The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Szykneij]

I'd say he's a ninny, but then, so are most of the main characters. I hate this book because the characters are so uniformly unlikeable (or at least, *I* didn't like them), with not an ounce of good sense or decency among them. For me, even the prose can't save it; elegantly-described ninnies are still ninnies!

Not that I have much of an opinion about this book....

I was sympathetic to the George Wilson character. He was a hard-working, honest, and loving man who was destroyed by the decadence of the others ... although, I guess his failure to grasp what was happening around him could place him in the ninny category, too.

[DavidW]

Well, this discussion is going nowhere ...

Well Dave is waiting for me, oh yeah Karl as well.  We forgot to do our homework.

If I didn't watch a long opera I'd already be done, well guess I'll get back to it.

[Szykneij]

Well Dave is waiting for me, oh yeah Karl as well.  We forgot to do our homework.

psst ... Daisy was driving ...     

[owlice]

I don't think Wilson a ninny; he's excluded from the "most" in my post. And you should have put a spoiler alert on your 11:00 PM post!!

I was terribly disappointed in Carraway. I thought he, at least, might do the right thing, but even he got sucked into the vortex of powerlessness, ennui, and vapidness that surrounded the others. I was angry when I finished the book, and that doesn't happen very often! (The Mill on the Floss is another book which fell into that category.)

[CD]

Well, this discussion is going nowhere ...

I wish I had more to say about it beyond "I enjoyed it" but really it seemed kind of lightweight — the characters never seemed fleshed out enough for me to care about anything that happened to them. They seemed more demonstrative instances of a type than as actual people. But I do see what you mean when you speak of the refinement of the prose. The text conveys a broad scope of ideas in a short amount of time.

[secondwind]

Is Gatsby truly evil, malevolent? Or just a country boy with a distorted vision of success?

I don't think the character Jay Gatsby is evil.  In fact, I think he is the victim, he is the tragic figure in this story.  He has bought the "American dream" hook, line, and sinker--he really believes that with enough money, the right house, the right clothes, the right people at his parties, he can buy love and happiness. One of the saddest scenes for me is when he is showing Daisy his house and his clothes:
   He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.  While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher--shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue.  Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
   "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds.  "it makes me sad because I've never seen such--such beautiful shirts before."
So why does Daisy cry there?  I think she sees Gatsby's innocence, naivety, and love, and she knows he's doomed.  Daisy isn't naive or innocent, and I think she knows what will inevitably happen to someone as guileless as Gatsby. 

[DavidW]

"I told her she might fool me but she couldn't fool God.  I took her to the window"--with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it--"and I said 'God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing.  You may fool me, but you can't fool God!'"
 Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night.
 "God sees everything," repeated Wilson.
 "That's an advertisement," Michaelis assured him.

Emerging from the night is a recurring image in Gatsby.  I don't really see it as an indictment against commercialism, the roaring 20s is a twilight for their souls, and not simply the wealthy but everyone.  Trying to perceive what something really is in weak light is difficult.  It's the same with the characters that populate this novel, they are filled with a deep confusion ranging from minor events and conversation, to the course of their very lives.  And that captures the very essence of the post-WWI confusion.  Just look at the characters and how they remember so poorly those great events that shaped their lives.

I was sympathetic to the George Wilson character. He was a hard-working, honest, and loving man who was destroyed by the decadence of the others ... although, I guess his failure to grasp what was happening around him could place him in the ninny category, too.

Hmmm... it's not unlike Salome...

I was terribly disappointed in Carraway. I thought he, at least, might do the right thing, but even he got sucked into the vortex of powerlessness, ennui, and vapidness that surrounded the others.

I think that's because even though he considered himself as more perceiving of inner character, he actually was just as ignorant, superficial and apathetic as the rest of the characters.  Any one of the characters considered themselves to be enlightened individuals, when in fact their lives hid them from life itself.  Carraway is no exception, he drifts through life with no real purpose.

I also find it interesting how completely unromantic every relationship is in the novel, and how it always turns back to self absorption.

[DavidW]

#1. Back to secondwind's thoughts about commercialism and the obsession with money.

Daisy is seen as such an enchanting, beautiful and musical woman and then they (Tom and Nick) agree it's because she is money.
Gatsby is described as the son of god.  In one way we are all children of god, and leave it at that.  But God=money to these people.
And then Daisy with those rich clothes, the scene that secondwind brings up, I see as an obsession with money.

Money is the new God to them.  What do you think?

#2. Green.
This is a very prominent color, and I don't think it's as simple as just money or envy.  Why?  Daisy's light at the dock.  It was what Gatsby would stare at wistfully as his future, until he was with Daisy and his future was there.  Shortly after all of the events transpired that led to his demise.  When the car hit poor Mrs Wilson, for a second the car looked green.

Have you seen other uses of this color in the novel?  Here is what I think, I think green symbolizes death.

#3. Dawn.
The twilight imagery starts as dusk in the beginning of the novel, but ends as dawn by the end.  That suggests that the future is the sunrise for the soul to continue my metaphor from my previous post.  That would actually mean that this novel has an upbeat end.  What do you think?

[DavidW]

Now time for sleepiness, I imagine right now in Boston Karl is stroking his beard, contemplating Gatsby.

[secondwind]

DavidW has made a lot of interesting observations, which I will contemplate during the day.  I'll have to respond later.  (One of the advantages of the pacing of Forum discussions!)

[DavidW]

DavidW has made a lot of interesting observations, which I will contemplate during the day.  I'll have to respond later.  (One of the advantages of the pacing of Forum discussions!)

Yeah, if it it wasn't for the pacing of forum discussions I would already have missed out!   And by the time you get back I bet others that want to contribute will post too.

[secondwind]

Green--

The light at the end of Daisy's dock
The leather upholstery of Gatsby's car--the car that killed Myrtle
The color of Wilson's face after he's learned that Myrtle has a secret life
The color of money
The color of envy and jealousy
The color of the traffic light that says "go ahead"

I think in this book, green is the color of promises that are too good to be true; therefore the color of broken and meant to be broken promises.  Not for nothing is the fixing of the World Series tossed into the mix.  'Say it ain't so, Joe!'  This is a book about the shattering of dreams.  I don't see anything optimistic in the ending of the novel--
  Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning--
   So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

What an ending!  And notice that "we" have become characters.  It is not that the dreamed of future has eluded Gatsby--it has eluded "us". 

[DavidW]

Beautiful secondwind.

[secondwind]

Aw, I didn't want to make anyone cry. . .    Or maybe it was Fitzgerald who did that.

[Joe Barron]

I think in this book, green is the color of promises that are too good to be true; therefore the color of broken and meant to be broken promises.  Not for nothing is the fixing of the World Series tossed into the mix.  'Say it ain't so, Joe!'  This is a book about the shattering of dreams.  I don't see anything optimistic in the ending of the novel--
  Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning--
   So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

In the corrected edition of the text, the word "orgiastic," which appeared in earlier versions, has been changed to to "orgastic," which is the word Fitzgerald intended.

[secondwind]

In the corrected edition of the text, the word "orgiastic," which appeared in earlier versions, has been changed to to "orgastic," which is the word Fitzgerald intended.

Thanks, I didn't know that.  My dictionary gives "orgastic" as synonymous with "orgasmic"--yes, I looked, as I've never seen the usage "orgastic" before!

[secondwind]

I was terribly disappointed in Carraway. I thought he, at least, might do the right thing, but even he got sucked into the vortex of powerlessness, ennui, and vapidness that surrounded the others. I was angry when I finished the book, and that doesn't happen very often! (The Mill on the Floss is another book which fell into that category.)

I think it would be interesting to discuss Nick Carraway.  He does seem at first to be a more sympathetic character, and he makes much of reassuring us of how honest he is, but do his actions stand up to scrutiny?  I don't think so.  In fact, he was complicit in much of the deceit that takes place during the story.  He goes to town with Tom and Myrtle, and thus is complicit in deceiving Daisy and Wilson (not to mention purchasing that poor pup that you know will be neglected and the terrible "party" that ends with Myrtle's nose being broken).  He arranges for Gatsby to meet Daisy at his house, therefore deceiving Tom.  He doesn't tell Wilson what he knows, even after Myrtle has died, and he doesn't tell Tom that Daisy was driving.  You could even say that he was an integral part of the process that lead to the deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby.  Was his complicity really due to powerlessness and ennui, or was it more out of deference to the rich and powerful, i.e., Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby?

[Szykneij]

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

I believe this philosophy, stated very early in the book, is what Nick Carraway adheres to throughout the novel, at least until the end when he eventually makes a final judgement on the people he has been involved with.

[Herman]

It's interesting to see how many posters here seem to think the point of reading The Great Gatsby is to identify who's the bad guy.

I'm pretty sure this is not what the writer had in mind.

[MN Dave]

The Great Gatsby was Hunter S. Thompson´s favourite novel.

Hm.