What's so great about the Great Gatsby?

[WICKES]

Why is this novel so cherished and revered by American writers and scholars? It is frequently rated as the greatest American novel and one of the best written in English in the 20th century. Yet, aside from the beautiful prose, it seems little more than a conventional tragic love story. Of course, this is quite wrong I know but why do Americans feel it gets to the heart of America like no other work? What is it that Americans find in that novel that so moves them? As an outsider I'm curious to know. There is no equivalent in French or English literature I don't think. There is no single work that gets to the heart of England or France in the way Gatsby seems to.

[Dark Muse]

Interesting question, I am not sure I truly can decipher an answer, while I read the book and quite enjoyed it, it is not the only book to deal with the subject of shattering the illusion of the American dream and satirizing the shallowness of American culture. I am not sure what in particular it is about that book that does seem to stand out above the others. Perhaps it is the eccentricity of Gatsby himself, he does make a rather intriguing character while some people my love him, and others hate him. And Nick is a compelling narrator of the story.

Yet at the same time, when I first read it in high school, I was left with the feeling of...it was a good and interesting book, yet it all felt a bit pointless, though I understand that there is a deeper symbolisim within the work and that it is making a point about American life, my first reading of the story just left me thinking......why?

[Desolation]

I often find myself wondering the same thing. There was nothing in that book that touched me either as an American or as a human being. I thought it was just an uninteresting book.

[bluosean]

Well I liked it. It really is one of the greatest ever books written.

[Sasati]

It's one of the novels on my to-read list. As I'm not an American and not even an native speaker it's interesting to read what people have to say about it. I think I'll start reading it tonight.

[DWolfman]

There are several things about GATSBY that intrigue me:

1) It defines an era: the post World War I industrial powerhouse finally finding itself a major world player (and not sure what to wear to the party).
2) This typified by the strata of society (which were not supposed to exist in the land of the free), the owners and the workers, the haves and the have-nots, the good - the bad - and the indecent.
3) In the same vein as #2, the balance and counterbalance of opposing forces: the polite society (which is quite impolite, corrupt, and domineering) against the unwashed heathen (who had more integrity and honesty); the rich girl (who has everything except the love she can't afford) and the poor boy (who spent his life trying to prove he was as worthy as those who swayed her only to have a sham of an existence).
4) The actual writing itself, allowing us to see all the converging worlds through the eyes of Nick enhanced by symbolic devices that expose the depths (or shallowness) of those worlds (i.e. the eyeglass billboard that makes you wonder who else is watching)
5) The love story itself, with all its conflicting motivations (most of which are actually contrary to the facades presented) and the detailed characters who participate in it.

And finally:
6) The sheer poetry of the piece, for what better metaphor can there be for GATSBY but a wide gulf of water separating his house from Daisy's but not so much he can't see the light shining at the end of her pier.

Please forgive my verbiage. I happened on this novel at a time in my life when these things struck me with personal familiarity and many of the details still haunt me when I think of Fitzgerald's work.

-DW-

[Pollopicu]

I have it on my to-reads too. I hope I enjoy it.

...but it's funny how every classic is labeled "the greatest American/french/english, etc novel".

[mayneverhave]

It's odd how often I need to function as a Gatsby apologist on this forum.

For starters, I wouldn't go so far as to say that The Great Gatsby is THE American novel.

As for a simple apology: Fitzgerald manages to maintain a style that is consistently literary and simultaneously extremely entertaining. Many of the passages: Nick's first intimation of Gatsby at night on his lawn, the first dinner scene at Gatsby's, and the scene where Nick returned at night to think his house might be on fire; all of these are passages that have, and will stay with me.

[kelby_lake]

There isn't such a thing as 'The' American Novel.

On the surface, Gatsby isn't much- but Fitzgerald describes that surface and the lack of anything under it wonderfully. It's not so much a love story as a romance of America. You've got your trendy pleasure seekers- and the Valley of Ashes.

It's not just the depiction of the American Dream- he really gets to the mythical core of it, the fascination.

Definitely worth reading more than once.

[dfloyd]

and even some high school students who have just barely begun to read. Typical of young, callow-thinking people, they tend to attack some aspects of literature with no othe object than tearing down what many, older and more erudite people, consider to be good and worthwhile. Classing vitually anyhing Scott Fitzgerald wrote as uninteresting is just endemic of their age and reading experience. I can only forgive them by realizing their opinions will vastly change in future years.

[Ophelia20]

The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite novels, and as many have said the book really worth reading many times. What's great about Fitzerald's work is his style, the use of pastoral imagery and symbolism to depict America in the 20s (when urbanisation and factories replaced the green lackes and valleys, much as materialism and obession did to people's spirituality)
A stiking chronicle of the roaring twenties and more than a tragic love story! (though it can be perceived from this angle)

[Clockman]

I, like some of you apparently, have also had problems with Gatsby. I had read the book many years ago in college and did not see in it the greatness that seems to be the generally accepted opinion of the book. Recently, I reread the book, then discussed it with some teacher and professor friends, then reread it again. My opinion remains the same.

Gatsby certainly contains some moments of beautiful and moving poetry. But the problems become apparent when the book is viewed with some distance, as a whole. In my opinion, Gatsby lacks essential structural and thematic unity.

Fitzgerald perhaps set out to develop more, and more disparate, thematic foci than the book was capable of sustaining. Toward the end of the book, these problems become especially apparent. If only Gatsby were really just about the shallowness of the American Dream, as lovers of the book always point to. Fitzgerald, very near the end of the book, slides into a rambling and somewhat disorganized philosophizing about Easterners versus Westerners (Midwesterners to us today), proposes this conflict as the possible cause of the inevitable tragic result of the story, as Westerners Tom, Daisy and Gatsby attempt to live the life of the East. The book has not been about this. There is no thematic foundation for this entire section.

I find numerous other structural problems with Gatsby but will only mention one more, and that is, unfortunately, the ending. Fitzgerald lapses into a rant about America, the first Europeans to lay eyes on it, the "swimming upstream" quality of reaching for the American dream. The section has, at once, the quality of a disorganized stream-of-consciousness ramble, and an attempt to tie together and wrap up the multiple themes which, I suspect, Fitzgerald knew were hanging like loose threads.

I know that much of what I have just written will be unpalatable to Gatsby lovers, but it is, of course, merely my opinion.

I must add, however, that I find it highly unscholarly to write off any criticism of Gatsby (or any book) simply to youth, inexperience and iconoclasm. The fresh and independent perspectives of youth are one of the forces that move literary criticism and appreciation forward. The notion that experience and maturity consists of uncritically adopting the views of the "older and more erudite" would stop literary and scientific progress dead in its tracks. And, by the way, I am in my sixties.

[kelby_lake]

I think dfloyd is just speaking generally, and that is generally true.

It's refreshing to find decent criticism too, instead of whinyness.

Structurely, it's very good. I generally use it as an example when I talk about writing. It's basically the structure of a tragedy- Gatsby's fatal flaw is his persuit of a flawed dream. He dies, then we get a cathartic passage at the end (and a pretty great one).

It has a lot of themes but I would say the main one is disillusionment. Nick is disillusioned with money, Daisy is a bit disillusioned by marriage, Wilson is disillusioned about America...
The unity between the themes is fairly obvious- they're all connected with the American Dream.

The West vs East bit may be a bit of a non-sequiter but you don't get that sense when reading it. It's arguable that Nick doesn't really know why it happened- or doesn't want to know.

[slayton]

and even some high school students who have just barely begun to read. Typical of young, callow-thinking people, they tend to attack some aspects of literature with no othe object than tearing down what many, older and more erudite people, consider to be good and worthwhile. Classing vitually anyhing Scott Fitzgerald wrote as uninteresting is just endemic of their age and reading experience. I can only forgive them by realizing their opinions will vastly change in future years.
I find dfloyd's response absurd on a forum about a book which laments the unacheivable dream of an equal free and fair society. Firstly your generalization is futile because it is so blinkered, and secondly the importance of young people in redifining literature in the way Fitzgerald did as part of the modernist movement, rejecting romantic ideas from before the war, is entirely underestimated. Your desire for opions on literature to change and conform implies a tragic desire for literature to stagnate.

[slayton]

I, like some of you apparently, have also had problems with Gatsby. I had read the book many years ago in college and did not see in it the greatness that seems to be the generally accepted opinion of the book. Recently, I reread the book, then discussed it with some teacher and professor friends, then reread it again. My opinion remains the same.

Gatsby certainly contains some moments of beautiful and moving poetry. But the problems become apparent when the book is viewed with some distance, as a whole. In my opinion, Gatsby lacks essential structural and thematic unity.

Fitzgerald perhaps set out to develop more, and more disparate, thematic foci than the book was capable of sustaining. Toward the end of the book, these problems become especially apparent. If only Gatsby were really just about the shallowness of the American Dream, as lovers of the book always point to. Fitzgerald, very near the end of the book, slides into a rambling and somewhat disorganized philosophizing about Easterners versus Westerners (Midwesterners to us today), proposes this conflict as the possible cause of the inevitable tragic result of the story, as Westerners Tom, Daisy and Gatsby attempt to live the life of the East. The book has not been about this. There is no thematic foundation for this entire section.

I find numerous other structural problems with Gatsby but will only mention one more, and that is, unfortunately, the ending. Fitzgerald lapses into a rant about America, the first Europeans to lay eyes on it, the "swimming upstream" quality of reaching for the American dream. The section has, at once, the quality of a disorganized stream-of-consciousness ramble, and an attempt to tie together and wrap up the multiple themes which, I suspect, Fitzgerald knew were hanging like loose threads.

I know that much of what I have just written will be unpalatable to Gatsby lovers, but it is, of course, merely my opinion.

I must add, however, that I find it highly unscholarly to write off any criticism of Gatsby (or any book) simply to youth, inexperience and iconoclasm. The fresh and independent perspectives of youth are one of the forces that move literary criticism and appreciation forward. The notion that experience and maturity consists of uncritically adopting the views of the "older and more erudite" would stop literary and scientific progress dead in its tracks. And, by the way, I am in my sixties.
The purpose of the alleged “rambling and somewhat disorganized philosophizing about Easterners versus Westerners” is not the literal grumbling about the division of wealth which you seem to take from the novel. Fitzgerald implies more fundamentally that the west and consequently the frontier represents the hope and wonder of Dutch sailors in discovering the “fresh green breast of the world” so the idealistic element of the American dream. Whereas the affluent East represents the materialistic reality necessary in reaching such a dream, which paradoxically eventually corrupts it. Gatsby’s confusion of the ideal and material is an important theme throughout the novel. In fact the consistently referenced green light, which echoes the hope of the “fresh green breast” is just one example of the material and ideal dichotomy (how Daisy “increased in value”) Fitzgerald so adeptly presents.
The carefully structured confusion which you describe as a “disorganised stream-of-consciousness,” is Fitzgerald’s rather beautiful contribution to the modernist movement. Stream of consciousness is a literary technique pioneered by Joyce considered to be extraordinarily forward thinking and greatly informed Derrida and his consequent impact on literary theory not just poor writing as you scorn suggests. The fragmented nature of the novel throughout and the stream of consciousness shows conformity with the modernist movement, and consequently the confusing disillusionment of society after the war. Fitzgerald displays the drifting purposelessness felt by a shattered generation.
And, by the way, I am seventeen.

[Clockman]

In response to Slayton (12/28), although I do think you may have overstated my points of view in a couple areas, your comments in general are the most incisive and helpful (at least to me) of all the posts I have read.

No, I never saw the novel as a "grumbling about the division of wealth" (a sentiment not be popular for a few more years), but rather as a legitimate criticism of general post-war Roaring Twenties greed, excess and moral superficiality.

Fitzgerald's East-West distinction still seems to me to be out of place, and somewhat "inserted" into the text, and your attempted connection of that trope to the Dutch sailors and the frontier does not convince.

Regarding the concluding section, I perhaps phrased my perception too strongly and critically. I think that it is the jarringly abrupt change in voice that, in part, I find unsettling. As it stands by itself, I also find it at the very least "rather beautiful", certainly not "poor writing", and I neither see nor feel any "scorn" regarding this section or the book as a whole. I find it flawed. I was using the term "stream of consciousness" rather loosely, and not as a technical term, probably an obvious mistake in a literary forum; I possibly should have left it at "rambling", which I think it is. Modernist, the passage and to an extent the book, may be. However, I must take issue with the notion that the "stream of consciousness" style or technique was "pioneered" by Joyce. Stream of consciousness as a literary style or technique goes back at least to the mid-19th C.; slightly later in that century, and almost iconically, it is associated with Proust. As for Derrida, well, with him we are several generations of literary interpretation beyond stream of consciousness.

"Gatsby's confusion of the ideal and the material" is an exceptionally important point which you make, and, while certainly not unnoticed by me, I find that refocusing on it assists my overall perception of the unity of the book. Finally, modernism as associated with the "fragmented nature of the novel throughout" is a fine observation, and useful.

[O'Brian]

Gatsby is great for a lot of reasons but I think the reason that it really got popular and became a classic is it's social commentary. At the time it was written.... it was the first realistic look at all the horrible things that can spawn from a thriving Capitalist society. The fact that it's not a happy ending is something that obviously doesn't sit well with some people, but others appreciate the validity.