[Book Review]: The Great Gatsby

This post is the first in hopefully a long series of book reviews. You can read more here: My Library

"The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece." 

-Matthew J. Bruccoli, Preface to The Great Gatsby 

Click on image to get this book on Amazon; it's well worth it if you don't own a copy. 

I am quite unashamed to admit that this reading of The Great Gatsby was neither my first nor (hopefully) my last. This great novel, if you have never read it, is a work that is worth reading, if simply for the beautiful way in which F. Scott Fitzgerald writes. While this book was written in 1924/25, it is not one of those books that we find impossible to relate to; Fitzgerald allows the reader a window into the past while also creating a story  worthy of the time spent reading it. 

For me, as I'm sure is the experience of many of my generation and even previous generations, my first experience of this book was in a high school English class in which I probably read spark notes and never even thought about opening the book. Possibly, you could say, this was Fitzgerald's idea, as in 1920 he (quite famously, I might add) stated: "An author ought to write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters ever afterward." It seems, however, that Fitzgerald crafted something in The Great Gatsby which does not fit this mold; not only do the schoolmasters of today love this book, but young and old alike can pick this book up and enjoy it simply for the masterpiece of storytelling that it is. Proof of the staying power of this book is that here in 2013, almost a century after Fitzgerald's writing took place, a major Hollywood movie will soon be released based on this novel.  

What is it, you might ask, that makes The Great Gatsby a masterpiece? What about this work of literature is so fascinating that we are still intently reading it today? You might say that it is simply a powerfully written story which captivates you because of the writing style, use of language, and fascinating characters. While these things are truly enticing aspects of the book, I believe that there is more to it than simply being fun to read. I believe that this story has something to offer to us in that it can teach us about the human condition, about the way that we live and seek after our goals in life, and this is what captivates us the most. 

In order to limit the scope of this analysis, I want to focus on two main quotes from The Great Gatsby, or at least set out with those as the framework. To begin the book, we meet our narrator and central figure Nick Carraway who has recently picked up his life and left the Middle-West to venture out East and make a career in selling bonds. Carraway, from whose voice and perspective Fitzgerald writes, has a difficult time adjusting to a new world at first, but when an encounter with a stranger changes his mood, he has this thought: "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees--just as things grow fast in movies--I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." 

With this, then, the story takes off. Carraway is now settled out East, and he is ready to begin his career selling bonds and his new life in this new place where he now feels at home. For many of us, this experience is something with which we can relate: Carraway is in a new place and experiencing a somewhat new reality, and yet he becomes aware of the beauty that this new thing has to offer and he quickly sees the newness as good instead of simply scary.

This statement from Carraway has long fascinated me; in this most recent reading, however, I was struck by a similar and yet somewhat contradictory statement from another character. Later in the summer, Nick is at his cousin Daisy's home, where she lives with her husband Tom Buchanan. At the house on this particular day is Nick's sort of girlfriend-professional golfer Jordan Baker-and the man whose name lends itself to the title of this book, Jay Gatsby. It is a very hot day outside, and all of the characters are taking turns complaining about the heat. Daisy Buchanan, Nick's cousin, complains that it is too hot, and in her dramatic way wonders what they will do that afternoon, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" Jordan, possibly the most intriguing character in the story outside of Gatsby, responds in a quite simple way by stating: "Don't be morbid. Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." 

While these two statements from two different characters may simply be seen as statements about different experiences given at different times, Fitzgerald's inclusion of two characters speaking of life "starting/beginning all over again" was almost certainly not an accident. It seems to me that these characters' desire to have life begin again, or statement that it was already beginning, shows one of the central human conditions, that of rarely being satisfied with one's experience of life at that moment. At another point in the story, we see Gatsby's similar feelings in his "incredulous" response to Nick's statement that you can't repeat the past when he exclaims "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"

For the characters of this story, it seems, there is never a moment which is 'good enough.' Gatsby and Daisy, at times, want to dwell in the past; Nick and Jordan both speak of new beginnings and life starting over; Tom repeatedly commits to being better in the future; Myrtle Wilson, a minor character in terms of appearance but major character in terms of plot development, has a similar experience to Gatsby in dwelling on the past and continually having regret. Whichever the character, the present is not enough, and the hope is simply that the future might be better, quite often meaning that the future would look a lot like the past had.

Fitzgerald, a masterful writer, worked diligently in this novel to capture the human condition of the 1920s, and it seems in his work he has captured the state of persons long beyond that time. In today's world, we can constantly see that people are unsatisfied which often leads to dwelling on the past or dreaming of the future. Fitzgerald sums up this existence, this day-to-day living of a life with which we are not satisfied, when he says in the final sentence of this novel what we "beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

The lesson of this theme in The Great Gatsby is one that it seems the characters of the novel may have missed, aside from possibly Nick. That theme seems to be that life is not enjoyed or lived well if we simply "beat on" and allow ourselves to be "borne back ceaselessly into the past." Rather, a life lived to the full is one where we don't "lead lives of quiet desperation," as Thoreau asserted that we do, but where we make the most of each moment and love all of the people we have in our lives.

For now, my analysis of this wonderful book will stop there. I may decide to write on another topic this novel caused me to think about, or to speak about the character of Jay Gatsby and the anomaly that he seems to be, or possibly to talk about the movie's interpretation of this masterpiece, but for now this will suffice. I look forward to the movie which will be out this Friday, and for your viewing pleasure I've put the preview for it below.

May our experience of reading a masterpiece of literature like this draw us closer to Truth, to Beauty, and to Goodness. May God bless each of us this day.