/lit/ - Literature

>>22342735
Not a fan of the way the book insists upon itself

>>22342740
I disagree. It fermented it's sprit in a gilded cage of endless wonder.

>>22342735
It's odd that it's my favorite book. Most of my favorites are pretty long but this makes its point quickly without losing impact.

>>22342797
why the hell would this be your favorite book?

>>22342801
Not all of us are obsessively contrarian and can like things even if a lot of other like them too

>>22342821
that doesn't answer the question

>>22342801
It effectively evokes greatness and potential. It's a tragedy about something universal and fundamental to the human condition instead of being a book about war, or a book about nukes, or a book about poverty, or a book about the life experience of a trans-binary otherkin.

Why the hell are you rude?

>>22342801
for me, the last page makes the rest of the book worth it. Some of the best writing I have ever read

>>22342847
good post

>>22342856

agree - as you age, you understand each character differently

Reading this rn for the first time
Short book, maybe I’ll check back in this thread when I’m done

>>22342801
>gatsby's father showing nick the worn photo of his son standing outside of his mansion
>gatsby's father watching for someone to show up to his son's funeral and no one arriving

It manages to get across a lot of complex feelings in a really short time

anyone else felt it failed to capture the atmosphere of '20s? even the parties felt underwhelming

>>22343549
Yeah my memories of the 1920s are nothing like that. Needed more opium.

>>22342740
holy fucking shit with this bullshit. you pseuds need to get laid more.

>>22343596
it's a family guy joke, not a good one tho

>>22342740
how can you even say that anon, it's so good, it's like a perfect book

>"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.
>"I beg your pardon," said Mr McKee with dignity, "I didn't know I was touching it."

>>22342735
I didn't get the appeal, although I did read it when I was like 14. Should give it another go.

>>22342797
My favourite book also

>>22344141
Yes I read it in school and didn't get it, there's a consensus that the book is lost on teenagers, because it is about the loss of dreams, and when you're a teenager you're in the process of formulating your dreams, so at that age you can't really begin to understand what it would be like to lose them

>"That's the whole burden of the novel – the loss of those illusions that give such colour to the world that you don't care whether things are true or false so long as they partake of the magical glory." — Fitzgerald

The book is very coming-of-age in this sense, but it's easy to miss cos Gatsby isn't some teenager slumming it in New York calling everyone and everything phoney

I really started reading it and loving it last year after I turned 24, also I had a huge crush on a girl called Daisy

>>22344280
Makes sense. I read it for the first time at 27 so it was basically the perfect age for this kind of story. young enough that you still want something out of life but you're also aware of your lost youth and the scaling back of avenues that are open to you. Very bittersweet feel

>>22344280
>>22344681
Not what I took from it anons. Mind you, I read it at 22 and am 29 now, havent re read since.
But IMO more than fleeting youth I took that it was a criticism of 1920s American superfluity. Gatsby was the archetype wealthy aristocrat. All his possessions were merely substance though, vast library of unread books, countless guests at his lavish parties who dont care a fig about him.

>the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world

I dont think he meant this as in one cant enjoy this lifestyle because one gets old but rather that this lifestyle is nothing but an illusion, envied by unwealthy people on the outside who fail to realize that no one who actually lives it, young or old, is truly happy. All the people who go to Gatsby’s partys are unhappy. None of them are there because they enjoy the company, they are there as a symbol of status and chique.
Gatsby himself probably understood this better than anyone, since the entire thing was nothing but a rouse to win back Daisy, who had become engrained in this lavish lifestyle

>>22344741
The lavish parties and bitches n' whores are just specifics, not the point of the novel. Gatsby is an exceptional person with incredible potential but it gets buried in vapid mundanity because he's fixated on his past.

>>22344764
His potential is and always wouldve been curtailed by being a terminal simp tho. I disagree that its not the point of the novel, Gatsby as a character is not the main figure of the novel, he is a thematic vehicle guiding to the critique of American society in the same vein as Ahab or even the whale itself in Moby Dick.

>>22344787
You say he's not the main character but focus on a character flaw that drives the plot of the novel. To some extent he is a device rather than a character, and in that context the specific flaw is irrelevant. Divorced from the flaw that hinders his character, he is potential personified. Together with that flaw he's just a man who died while no one who cared.

Maybe the novel contains critique of American culture too, but it's not the central theme that the entire plot is a microcosm of. The final lines aren't a repudiation of parties.

>>22344741
Well yeah there was some social critique. It does show attitudes that different classes have around wealth, the poor see it as a status symbol that is a goal in itself whereas people that were always rich feel like they can do whatever they want without reproach. But this is absolutely just a minor part of the book, it wouldn't still have as much relevance 100 years later if it was merely a critique of 1920s society

>>22342740

>>22344882
Im saying it because you could take his arc and apply it to any setting. The loce story aspect of the novel couldve neen told anywhere. Had Daisy been an actress Gatsby wouldve set up a poduction co in LA. But she was a wealthy east coast socialite, which is why Gatsby engrained himself at the peak of that community. The reason F scott chose said community was because he wanted to critique it and show the american populace of the time what it really was.

>>22344886
The novel is very much a period piece. That was one of its foremost criticism at its initial release, critics said it would not endure beyond the jazz age. But being a period piece in a sense is why it endured
Its not as simple as
>alas, after all money cannot buy happiness!
Never before had the American social elite been so steeped in superfluity as it was in the 1920s. F Scott wanted to show in this novel the dissection of what the American dream had become. Instead of celebrating ingenuity and creativity, we see the peak of American culture as a bunch of highball guzzling snobs who care more about what care theyve shown up in than what their business had accomplished. Its not just some offhanded setting piece but literally influences every aspect of the novel. Its shaped what both Daisy and Gatsby had become. Youth and aging do a play a part as they do in most of F scotts work but thats readily explored in Tender is The Night.

>>22345050
>Im saying it because you could take his arc and apply it to any setting.
But other books don't. That's what makes this one significant. And a theme is allowed to be universal. Many consider that a good thing, in fact.

The book had to be set somewhere. He might have chosen the setting because it was his preferred place to critique the 1920s. Having a setting doesn't make the setting the main point of a book.

>>22345081
>critics said it would not endure beyond the jazz age.
And they were clearly fucktards.

>being a period piece in a sense is why it endured
The Great Gatsby did not endure because modern people are interested in a caricature of the 1920s. There's not a sequence of books about the 1900s, then 1920s, then 1940s, of which The Great Gatsby is just another entry, with primary interest to historians.

>>22345137
>The Great Gatsby did not endure because modern people are interested in a caricature of the 1920s
It literally is the only book essentially synonymous with “Jazz Age”. The only book that rivals it in connection to a period/movement is On The Road with the post ww2 beats. Though the former has greater literary merit I still don't see how any logical person can argue that connotation doesn't contribute to its endurance. The Jazz Age/roaring 20s even one hundred years later remains one of the most idealized and culturally relevant periods in American history

>>22345547
Right, but that's not why it's so popular.

The Great Gatsby and Beautiful and Damned were his only great books. Some good short stories but Tender In The Night is crap and people love This Side of Paradised but it's too much of an amateur first book desu

>>22342735
I like the party scene

>>22342740
Family slop has destroyed your brain

POOL'S CLOSED

>>22345081
>VGH, 30.

>>22344280
So that's why I never liked it so much. I never had dreams