LesleyTodoric

The Great Gatsby Chapters 1 - 6

Jerz: Am Lit II (EL 267): Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Ok, I am going out on a limb here to say that the only thing that kept recurring in my mind while reading these chapters was, "Wow, this is like American Psycho meets Fight Club meets Catch Me If You Can."

For the first four and a half chapters I had no idea what in the hell was going on. It was just this guy talking about himself and his life, then going out with his friend who cheats on his wife with another woman who is coincidentally cheating on her husband, getting drunk, and going to Gatsby's parties. What the kind of story does that make? Ok, I am going to write a story about people getting drunk, infidelity, and some rich man who no one knows anything about.

However, in a way, it reminds me of society. There's always someone in a neighborhood or town or city that everyone watches his or her every move, and that is sort of like Gatsby. Everyone was so infatuated with him but no one knew anything about him so they had to make up stories. Refined people act as though they are better than everyone else in society, but then on weekends most of them run off to have their little soirees and get drunk as any town's Billy Bob the Lush.

Also, I noted a bit of a strain between old money and new money. It started when Tom Buchannan came into the picture. Tom apparently was from old money (at least my perception, I could be wrong) and he worked for what he had even though he was just another male pig who cheated on his wife with another women who was just as to blame. And Daisy, well, she's just as bad since she is ready to cheat on Tom with Nick when he calls her over for the secret lunch with Gatsby. Gatsby is the new money, he inherited his money from his parents, he has been in many different businesses and had many different jobs. He even made up his name! No one can track anything down about him and he seems to live more lavishly than most of the other rich people mentioned in the stories. Tom appears to turn his nose up at Gatsby, possibly because he sees the connection between him and Daisy and also because he is new money and new money isn't as good as old money.

Most people I talk to about this particular story tell me how horrible it is, so I went into the book with a bad view of it but once we got to midway through chapter five I actually started to enjoy it. Once we started learning about Gatsby and his secrets it seemed more interesting, I admit, I was hoping for some sort of scandalous event and what-have-you but it was very interesting to me. I also enjoyed seeing the man of a story pining for a woman for once, I hate romance novels or love stories and they usually deal with the woman chasing after the man (in my experience) and I enjoyed that this turned those tables. Especially since I am more into the horror genre, this book was quite different but at the same time it wasn't so terrible to read. I read two chapters a day before bed so I could sleep on it.

I say the American Psycho comment because Nick and Gatsby are both very stand-offish type characters who actually don't have much depth to them and especially because of the almost obsessive compulsive-like behavior of wiping the man's shaving cream off of his face when Nick was at Tom's mistress' party. I think Fight Club because it's just a bunch of hoopla hullabaloo going ons that no one has any clue what's happening. Forgive the oxymoron but it's like chaotic organization at Gatsby's parties. And the Catch Me If You Can statement comes from Gatsby's previous life, his jobs, his name, etc. all previously stated.

It's also kind of like a sick and sad infatuation in a way, with Gatsby and Daisy. Here is this man, who pines after a woman for five long years, and practically wants to die but can't. He then goes to spend all of his money to have a huge mansion and lots of expensive and impressive things for this woman who has no idea he is back, a woman who is married and has a child. When they finally reunite, the flame doesn't seem to be there anymore. Daisy is no longer the same person, hence the symbolism of the light at the dock. Gatsby rather reminds me of a stalker for a while then I feel a sort of pity for him.

I'm eager to start reading the rest of the story even though there's only eighty pages left and I've already heard the jist of it from most other people.

Unlike everyone else, I never read this story in high school. I had A.P. English my junior year at public school and then transfered to a private academy and we didn't even hear about this story so this is my first time reading it and unlike everyone else I am not a seasoned reader of Fitzgerald. I've only read one other story by him, "Babylon Revisted" which wasn't much but I didn't mind reading. It seems between both of these stories that Fitzgerald is a very slow read. Then again, I recall hearing that he only wrote stories when he ran out of money from his gallabanting all over Europe with Zelda and Hemmingway.

...and as a small anecdote $12.95 for a 180 page paperback story is a bit steep for a book that everyone complains about reading. I bought the English version of Canterbury Tales to help me in my Chaucer class and it's 504 pages paperback and was only $10.00.

Posted by LesleyTodoric at February 6, 2005 7:05 PM | TrackBack