Yes, I really have read it. But what is the point of this guy throwing his life away like that? It was far from being the worst book I've ever read, but I still don't see why it's considered a classic, it wasn't at all that good.Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was golden as the sun's rays and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes.
Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera
His throwing his life away was symbolic, it is not just just about the "love" story for lack of a better word between Gatsby and Daisy, but it was about what Daisy represented. Mainly being Money, and how shallow she and Tom really are, and the state of American soceity with the halve's and the halves not, and old money vs. new money. Daisy was what Gatsby wanted, not just the person Daisy, but that lifestyle, that wealth. He spent his whole life reinventing himself to aquire that, and in the end he still felt empty. It did not truly fullfill him.
Last edited by Dark Muse; 03-16-2009 at 08:06 PM.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
I promised myself that I would not speak on this forum again about Gatsby, having spent quite a few posts on the subject on previous threads, but I would ask you this: have you ever been in love, I mean truly in love? Because the answer to your question as to why it is considered a classic is contained therein. Whether Gatsby loved Daisy for what she represented doesn't detract from the fact that he loved her to the point that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for her despite the fact that she ultimately betrayed him. If you look back through earlier threads on this forum, you will find that Gatsby haunts it as no other characterr does.
I do not think the story is truly meant to be genuinely romantic. It is a satire about the desire for money and what happens when people put too much emphasis on material values.
Daisy is a "thing" more than a person. Something to be acquired.
Last edited by Dark Muse; 03-16-2009 at 08:19 PM.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
I would agree with both statements; Fitzgerald's own life is not too different either from whatever little I have read of his biography (his relationship with Zelda).
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
The true pathos (for me) regarding the novel is that Daisy is largely unworthy of Gatsby's enormous admiration. What we find in Gatsby is a largely tragic figure, who, despite his dark side, is largely dominated by this romantic craving for the past, the green light on the other side of the bay. What is tragic is that Gatsby (a man perhaps capable of anything) throws his life away on something we might find not worth it.
Say what you want about the novel's satire on materialism, its summoning up of the Waste Land in the ash valley, and its paradoxical loathing and praising of the roaring twenties - the kernel of the novel is essentially the relationship between reality and fiction, with its two main characters an ambitious bootlegger whose outward personality is basically a complete construction and a woman who seems to be every social cliche rolled into one and who lacks the depth to be truly worthy of our hero's admiration.
Also, does anyone else find it funny that the multiple American inter-war novels and poems (of the roaring twenties) all feature relatively pessimistic story lines and tragic endings? I'm talking not only Gatsby but also The Sun Also Rises, A Farwell to Arms, The Sound and the Fury (which is removed from the jazz age thematically), The Waste Land, etc. Whereas "the" depression age novel, The Grapes of Wrath, ends on a note of optimistic rebirth?
the moviegoer by walker percy.
Most modern books seem a bit pointless.
And that is a pointless statement.
Reading moderne and classic,i find it is the one form of art that is still florishing.
I read The blue flower(1995) by Penelope Fitzgerald few days ago,try to read most Of Andrei Makine,there is countless exemple of the healt of moderne literature.
As for Gatsby,pointless might be,for once, a compliment.Love that make point is already dying of routine.
Yeah, but books are so 'trendy' now. It just seems so...either you get chick lit, book-set-in-foreign-country-and-you-will-look-clever-if-you-read-it, the 10 billionth new thriller, the 'philosophical' or 'political' book, etc...
All of the books by Terry Goodkind. It sucks when people who do not know how to write are given publishing contracts.
I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
Of Mice And Men.
I dared to cross a Patterson novel once. I watch my step now.
'...A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' --Dr. Mortimer, The Hound of the Baskervilles
A friend of mine used to have a glden rule: "Be weary of books where the name of the author is bigger than the title". ´My english teacher once made us choke down The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell; I believe on her homepage it says she strives to write two books a year. It was awful, and a complete waste of my time. I'm never reading anything in that genre again.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I enjoyed it, but what the "point" was I don't know. Then again, I don't think books need necessarily have a "point".
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