with this, though.

I was surprised last year to find out that owning a franchise takes a lot of money. Somehow I had the notion that if you were experienced in the field the world would take a gamble on you, allowing you to "buy on time" in essence. And I gather there is still a component of that, but the down payment (so to speak) is pretty steep.

I don't actually think capitalists are necessarily corrupt. But I do think that to enter the stratosphere of mega-millionaires you have to be kind of obsessive, and you have to buy into an ideology that says the money is what matters. If it was all about pleasing customers and providing value, that would be most excellent. Alas, it's also about vicious behavior toward competitors, and about putting profit ahead of people, and about "investing" in lobbying the politicians, and about "managing" public relations (by which I mean lying). So, since the "most successful" set the standard for that social class, their corruption will seep into the worldview of their ilk.
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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I also sense the emptiness of the wealthy in this book. Finished it yesterday. Gatsby lived an empty life, stuck in the past even though he had made a fortune and had a life everyone dreamed of. Everyone around him, in fact, lived an empty life, devoid of any real meaning. Maybe Nick came away more enriched for his experiences. His father had a fantasy to make his life worth something. He was proud of his son, little did he know...

Everyone forgot or disavowed Gatsby in the end. Especially Daisy.

It was a decent story, but I am still baffled at the 'classic' label that it is given.
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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I listened to it a long time ago and recall not being too impressed. Even the rich can't get everything they want.:? Plus some character saying "Hey ol' sport!" about 58 times during the story.
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You got that about right, ol' sport!
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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Mr. P wrote:Well, I am trying to catch up on classics and works that are considered to be of "the greats." The Great Gatsby is currently on my active list.

I am more than halfway through and...I just don't get why this is considered such a classic. It's theme seems very basic to me: guy wants girl but realizes he wanted the girl as she existed in his mind. Throw in the excesses of the wealthy and... I just don't get why it is so revered.

Fitzgerald does have a firm grasp on the use of language. I enjoy reading his prose...but...well I won't be redundant.

Anyone else read this? What am I missing?
You are correct. It's ridiculously overrated.
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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Bringing up this book made me curious about how I'd view in on what will be probably my third reading. So I bought a used copy and will find out. I'm a little wary about claims of anything being overrated. What does that really mean? What standard is being used to judge? But books certainly do have their ups and downs reputation-wise, I'll grant that. Gatsby was "great" for a past generation of critics. Maybe not so much for the current generation.

Maureen Corrigan wrote a book about Gatsby, though, about 10 years ago. When a book gets written about a book, that book seems to have hit the big-time. Just saying'.
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DWill wrote:Bringing up this book made me curious about how I'd view in on what will be probably my third reading. So I bought a used copy and will find out. I'm a little wary about claims of anything being overrated. What does that really mean? What standard is being used to judge? But books certainly do have their ups and downs reputation-wise, I'll grant that. Gatsby was "great" for a past generation of critics. Maybe not so much for the current generation.

Maureen Corrigan wrote a book about Gatsby, though, about 10 years ago. When a book gets written about a book, that book seems to have hit the big-time. Just saying'.
I'll be anticipating your commentary!

I feel it was overrated. But I am a hard to impress person. Yes. It was written in a simpler time, long ago. I did not live there so maybe I miss out on the sentiment. All I saw was a shyster who though he was in love, rich folks being shallow, and a bunch of people wasting their lives looking for something they didn't really want or need. Maybe that is something, but it does not, to me, scream classic or impactful. But that's just me.

And critics or homage mean nothing to me personally. Positive reviews and books have been written about Trump.
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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Well, I think the whole Great American Novel search is for a book that reveals some essential things about American culture or character, of course conveyed through art rather than analysis. It's on that level that Gatsby has commanded so much attention. But no doubt intelligent people have differed in their judgment of Fitzgerald's degree of success.

I've had that "I just don't get it" feeling about a book that's said to be wonderful. That happened when I felt I had to read Moby Dick because I was an English major. Man I hated reading that book and fell asleep over it more than once. It wasn't until decades later, here on BT, that I reread it and had an opposite appreciation. Now I fully agree that it's a great book.

It's simply interesting to me how circumstances can affect whether I like a book or not, especially a classic. So I try to keep open to the possibility that if I'm negative on the book, maybe my mindset at the time of reading just wasn't ideal.
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Re: The Great Gatsby

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Started the book, Mr. P, and really enjoying it so far. I find it repays close reading, but on my other reads I didn't do very much of that. A good thing about rereading is that you already know the book in general, plot and theme, so you can pay more attention to language and other aspects of the writer's technique. For example, I can think about the significance of the West Egg/East Egg contrast, a contrast built on the real geography of western Long Island. Gatsby's incredibly rich, apparently, but he's a new-money guy living in West Egg who can only gaze longingly over to the old-money, aristocratic East where Tom and Daisy live. Even in America, can money get a person into the upper echelon, socially, erasing class distinctions? That's a different matter. Much has been written about the green light Gatsby sees shining from Tom and Daisy's, a symbol that opens and closes the book. I don't always find symbolism appealing, but in this case I do.

It seems that the most respected fiction is a bit like poetry, in that the language has a below-the-surface depth. The reader needs to look into it sometimes to understand. The first such passage I came to was a few pages in: "a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War"--what? A smarter person than I might get that. I had to look up what it might mean, and fortunately we have the internet, and other people have wondered about the passage, too, so there the explanation was. Granted, not all readers want to put a microscope to a writer's words, and I wouldn't be inclined to either unless I had read to get the general idea first.

The writing, as you said, is outstanding, but also the characterization. About Daisy, you could say she's a shallow airhead, yet Fitzgerald makes her also something like a goddess, with an indefinable beauty and allure: "For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice complelled me forward breathlessly as I listened--then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk." Her husband, Tom, is a piece of work, going on about threats to the white race, so entitled and full of himself, getting anything he wants. "Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square."

Altogether, Chapter 1 is a pretty fine set-up for what's to come. Fitzgerald has a rich era of history to write about--the War's end, Prohibition passed, and what came to be called the Jazz Age beginning. Some more distant American history also comes into play later, I think. I expect to do a lot of underlining--it's that sort of book for me.
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I believe he coined the term Jazz Age.

Yes. I did read up on the symbolism. I think my issue with the story is that I do not care at all about any of the characters. Hard to be moved when that is the case. Perhaps I will re-read it again in the future.

I am enjoying Benjamin Button.
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