To not get The Great Gatsby?

[MudAndGlitter]

I heard brilliant things and the writings nice and all but I just felt a bit let down. Or am I a twat who needs to be more cultured?

One of the funny things about Fitzgerald is that when Zelda sent him a written description of their first sexual encounter, he praised her turning it into words (and effectively marked it - sexual encounter as literature/sexual encounter/litrary style - out of 10) by giving her a watch for her efforts.

I think he has a very interesting relationship to the written word. It is very self-consciously libidinal.

I found it hard to have any empathy with the characters in Gatsby. They seemed pointless, self absorbed and shallow. Love Heart of Darkness and to Kill a Mockingbird.

Yes, I agree sue52. Despite the beauty and sensuality it is quite cold and there is a certain hollowness where you might expect intimacy, sentiment, sympathy, empathy and so on to be.

Words and money stand in place of that, and those emotions, I think. I also think Fitzgerald wants it that way, and that is part of the brilliance of the book. It challenges you to notice that absence of human warmth, and to notice that money, words, objects can become almost autonomous and "alive", claiming the libidinal and empathetic dues that "should" be claimed by living, breathing things and "better" values.

You see, I think it's even more relevant now, as we are so fully in an age of "celebrity" and in a world where there is only a minimal irony when we talk about our pulses racing and getting wildly excited about a handbag.

I think he did

Yy. I think Fitzgerald loves the ambiguity of autheniticity and simulacrum, the "genuine fake" (to pinch truman Capote's description of Holly Golightly). I think that's what he liked about Zelda (along with her money and her family connection with status and power) and her act of transposing physical intimacy into the "genuine fakeness" of literature.

You must maintain perspective. At least it's not Thomas sodding Hardy. ("Done because we was too many". God how I laughed.)

I never really enjoyed Gatsby either - but loved Tender Is The Night.
The one book I really could never stomach is Wide Sargasso Sea.
Just typing the title makes me feel irritable.

I loved that book.

I think Fitzgerald was rather prophetic, actually. He seemed to understand that it would all come crashing down around their ears in the 1930s, and TGG seems filled with that sense of doom. And I agree that the emptiness is part of what makes it great. It's like a study of the 1920s equivalent of Paris Hilton.

I'm about to start Hardy with my 5th yr Italians. At least we have finally finished Keats and his wanking over a vase.

Dh and I are both Gatsby fans. I agree it's not the most comfortable book to read - but that's because Gatsby is describing a pretty horrible world. And yes - a lot of the characters are shallow because that's what he's aiming at.

Ah but Bucharest, teenagers lurve Keats, don't they? I certainly did. All the storm und drang. The heart-wringing nightingales and all. And I can imagine it would be right up an Italian's street.

To kill a mockingbird is a great biook. The great gatsby was ok but no more than ok.

I love Gatsby.

YABU, modern classic for good reason.

Totally agree about the amazing ending bucharest.

Also worth reading purely for the description of a languid summer afternoon drinking mint juleps, had some at a wedding last summer with a 20s theme, yum! But our day wasn't filled with foreboding and didn't end in disaster.

I think if its read as a satire on the era it works, but I think he had better books. Fwiw I never "got" Catcher in the Rye either.

I once read the Depression made such an impact on the America psyche that people who had called it got a big resonance (like post WW1 writers in Europe)

Was going to say its one of those books where the movie is better.

My US hero of the era is Dorothy Parker

I love The Great Gatsby it's one of my all time favourite books. Hated the Heart of Darkness though, never even made it to the end and I hardly ever don't finish a book.
A Confederacy of Dunces is another terrible book.

I love The Great Gatsby. It is kind of chilling how easily and indifferently Daisy and Tom chew people up and spit them out, not even nastily, not deliberately, but just because other people - poorer people - are completely below their notice.

If you want some short classic American fiction read Truman Capote - particularly Breakfast at Tiffanys. Brilliant.