The Great Gatsby Open Discussion

Are YOU reading the great gatsby in your english class?

well, i am. and i need some ideas on this book.

this will be a very general thread and people can post whatever about this book.

in my opinion, sometimes i have a hard time putting together the complex wording of fitzgerald's language. e.g.:

"When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction — Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away."

can someone translate this into simple text?

If you share your own thoughts first, you are more likely to get replies.

Good luck!

As the saying goes: give man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for a lifetime.

So here is a general thought for this quote (and all other quotes that are sure to puzzle you.) When you have a complicated sentence or group of sentences, approach it like you would a mathematical equation - simplify it.

Let's take your example:


"When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction — Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away."

You have to take it sentence by sentence and subdivide. The first sentence becomes very simple when you break it up before and after the semicolon.

"When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever"

"I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart"

Vague sentiments, but not too difficult to grasp I hope. These are just things he wants. Moving on.

"Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction — Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn."

For this one you have to rummage through the tangents and pick out the most important stuff. I suggest removing the tangential thought that occurs between two commas.

"Only Gatsby was exempt from my reaction — Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn."

This is easier to manage.

For the last sentence, we are presented with an "if/then" scenario, when there are a few "thens" Again, just follow the punctuation and break it up based on the clauses and it will make more sense.