The Great Gatsby

December 15, 2008

I finished reading Gatsby. While strolling down “memory lane” in Downtown Dalton, we came across this quiet, out-of-the-way bookstore down by Finley Studios near Waugh Street, called The Book Nook. Tried as I might, I couldn’t remember what used to be there. In the 1970s, I mean, when my mom would take us kids downtown for all our clothes-shopping, before the days of the malls.

Tulsa Ballet had played “The Great Gatsby” a while back; I’d heard of the story but never seen the movie. I knew it was a classic but didn’t know what to expect. The Ballet put on a fantastic show – but I wanted to know the story as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it. So I’d been looking for the book, and finally found an old-but-in-good-shape copy at The Book Nook.

Some stories make me wonder why they are classics. The Great Gatsby is a fictional story about Jay Gatsby, a self-made wealthy man who tries in vain to recapture a lost love. It’s a portrait of the materially prosperous life in the 1920s, after the war but before the depression.

I knew the general idea of the story and how it ended. But I had hoped to glean more of an in-depth meaning. I mean, it’s a classic for a reason, right? The story is told from Nick Carraway’s point of view. He’s the unbiased observer. Much of the conversation between characters is insipid and inane. They don’t say much, they just babble on in mindless chatter. That’s why I couldn’t get the depth of the story. Nobody really says anything.

In a nutshell, Jay is still in love with Daisy, who married Tom Buchanan while Jay was away at war. Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Nick is renting a house for the summer next door to Jay, and tells the story as he sees it.

(Spoiler Alert) In the end, Jay is shot and killed at his pool, but not by Daisy’s husband Tom, as one might expect. Instead, by George Wilson, the husband of Tom’s mistress. Maybe he wanted him dead because Myrtle is killed by Gatsby’s car. But Gatsby wasn’t driving; Daisy was driving. I don’t understand the significance of that, why Daisy didn’t at least stop to see if she could help. Did she know about Tom’s affair with Myrtle and was glad to kill her?

Jay takes the fall for the hit-and-run accident, and George shoots and kills him at Jay’s home. But few mourn for him; even Daisy doesn’t go to his funeral. Nick does, even though he more so tolerates Jay rather than actually considers him a friend. Jay’s father does manage to come in from Montana or somewhere. But Jay’s business associate, Meyer Wolfsheimer (?) doesn’t even make find time to attend the funeral.

Such emptiness met with Jay Gatsby’s demise, after all those parties he hosted that were attended by hundreds. So The Great Gatsby was a nobody. He had money but his life was empty. He was materially wealthy but emotionally a pauper. Is that what the story is really about?