1001+ Books:
#8 - The Great Gatsby
by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
I am not a great reader. I mean, I can read well, and write well, but I am not what you would call "well read." Not yet anyway, but I'm working on it. Because of this, I tend to draw comparisons not between books and other books, but between books and another medium I am much more well versed in: film. So it is not surprising to me that what I see in The Great Gatsby compares much more to movies I've seen than other books I've read. And what comes to mind immediately for me while reading this particular novel is Italian cinema of the '50s and '60s, specifically, and surprisingly, the films of the great Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni (although you could easily make comparisons with the more surface level similarities between Fitzgerald's work and the extravagant flash of Federico Fellini's pictures). The commonality I see between Gatsby and, say, L'Avventura or La Notte by that previously mentioned auteur, lies not in form or style, but in their respective essences. The major difference is that what Antonioni goes for deliberately seems almost to be accidental in Fitzgerald's case. Antonioni's films are openly about vapidity and a loss of self. Fitzgerald's book is too, only in what appears to be a more unintentional, and possibly even more bleak sort of way.
The story is simple, and well known, so I'm not going to bother going through it, just Google it. What the novel is "about" is such familiar themes as wealth, the past, and the ever present "American Dream." The story takes a look at the unattainability of previously mentioned dream as well as the impossibility of the fulfillment of expectation. It casts a judgmental eye on the decadent and immoral antics of the rich, but notably not enough not to participate in them. We discover by the book's end that everyone (but Gatsby and Nick, the novel's self-described "non-judgmental" narrator) is an unfeeling leech, only present to take what they can from the titular character and leave without any ties. I read Fitzgerald writing Gatsby as a pure, lovelorn, lost soul who believes in goodness and the powers of connection and love. I myself read Gatsby as an emotionally malformed, incredibly self-centered and naive victim of circumstance. Like how I suspect Fitzgerald was, he is a man obsessed with the malleable meaninglessness of symbols and dreams, hanging onto things he thinks will fill the holes he can't fill himself. This is true of most of the characters (the "holes" part), but Gatsby is a romantic, which turns his malaise from a character flaw into a kind of chronic and damning disease. He's too sensitive for his life, his times, and his peers. This would make Gatsby a more sympathetic character, but through Nick's eyes he is kept at arms length, a myth or an idea instead of a man.
Now it is no rule that great art (at least "narrative" art, if that's the right term) has to feature likable characters (I cite There Will Be Blood). And while I wouldn't say that the book is devoid of likable or relatable characters per say, it also doesn't feature anyone you can "root for," for lack of a better term. Nothing seems genuine, and by the end of the book everyone comes off in varying degrees of insincerity and indifference. Even Nick, who tells us of his anger, who tells us about his awe and reverence for Gatsby, about his thoughts and feelings on everything that happens, gives me the impression of doing so out of respectability more than anything. He just couldn't convince me he cared all that much. In a sad kind of way it's almost as if he's telling this story to reap some sort of material or moral benefits, like he's writing to be published, not to be heard.
To make another, more personal cinematic comparison, this seems to be, for me, the Casablanca of popular literature, in that both this book and that highly revered movie leave me wondering, albeit less with Fitzgerald's work, what all the fuss is about. I mean, it's good, you know, very pretty and whatnot, but it's certainly not the greatest book ever written. In fact, there doesn't seem to be that much special about it (the beautiful prose aside). Maybe expectations have played too great a role in my appreciation of this book. Anything is bound to disappoint when it has labels like "the (arguably definitive) Great American Novel" slapped on it. I think I just find it all a little too "easy," if that makes sense. I wasn't challenged to think much (not that that is some kind of watermark for quality), but more importantly I wasn't made to feel much. What gives this novel credit is the strength of the craft, the mastery and versatility of language Fitzgerald brings to the table. Language is clearly his greatest strength, but it's not enough. It's a charming read, but I can't get past that hollow feeling, that affectation of meaning that Fitzgerald can't actually match in practice.
Rating: C+
