The Great Gatsby

I listened to The Great Gatsby audiobook earlier this week, and the single biggest thought I have coming out of it is annoyance that they made everyone read this back in high school. What high schooler or college student could possibly have the life experience necessary to understand this book?

Honestly, what is anyone supposed to get out of this book if they've never been in love or moved across country or tried to reinvent themselves? How can you understand it if you've never had sex?

It's incredible because Fitzgerald published the book in 1925, but one of the main characters -- portrayed as arguably the book's biggest villain -- is an out-and-out, recognizably Nazi piece of shit. Dude is the football-playing, 1920s-era Stephan Miller. Like, this dude is so recognizable in today's American culture that it's actually shocking. As a society, we haven't moved five inches in the past hundred years. Throughout the book, I thought that the biggest mistake most movie adaptations have made is making the story a period piece when it's very clearly an eternal part of America's unique psyche. Set it in 2026, and it'll work fine and become much more accessible to the broader audience.

As I sit here thinking about it, I can't decide how sympathetic we as the audience are supposed to be towards Gatsby himself. For example, I wondered at times if I could rework elements of the plot and style for a Necropolis-universe story. But if we do that... Frank becomes Gatsby. I mean, there's no other way to do it. And Frank is a fucking villain.

But that would stretch a lot of Fitzgerald's ideas past their breaking point, so it's probably not relevant. And anyway, we've all seen sympathetic villains. Besides which, who in this story comes off looking good?

The whole audiobook ran all of five hours. That makes it an easy recommendation, especially if you only remember having had it forced on you back in the day. 

I have this theory that a lot of great books have been ruined for everyone by enforced reading at too young an age, but right now, that's just a theory. Still, American literature as a whole is so damned depressing that I often stay away from it. And yet, in my fifties, I can admit that it's probably time for a rethinking.

Honestly, though, all these narratives of the American Dream's failure drive me bananas. Even in this one, Gatsby had everything, and he fumbled it. He manifestly could have moved on with his life -- that's the whole point -- but even within the story itself, he also could have had the girl if he'd just been a little more patient. Instead, he forces the issue prematurely, and it blows up in his face.

He also could have just kept fucking her*. That's all she really wanted. I mean, not to get all 2026, but if we stop and ask ourselves what the women want, the whole story takes on a slightly different hue. It's all in the text, so Fitzgerald certainly thought about it.

Nobody in this book is a saint, but that's the book's most obvious point. However, that doesn't indicate some flaw in America itself or in the nature of the American Dream. At some point, we all bear some responsibilty for making ourselves happy. That's doubly true for those who have everything, but it remains true even for gas station attendant George Wilson. Indeed, even within this story, Wilson's failures are portrayed just as tragically as Daisy's or Gatsby's.

I don't know, friends. It's a great book, and I enjoyed it, but even after all this time, it feels like there's still a reason why I tend to lean towards Robert E. Howard or Brandon Sanderson instead of in some more obviously literary direction. 

What can you do?

* * *

* The Thug Notes video implies that Gatsby and Daisy somehow aren't fucking in the book's later stages. Instead, the relationship supposedly mostly exists in Gatsby's head and/or in his memories. 

I don't buy it. We know they fucked back in the day, and we know that Daisy knows her husband is a faithless piece of shit. We're now supposed to believe that she would contemplate leaving Tom without first having had an affair? In what universe?

They had means, motive, and opportunity. I think they smashed. The difference is that for Gatsby it was love while for Daisy it was a confusing mess. When push comes to shove, she chooses outward respectability with an abusive Nazi piece of shit. Hence Fitzgerald's lingering contempt for her. 

Is she the villain, or is Tom?

They both are, friends. When you marry a Nazi, that makes you a Nazi.