I know I've spent nine whole posts nattering on about this book, delving into all the things I find interesting or odd or cool or confusing. But I'd like to do one final post to put down a few of my final thoughts on the book as a whole.
Why do I like this book? I didn't like it the first time I read it. I admired it the second time. But this time through, yes, I liked it. Quite a lot, really. Which is odd, because I don't really want to be friends with any of the characters, and that's what usually makes me like or love a book. That's probably what keeps me from quite loving it.
I realized while reading this that I am drawn to a specific sort of tragedy. I only truly like tragedies that feel inevitable to me. That don't give me a sense of, "Oh, if only the main character weren't being so stupid, this wouldn't have happened." This is part of why I love Hamlet, but not King Lear or MacBeth or Othello -- I can't point at Hamlet and say, "If only he hadn't been so stupid, none of this would have happened." If only King Lear hadn't been so blind to his daughters' true natures. If only MacBeth hadn't been so power-hungry. If only Othello hadn't been so insecure. But, like with Hamlet, I don't think I can point at Gatsby and say, "If only he hadn't been so stupid." Sure, he dreamed a dream that couldn't come true. Sure, he was into some illegal stuff. But the events in this are like an inevitable catastrophe, a natural disaster we can't stop, we just have to watch.
I'm not sure if I explained that well or not -- it's something I'm still turning over in my mind.
I also realized that I want to rescue Gatsby. I want to just hop into this book and grab Jay Gatsby by one arm, Nick Carraway by the other, and say, "Boys, let's go to California for a few weeks and let things here just cool down and blow away for a while." (I have a similar wish to whisk Hamlet away back to Wittenberg at the beginning of the play.) So, in that sense, I do want to be a part of the story. And I do wish I could prevent the tragedy.
The writing in this book still astonishes me with its vibrant, gauzy beauty. Fitzgerald is amazing.
Somebody asked me why I think this book is worth reading. Such a good question. All kinds of bad stuff happens in this, from lying to adultery to manslaughter to murder. There's some bad language. Why read it?
To me, it's worth reading because it is a very poignant meditation on what it means to lose a dream. We all have dreams. We all have illusions. And I think this book shows how important it is for us to recognize what is real and what can never be real. If we get so wrapped up in how we imagine life should be or could be, we run the risk of jeopardizing the people around us, our own lives even, in pursuit of something that isn't even real.
And yet, the message of this book isn't "Stop dreaming." Not at all. I think the message is that we need to be careful not to mistake our dreams for reality. That we need to be able to separate fact from fiction, to know what is and isn't possible. Dream, but be careful as you pursue your dream. Don't lose sight of what is while you're chasing what might be.
There's all kinds of other stuff going on in this, about class disparity and rich versus poor and East versus West, but I went into that a lot in the read-along and don't feel like repeating it.
I've already listed off dozens of favorite lines during the read-along, so today I'll skip posting favorite lines. I have many of them, so very many.
If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for alcohol use, a traumatic death, implied sexual activity, extramarital affairs, and some language.
This is my tenth book read and reviewed for my second go-round with the Classics Club.
We have finished the Great Gatsby read-along! And in less than a month, just as I'd hoped. Time to celebrate with a giveaway. PLEASE NOTE: This is open to everyone, world-wide! Not just participants of the read-along :-) Here are the prizes:
TWO sets of THREE Art Deco-style postcards showing three lovely flappers. I will draw TWO winners who will each receive three postcards as shown above.
TWO sets of THREE greeting cards featuring something to do with The Great Gatsby. The cards are blank inside and come with brown envelopes. I will draw TWO winners who will each receive three greeting cards as shown above.
ONE set of FOUR stickers featuring lines from The Great Gatsby. Though I've realized that the one on the top right that says "I wish I'd done everything on earth with you" is actually a line from the 2013 movie -- I don't think it's in the book, is it? But it's a cool anyway. ONE winner will receive all four of these stickers.
I bought all of these prizes from RedBubble.com -- totally cool place where I spend more money than I ought to, hee.
In the comments, please give me your first and second choices for prizes! I do my best to match winners to prizes they say they want, but it's not always possible. I make no guarantees.
This giveaway runs through the end of Thursday, July 6. I will draw the winners on Friday, July 7, and post the names of the winners that day, as well a notify them by email.
PLEASE make sure your information for the giveaway widget includes your current email address so that if you win a prize, you'll get the email informing you that you won! If you don't reply to my email by Thursday, July 13, I will choose another winner and award your prize to them instead.
This giveaway is open worldwide!
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After Gatsby dies, people go right on making up crazy stuff about him. Nick says most of the reports about his murder were "a nightmare -- grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue" (p. 173). That sounds just like all the stories people told about him at his parties, doesn't it? But somehow, it's kind of fitting, isn't it? James Gatz made up Jay Gatsby, so why shouldn't other people make up their own stories about him? Kind of that "what goes around comes around" vibe.
I'm rather proud of Nick in this chapter. He's probably proud of himself as well -- the only one who stuck by Gatsby with "that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end" (p. 174). Well, I'm glad Gatsby had Nick, at least.
I'm very interested by Nick imagining that Gatsby tells him he "can't go through this alone" (p. 175). Gatsby went through almost his whole life alone, or feeling alone, anyway. Didn't fit in with his parents, didn't fit in with Daisy's world, didn't fit in with his own partygoers -- he was always alone, even in those crowds.
Nick seems to generally think well of people, doesn't he? He's quite sure Wolfshiem will come to the funeral, that Daisy will at least send flowers -- and again and again, people disappoint him. No wonder he's a little cynical two years later as he writes this down. Gatsby's not the only one who had illusions stripped away from him.
Nick goes through some interesting stages in this chapter. First, he feels "responsible" (p. 174) for taking care of Gatsby's funeral arrangements. Then he begins to have "a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me against them all" (p. 176). And when people keep giving excuses for why they can't come to the funeral, he feels "a certain shame for Gatsby" (p. 180) because no one cares about him anymore.
And then there's Gatsby's dad, Henry Gatz. Oh, I feel sorry for him. And I'm rather proud of Gatsby -- his father says that Gatsby went home to see him and bought him a house a couple of years ago. I'd forgotten that. I thought that he left home and never looked back, but obviously he cared enough about his family to go provide them with a house once he was wealthy. Good boy, Gatsby. Was he also doing that to show off how rich he was? Sure, but it was still kind of him. It sounds like he'd been supporting them too, that "ever since he made a success he was very generous" (p. 183) toward him.
As for Gatsby's final father-figure, the man who "raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter" (p. 182), Wolfsheim remains wolfish to the end, doesn't he? Refusing to be involved in Gatsby's funeral in any way. Nice guy, that Wolfsheim.
Oh, that issue of how many clothes you have pops up one more time! Wolfsheim says that when he first met Gatsby, he "was so hard up he had to keep on wearing his uniform because he couldn't buy some regular clothes" (p. 181). Yeah, the millions of shirts makes more and more sense, doesn't it?
I like Nick's musings at the end on how where you're born makes a difference in where you belong. He says that "Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life" (p. 187). While I thought of Daisy and Jordan as Southerners, they certainly weren't from the east coast (and where was Tom from, anyway? Chicago?). This interested me very much, because I am from the Middle West (as Nick calls it) myself, and I lived in Connecticut for three years as an adult -- we moved there when Sam was 2 months old -- and I never, ever felt like I belonged there. I was not a bit sad to move away, and that's unusual for me. I guess I was subtly unadaptable to Eastern life too.
I think Nick grew up a lot over the course of that summer, don't you? He didn't have the guts or determination to break off his relationship with the girl he left behind when he came east. But he goes and makes his break permanent from Jordan. I'm intrigued by her final remarks. She says, "I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought that was your secret pride" (p. 189). Hang it all, I still think he's honest and straightforward -- and I think his making sure Jordan knows they're finished only increases that. On the other hand, he never went forward and told the cops that it was Daisy who killed Myrtle, so maybe that's what Jordan's talking about? Did she perhaps want Daisy to have to take responsibility for her actions at long last?
I definitely agree with Jordan about Nick's secret pride, though -- he's rather enjoyed looking down his nose at the shenanigans of everyone around him, hasn't he. And he continues doing so, telling Tom off about siccing Wilson on Gatsby.
And here we are at the end. I don't have anything wonderful to say about the book's final lines. They're amazing and give me goosebumps, those last couple of paragraphs, but that's about all I have to say about that.
Thanks so much for joining in this read-along, everyone! I've really enjoyed drinking up the beauty and splendid sadness of this book, and sharing thoughts with you all. I've learned quite a bit from you too, which is my favorite part of read-alongs :-) This afternoon, I'll be starting up a giveaway to celebrate our completing the book, so be sure to watch for that.
Favorite Lines:
"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead" (p. 182-83).
I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away (p. 188).
There was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn't true (p. 190).
He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark field of the republic rolled on under the night (p. 192).
Possible Discussion Questions:
What do you think of James Gatz's childhood resolutions and daily regimen? Do you think he stuck to those? His father says he "always had some resolves like this or something" (p. 184). Do you think he had them as an adult too, to help him on his quest to reclaim Daisy?
Speaking of quests, I've never read Don Quixote, but I've seen a movie version and know the basic gist of the story. Do you think Quixote and Gatsby have any similarities?
How is it I've never even heard of Terri Blackstock before? Oh my word! This book is a freight train barreling into the night. I know there's a sequel coming, and I am definitely going to read it.
Casey Cox's good friend has just been murdered, and she's being framed for it. Doesn't help that she's the one who discovered the body, and her DNA is all over the crime scene. She runs, convinced that she'll either go to jail for a murder she didn't commit or else get killed herself.
Dylan Roberts is a recently discharged soldier battling PTSD from his days in the Middle East. He's also a childhood friend of the dead man, and he gets hired by the grieving parents to find Casey and bring her to justice.
Then there's Laura Daly, a girl who disappeared two years ago, when she was only fourteen. Casey stumbles on evidence that could lead to Laura's discovery and rescue, but only if Casey risks being found herself.
This book literally had my heart pounding during the last few chapters. It's been a long time since I read a book that did that. If you're into suspenseful mysteries that don't wrap up entirely neatly by the end, but lead to future books, definitely read this!
Particularly Good Bits:
Doubts crest like vultures in my mind, circling my theories, swooping to feed on them. They make me second-guess my competence, my objectivity, my skills (p. 233).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence and suspenseful situations, references to alcohol, and spousal abuse. No bad language, no racy scenes, but there is an unwed mother involved.
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for me to read while judging the INSPY awards. In no way did I agree to review this book in exchange. These are my honest opinions.
The winners of this year's INSPY Awards have been officially announced! I had such a great time judging the Mystery/Thriller category, and I absolutely love the book that we chose as the winner: If I Run by Terri Blackstock. I'll be posting my review of it in a few minutes.
I very nearly loved this book. I certainly love the girl it's about, Addie. She's one of the coolest, gutsiest, realest YA characters I've read in a very long time. I will re-read this book.
However, I will not be letting my kids read this book until they're in their teens. First, because the protagonist, a girl named Addie, gets her period and starts wearing bras, and I'm pretty sure they won't be comfy reading about that until they're older -- especially Sam, heh. But second because there's a secondary character who is gay. He has a boyfriend, and it doesn't go into any detail about this, but that's another conversation we're not going to have for a few years yet, thanks.
So anyway, Addie is amazing. Like, the most spunktacular kid I have read about in years, but in a totally realistic way. Her dad died when she was tiny, and her mom remarried a very cool guy. They had two daughters together, and then got divorced. Because Addie's mom has problems. I don't know if she's manic-depressive or bi-polar or what, but I do know she is an unfit mother.
Addie and her mom move into a tiny trailer home, basically a camper, courtesy of her ex-step-dad, who tries to remain in Addie's life because she clearly needs a stable adult around somewhere. Addie's mom spends most of her time on the internet, staying up late and then waking up sometime in the afternoon, about when Addie gets home from school. Addie does basically all the cleaning and all the cooking. All the laundry. Everything. Her mom sits in front of the computer. That is, she does when she's home.
The woman disappears for days at a time. Addie fends for herself with the help of new friends she makes, the people who run a gas station nearby. And the most amazing thing? Addie doesn't feel sorry for herself like 99% of the time. This is her life, so she lives it. She's resourceful, she's intelligent, she's savvy, she's cheerful. She has trouble studying because she has dyslexia, but she learns quickly aside from that. Oh, and she's compassionate and quick to forgive too.
But she's also just a twelve-year-old kid. Bad stuff happens, and she tries to cope the best she can, but... she can't fix everything. She can't be a mother to her own mom. She can't save her neighbor who's dying of cancer. Addie is a mighty girl, but she's not a superhero. She's real, she's flawed, she's lonely and scared and brave and sad and all kinds of wonderful. I want to adopt her or befriend her or something!
Happily, Addie gets a happy ending. I was worried for a long time she wouldn't, but she does.
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for the issues I described above, adults smoking, and a short sequence involving very real danger to a child.
As I write this post, I am treating myself to a moonshine truffle bar from the Chocolate Moonshine Co. in honor of Jay Gatsby. Supposedly, this truffle bar has real moonshine in it. Supposedly, Gatsby made money selling moonshine. It's all good. Especially the chocolate, which I have to say is WAY better than actual moonshine. Which I have also had, and not the stuff they sell in gift shops along the interstate in Appalachia, but real white lightning that was confiscated from an illegal still. It was like what I imagine swallowing acid would be like. Tasteless, odorless, clear as water -- and how it burned!
Actually, this chocolate kind of tastes the way Fitzgerald's words feel in my mouth -- rich and smooth, with a little edge to it.
Anyway!
I really don't know how to write about this chapter. It kinda breaks my heart, in a fictional way. I've realized over the past couple of days that I feel very protective of Jay Gatsby -- I want to jump into this book and rescue him from himself and everything else. I get this way sometimes, especially in relation to seemingly powerful male characters, which sounds wacky, but it's true. I want to go save Jay Gatsby. But I can't. As Nick says, "'Jay Gatsby' had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice" (p. 157).
So we learn some hard things in this chapter, as Gatsby's dream slips through his fingers for good. We learn Daisy was the first "nice" girl he'd ever known, and that "many men had already loved Daisy" (p. 158), whether from a distance or physically, I'm not sure. We learn Jay "took" Daisy five years ago, "took her because he had no real right to touch her hand" (p. 158). I want to shake my head at them, but I'm too sad over this chapter to bother.
Interesting that, having made love to Daisy, Jay feels as if he's "committed himself to the following of a grail" (p. 158), even feels as if he's married to her. All the expected reactions to Daisy and Jay getting intimate are backwards -- we expect the girl to feel as if they're married, or should get married, and to feel shy, maybe even betrayed. But when they meet again, "it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed" (p. 159). Because even back then, Daisy was rather heartless, I guess. Heartless and remote, untouchable even though she's been touched. She's the one who used him, not the other way around.
There's a line there that I hadn't remembered. Nick says that "Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes" (p. 159 -- emphasis mine). That explains the shirts, doesn't it? He grew up poor, only having maybe one or two sets of clothes, living in the same ones day after day after day. He told Nick exactly how many new shirts and pairs of trousers old Dan Cody gave him when he signed on to help sail the yacht. Now that he's rich, he revels in never wearing the same shirt twice. It's ALL about the money and class, all of it. That's why he had to show them off to Daisy, I think -- to prove to her he's reached her level. He has the freshness of many clothes now.
Then Nick leaves. And he gives Gatsby a compliment, and he says he's glad he did because he'd never given him another one. Why? Because Nick "disapproved of him from beginning to end" (p. 164). I'm so intrigued by this! And I don't know what to make of it. Nick pretty clearly idolizes Gatsby -- I mean, he's writing down this whole story to memorialize him, in a way. He idolized Gatsby, but he disapproved of Gatsby. He disapproved of Tom and Daisy and Myrtle too, but we get that really clearly. Do we get a sense throughout the book that he disapproves of Gatsby? Or is Nick here trying to convince himself -- and us -- that he disapproved of him? I don't even know!!! I want to hear your thoughts.
But I suppose we ought to talk about Wilson a bit. I'm always so moved by his speech about telling Myrtle that she can fool Wilson, but not God, and he's gesturing toward the billboard with the giant eyes. They say there's truth in advertising... maybe sometimes advertisements can even inadvertently inspire people to realize true things?
Last thing. I've always wondered if Gatsby was considering committing suicide by drowning himself. Has that occurred to anyone else? He's never used that pool all summer, but he decides to use it now. I feel like maybe he decided to hang out in the pool until he lost all hope of Daisy ever calling him, and then, if he wanted, he could just slide off his inflatable raft thing and never resurface.
Favorite Lines:
He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free (p. 157).
At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor (p. 160).
Possible Discussion Questions:
What do you think Gatsby meant when he said, "In any case, it was just personal" (p. 162)?
Nick says that Gatsby "paid a high price for living too long with a single dream" (p. 172). Do you think that was Gatsby's real problem, that he couldn't let go of a dream and find a new one? Or that he only had one instead of several?
