Here we go. It's time to reread Gatsby. I hope you'll read along and share your thoughts ....
‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone …. just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had’ -Nick Carraway. As I began re-reading Gatsby this week, this line jumped off the page. It’s the book for me this time. It’s the core of the novel. I’m not sure why I never focused on it in the past. The first chapter of The Great Gatsby never really inspired me. I was always continuously annoyed by the characters. Nick Carraway, our partially-involved narrator reflecting on his life and his personal ethos, the somewhat anemic lurker who watches and listens as he meets the horrible Buchanans. However, I think my frustration with Nick stems from his confusion when meeting Tom, Daisy, and Jordan. This time, the chapter transformed for me.I am confused, so confused, right alongside Nick. I want to tap him and ask, “Are you catching all of this?” with my eyebrows raised.
Jordan … oh, what is there to say about Jordan? I have a feeling she’s just there for the drinks.
Tom, the hulking bastard he is, once again grates on my every nerve. I can picture him physically moving Nick around, pointing to all of the things he has been able to buy over time. Tom’s house, so full and so empty, resembles a hollowed arena for me, a place filled with hot air because nothing truly has meaning after the event. I can hear the the words of Shelley whispering through the open windows as the smell of the Long Island Sound wafts into the room:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.
As we are introduced to the complexities of East and West Egg and the lives of the Buchanans, I find myself repulsed by Tom Buchanan in particular. He becomes a metaphor, something to be feared, something to understand. I want to learn his face, with its “arrogant eyes” dominating “a body capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.”Finally, as we meet Gatsby, straining his arms, looking out at “a single green light, minute and far away,” I am reminded once again why I love this book: it’s romantic; it’s honest; it’s … a novel of summer. I, once again, fell in love with this line: “Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to compare the book to U2’s album, “Achtung Baby.” Well, I will add a few thoughts on those songs and their relationship to the book as I go along. (This idea was inspired by the trailer for the new Gatsby film. The trailer features a new version of “Love is Blindness,” the final song from the album.)
Nick Carraway is new to New York, a Zoo York on many levels … and the album’s first song “Zoo Station” features a lyric that echoes the themes of Gatsby. I am looking forward to tuning into the “Zoo Station” with Mr. Carraway and with you ....
Time is a train
Makes the future the past
Leaves you standing in the station
Your face pressed up against the glass
What are your thoughts on chapter 1?
Please share ...
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ReplyDeleteI like the point you made about the first quote of the first chapter of the text, before I've simply skipped over it but never until now has its importance resonated with me. So much of the complexity of the novel for me originates from this very sentence, themes such as old money versus new and the fabled west versus the east. This caveat given by Nick's father holds very little importance to Nick himself I believe until after the rising action and somewhere around the denouement of the text.
ReplyDeleteThere are then the characters we are introduced to in the first chapter, to me I always find the dialogue and the characters very peculiar in the beginning but soon we discover them for what they really are. Careless, rich, ultimately lost...when we as readers are first introduced to the sprawling estate of Daisy and Tom Buchannon this is the sense I get, like there's something missing at the end of each sentence. As Daisy exclaims "what do people plan" we are left almost dumbfounded and not so sure if we are to take her seriously, only the very beginning of the ambiguous repartee of the Social Elite. I share with you the same distaste of Tom and can almost hear the words of Shelley myself. The poem itself deals with many similar themes of time, mutability and loss. However, as much as I despise Tom, I will forever struggle with Nick Carraway just as much. There are so many things wrong with him as a narrator I think we often as readers simply accept it and take it. Which brings forth the question is that all part of the masterpiece, throughout the text Fitzgerald leaves a trail of incongruities that for the most part, we just accept.
I am working on a post for chapter 2 now. I think the polar opposite of the Valley of Ashes set against the palaces of East Egg and the striving West Egg was an important choice made by Fitz'.
DeleteI would agree completely, within the valley of ashes you see past the glitz and glamour and into the eyes of the true metropolis. Also, in addition, the valley of ashes is the hub of some of Fitzgerald's greatest allusions and themes. I think there's a battle of realism vs. romanticism between the valley of ashes and east and west egg, the climax between these two forces is ultimately revealed upon the finale of the text but...I won't spoil anything :)
DeleteI don't buy it. For me, these incongruities are what prevent this novel from being the "masterpiece" that it is so often considered. This novel has some very serious issues in plot, so much so that it actually prevents me from appreciating the novel for the masterpiece it is. This novel is written about the relationships of fictional characters. Why am i supposed to care about their lives? Too often i found myself detached from the novel simply because i did not care if Gatsby won Daisy.
Delete-The problems i face with this novel stem from the problems in plot of Fitzgeralds writing. The CONFLICT, one of the many components of plot, fails to gather enough interest for the reader( in my personal opinion). I did not find myself interested enough in Gatsby and the Buchanans to read a novel written solely on the relationship of them. I also find it incredible that the CLIMAX of a "classic" novel can be something as dull as a fight between couples.
The real masterpiece come from the way Fitzgerald is able to characterize these people whom we meet, so wholly that we seem to understand these people. We understand their problems, and the problems of their society at the time. Fitzgerald has such a way of writing, that he is able to characterize the setting of the novel, making it out to be one of the main characters. This is where i see the masterpiece of Fitzgeralds writing.
i think your point about the climax being simply a fight between couples is demeaning to the entire plot structure to the story. the climax is not simply a fight, to me, the climax of the story is when gatsby is killed by mr. wilson. having been dispatched by tom (old money) and killing gatsby (new money) mr. wilson's actions personify the recurring theme of old money versus new money. this proves to be a very well developed and thought out climax to the book and in my opinion can not be looked upon.
Deleteyour point about how fitzgeralds masterpiece being his ability to personify the settin is pure genius. i completly agree with how you said the setting was almost a main characte and this notion has provided me with an enhanced outlook on the novel as a whole.
HH, don't the lovers become a metaphor in this book? They transcend mere couples and become something more, something like the images on the urn for Keats ("Ode on a Grecian Urn" http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html)
DeleteTo miss the metaphorical resonances of the settings is to miss the novel itself.
I better finish my post on ch. 2 tonight!
BB, I love your idea that the setting becomes personified. If we read each of the settings, the tone of each setting says so much. I am reading and rereading chapter 3 because it is the third "stanza'" of the poem that is the first three chapters. So great.
DeleteThe murder of Gatsby and consequent suicide of Wilson is widely considered to be the denouement. I did not mention this scene because this is one aspect of plot that i believe Fitzgerald was very successful in.
ReplyDeleteI am not demeaning the whole plot structure of the novel, rather one or two aspects of it. You do understand that plot structure is not just the story being told, correct? I praise the wonderful writing of Fitzgerald when describing setting, the exposition, and denouement, however the conflict/climax of the novel pose serious issues within the story.
I believe that this "classic novel" attitude towards the book makes it seem as if it is untouchable. I am not criticizing the book, rather discussing which aspects i believe the novel fails in. A classic novel cannot only have appraisal, but some critique is necessary.
Nothing in this world is perfect, not even Fitzgerald's work of literary genius.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
-HH
Dan, just read Ode on a Grecian Urn. I found it very compelling, (especially the rhyme scheme--thanks for pointing me in that direction).
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that you believe the love between Daisy and Gatsby to be far above all transient human passion, similar to the way the piper and his love is. The piper has everlasting love with his lover, seemingly because their eternal distance adds to their passion. Where in human passion, sexual expression causes the relationship to become duller. Once the passion is satisfied, all that remains is, a “burning forehead and a parching tongue."
Is Gatsby this piper, with love that transcends human nature, or has the past love between Gatsby and Daisy exhausted their relationship and left them with a 'burning forehead?'
HH, I think Fitzgerald was a Romantic, and saw the the relationship of Gatsby and Daisy, through Nick's voice, to be something pure, something poetic, a "Platonic vision." With that in mind, I believe Fitz' stays away from any description of the physical, sexual nature of their relationship in order to focus on the ideals. Myrtle and Tom are the complete opposite, which I talk about in my ch. 2 rant. I think the "burning forehead and parching tongue" is where we leave Gatsby because his passion still burns for Daisy at the end. Sex was never Gatsby's goal; love was Gatsby's goal. Fitz would have seen the goal of sex to simply be a vulgar pursuit.
DeleteNick wonders how Gatsby can be such an idealist. Nick offers us a moment where he speculates on what Gatsby was thinking at the end, wondering if Jay ever realized the pathetic pursuit, but remember, we never get an actual lens into Gatsby's mind. We get Nick's vision of Gatsby, and as Nick says, Jay was "worth the whole damn bunch put together."
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