The Great Gatsby - am I wrong to feel so disappointed?

[Ihatesandwiches]

Hi -
A decade ago I copied The Times "The Big Read" into a journal and I'm still making my way through the list!
Anyway, today I finished The Great Gatsby and I'm feeling rather unimpressed. Am I alone? Or are there any Gatsby lovers who can tell what I've missed?

I’m not a huge fan, but what did help me come to a better understanding of the book was listening to a dramatised audio version (where each character has a different reader).

I think we come to the book with great expectations, but it’s quite short and, like Jay Gatsby, has a glossy, slick surface which makes knowing it hard.

What was it that you found disappointing? On the surface it’s a tragic love story. But if you know a bit more about Fitzgerald and the context of the times it becomes deeper. I studied it for A level and it is multi layered. It led to a slight obsession with FSF and his wife Zelda!

I had to do the Great Gatsby for my English O Grade and I hated it. Even reading your thread title made me shudder. I can’t fathom why it appears in lists of Must Read Books

You are lucky I had to do Gawain and The Green Knight for my GCSE!

I've read it three times. I found it so disappointing the first time that I felt I must have missed something so read it again. And then again when DD did it for A-level.

I still don't get what the fuss is about. I'm sure it's me, not the book, but I just don't get it. It strikes me as beautifully written, but slight. Prepared to accept I'm wrong and I'm just missing something.

I think whether you like a book is totally personal.
As you know from that giant list you've been working through, there are loads of books that are very well regarded and they are never all going to appeal to everyone.
What are you reading next.

Thanks for the replies and apologies to those of you have had to relive painful memories!
I think my disappointment is in part to do with the hype, yes. I get the tragic love story. I guess I expected to feel empathy with at least 1 character but they are all horrible! Even the narrator doesn't seem terribly engaged in the story. Maybe that's the point?
Love in the time of cholera is up next @hugoagogo

I think books in which the principal players are not sympathetic are great - really challenges your perceptions and makes you question motives etc

Nah I wasn't bothered by it either, and felt I should like it, but really didn't. The film was quite pretty which was nice and helped, but nope not for me.

I haven't read that, it doesn't sound much fun, but hopefully you will enjoy it more than Gatsby.

I read Gatsby at 17, didn't rate it didn't really get it

Saw the film at 27 could really apply some of it to my life experiences post 17, the idea particularly of loving someone or of them loving you for characteristics you/ they didn't really possess and had merely projected on to you, as well as the ability or inability to move on from the past and found it life changing,I was seeing a counsellor at the time and talked about it for ages

Agree. Did it get The Great Gatsby, but loved, loved, loved Gawain and the Green Knight @WorriedMum11

Having said that, there are a lot of 'classic' books i have tried to wade through and would read several pages without actually taking anything in.

I recently read a memoir by an English Lit university teacher in Iran, I think it was called Lolita in Tehran or similar. Anyway, a fair bit of the book (the less interesting bits imo) were sort of lectures about the key texts - Lolita and Gatsby among them. It actually made me think about Gatsby very differently - i think as a 'read', it's a bit disappointing, partly because we all know the story. But in its context etc, it has much more to say. I'd read Gatsby again about a year earlier, so it was fairly clear in my mind. But yes, basically I think for most of us normal people, it's a bit underwhelming.
I hope you like Love in a time of Cholera, OP - I am very fond of old Marquez, but he is another one who needs to be taken in context...

I find it really hard to love books if I can't love the central characters.

No I didn’t really enjoy it. The disparaging attitude and selfishness of the characters were well portrayed, but I was just so underwhelmed.

I did it for GCSE and hated it. Re-read it in my 30s (and have done countless tines since) and loved it.

Jay and Daisy are utterly unloveable in my eyes - it's about as far from a romance as it's possible to get! But as a commentary on capitalism, greed and ego, I think it's an excellent book. And not the only book I changed my mind about after I'd lived a little

Yes, some books just get you at the wrong time totally agree @MercianQueen I simply hadn't lived yet, and my understanding of relationships was limited

On the other hand The Catcher In The Rye is, always has been and always will be utter shite. Holden is a dick and I don't care. I've read it twice just to be sure.

It could be that you read The Catcher in the Rye at the wrong time, I do feel it should be marketed as a teenage book.

Holden is a dick however I think Catcher in the Rye is better written than Great Gatsby

Interesting comments, thanks to all.
I'm mid 40s in age so I think I've lived a bit! I'll probably have another read of it. Might even watch the film...
I couldn't read Catcher in the Rye but it's on the list as one to try again.
I hated Austen as a teenager but love her now, so yes, I agree that books affect you differently at different times in your life.

I liked it (when read many moons ago so a bit hazy now), but can see why you wouldn't.
For me it was the parallels between the doomed love affair, the doomed unspoken longing of the narrator who wanted in on this glittering world but was going to be forever trapped outside, and the fin-de-siecle atmosphere of the end of the roaring '20s, all neatly paralleling each other up to a sudden life changing smash - both real and narratively. Does that make sense?
Now my big disapointment was A Handful of Dust (either GCSE or A Level, can't remember). Bit like a comedy version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, only not actually at all funny. Dreadful, dreadful book...

A Handful Of Dust is a parody and much of it is based on the real life demise of the marriage between Bryan Guinness and Diana Mitford whereby she had cheated on him but he staged an infidelity so she could save face.

It's about how the man is the one who suffers most in a divorce and that's reinforced by the OTT end

It is one of the worst endings

And I didn't so much find it good as find it an interesting curiosity

I didn't know that, that's interesting. I think i had vaguely thought it was about the breakdown of Waugh's own marriage.

I think my main problem with it was that it is a book that probably comes into its own only when you've lived a bit of life and been through relationship breakdowns. Also, once you've learnt that the word 'comedy' on the cover blurb does not actually mean 'funny'. It is largely incomprehensible and boring to 16 year olds. A bit like making Catcher in the Rye compulsory for 45 year olds.

I never liked it. My friends raved over it.