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Jan 26, 2018gord_ma rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Recently, I saw a patron with a fresh Scribner’s paperback of The Great Gatsby, the early-'90s version with a yellow stripe on the cover that denoted that commentary by Matthew J. Bruccoli, the greatest expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald, was published within. As hundreds of reviews and essays have already been written of The Great Gatsby, by writers better than me—and naturally as it is the greatest American novel since Huckleberry Finn—this entry will not seek to outdo them. Instead, this entry will seek to answer several common questions about this book and then provide some quotes about it by some famous people in order to enhance one’s reading of it. __________________ Q: What is The Great Gatsby? A: The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is poetic and enduring. It is without filler or waste. Q: How does one go about reading it? A: There are four stages in the development of one who reads The Great Gatsby: 1. No knowledge of the novel or of its author 2. Resistance and/or loathing of the author 3. Devotion 4. Admiration Q: What is the novel about? A: It’s open to interpretation, but to quote Matthew J. Bruccoli, The Great Gatsby is about “a poor boy who wants to be a great success and who wants to marry a rich girl and gets the two mixed up” (C-SPAN, 2002). Q: What is significance of the green light? A: Read the book. Q: Who was driving the car that struck—? A: Read the book! Q: What does the novel have to do with American Dream? A: The American Dream argues that American exceptionalism allows anyone to grow beyond one's inheritance, to rise from nothing to riches through hard work, idealism, and gusto in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Jay Gatsby is an exemplar of this dream. Q: Who is the villain of the novel? A: Jordan Baker, because she cheats at golf. Q: Does the novel glorify wealth? A: I’d argue that it is a critique of the immorality and decadence that can come with wealth. Q: Which is the best film adaptation? A: Out of all the surviving adaptations, Jack Clayton’s 1974 version with Robert Redford is the most faithful and rewarding. Q: What is your favourite line(s) from the novel? A: I own multiple versions but my favourite line is always the same: (Chapter Six) “Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder” (pg. 110). And, then the next entire paragraph. Q: Why was the novel considered a failure? A: Sales did not match or exceed that of Fitzgerald’s first two novels during his life. Q: How does Gatsby compare to the rest of Fitzgerald’s oeuvre? A: It was his finest complete novel, and all in under 50,000 words. Fitzgerald’s pre-Gatsby writings were contemporary pop stories. Tender Is the Night was a psychological study. The Last Tycoon was Fitzgerald’s return to form. __________________ Quotes about The Great Gatsby: J. D. Salinger: It “was my ‘Tom Sawyer’ when I was twelve” (via Buddy Glass in “Zooey”). Ernest Hemingway: “(Y)ou would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non-conceited writers have when they have done something very fine” (in A Moveable Feast). Richard Yates: It’s “the most nourishing novel I read” (NYTBR, 1981). Joan Didion: “It’s one of the three perfect books I go back to” (src: Scott Donaldson). Vladimir Nabokov: “Tender is the Night, magnificent; The Great Gatsby, terrible” (src: Brian Boyd). Adam Gopnik: “‘In American writing, there are three perfect books, which seem to speak to every reader and condition: ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ‘The Great Gatsby,’ and ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (New Yorker, 2010).