Required reading for high school students across America, but I somehow managed to never read F. Scott's Fitzgerald's most famous novel. I did buy a copy a couple summers ago from one of Borders' clearance bins, but it sat on a bookshelf just waiting for my attention.
And finally.... I picked it up...
The story was.... well... strange. The plot revolves around the misshapen ideology and unreachability of the American Dream. Set outside NYC during the '20's, the main character is merely a window through which to watch three specific people -- his neighbor (Gatsby), his cousin (Daisy) and her husband (Tom). (I think this is the first book I've ever read in which the main character is completely extraneous.)
The three have everything that the wealthy seem to require as necessity, but they are, of course, completely unhappy and disillusioned with life. Through metaphor and symbolism, Fitzgerald opens up the stereotypical "American Dream" to criticism.
What impressed me most about the novel was the absolutely amazing descriptions. I have never read such fresh, unequivocal portrayals. Here's what I'm talking about... It's a section of paragraph from chapter one. Nick, our convenient window, is telling us about the area he is moving into...
"Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals ... but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead."
Seriously, people, is that not phenomenal writing??? That, right there, is what I aspire to... fresh and eye-opening narration.
Ahhh... the soul-satisfying comfort of enjoying a truly talented writer...
1 comment:
Your review is inspiring me to go dig my old copy out of my HS books and read it again and then pass it to Sammie and see what she gets from it....
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