The Great Gatsby is a novel by Scott F. Fitzgerald. It was Fitzgerald’s third novel, written in 1925. The book gained popularity in the 50’s after the author’s death and became a classic. Nowadays the novel is often read in American high-schools and universities. Fitzgerald’s other works, including his four other novels and numerous short stories, haven’t become as popular as The Great Gatsby.
The novel takes place in New York in the 1920’s where the wealthy and stylish upper-class enjoy jazz and each other’s company. Even though love and morals are a big theme in this book, I wouldn’t still call this a love story. Gatsby really reminds me of this other famous American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read a couple of months ago. Both novels have a very similar style and a lot of different themes to play with.
The Great Gatsby is narrated by a World War-veteran Nick Carraway, who lives in a fictional island called West Egg. Nick is an observer and he doesn’t really seem to participate when he’s out with his friends. This leaves plenty of time for a define description of Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire, who everyone seems to be obsessed with. And when I say everyone, I literally mean it- everyone talks about him all the time, whether he’s around or not, whether they know him or not. It is mentioned over and over again in this book that he might have an awful secret, that he might have killed a man or that there’s something shady about his money. These things are often discussed in Gatsby’s huge parties, which he throws every weekend.
Nick’s cousin Daisy and his husband Tom are few of the main characters in this book. Tom cheats on Daisy with Myrtle, who is unhappy about her own marriage with a car mechanic. Daisy and Gatsby used to have a romantic relationship, but they broke up because Daisy wasn’t happy with Gatsby not having enough money at the time. It’s easy to say that Tom is the bad guy of the story. He’s hypocrite, mean and breaks Myrtle’s nose right in the beginning. He doesn’t respect Daisy at all.
The story really starts off when Nick is awkwardly introduced to Gatsby at one of his parties. He and Gatsby hit it off and become friends. Soon it is revealed that Gatsby is still in love with Daisy, and wants Nick to set them up. After an awkward afternoon Daisy and Gatsby become somewhat lovers. The novel ends with a tragic hit-and-run and a murder.
The language is old and very specific. At some points it got so confusing that it was hard to even know what was going on without reading a chapter two times. I just simply didn’t have time for that, so I decided to think that something that is not understandable doesn’t even want to be understood and probably won’t matter at all. It was a good decision, because as the story went on it became more understandable. The overly detailed describing that Fitzgerald uses a lot in this novel is probably one of the reasons why Americans don’t enjoy reading. If I had had this book to be read when I was fourteen, I guess I would have been scarred for life and started to hate books because of this a very boring one. I mean, the plot is great and I really enjoyed the jazz and the bobs, but sometimes it makes you to want to skip a chapter when Fitzgerald starts to describe someone’s voice or appearance. Like, seriously, I get that someone likes the words “husky” and “slender” but why to use them all the time?
Even though the vocabulary drove me crazy, I am still pretty impressed by this book. I think that loneliness is a big theme in this story. Gatsby used a lot of money to entertain people, who didn’t even bother to attend his funeral. Even with a lot of friends around him he longed for someone else, Daisy. It still annoyed me how people always had suspicions about Gatsby. Why can’t someone just simply enjoy throwing parties and seeing people having fun? Why does there always have to be something fishy about it?
This novel is ninety years old and it shows. People are more modest, men complement each other and a woman is usually introduced as someone’s wife or fiancée (and if not, they sure make a huge deal about it). The class society was still a pretty big thing for people those days and Gatsby belongs to one of those people who succeeded at climbing up the classes. This novel really needs some respect for making the former poor guy a generous millionaire.
Reading a novel in English was weird for me, because I haven’t ever done it before. I love the Finnish language and enjoy reading and writing it, so reading a whole book in another language was a bit sad. I first thought that the reading would take a lot of time, but it soon became very natural to me. I definitely didn’t pick an easy book, but the Great Gatsby was still a happy surprise.
Sources: Wikipedia, http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/