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# 2025-09-19 - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Celestial Eyes by Francis Cugat, 1925
I picked up a copy of The Great Gatsby at a free pile. It includes a
preface by Matthew J. Bruccoli. From the preface i gather that this
book has at least one unreliable narrator.
> Complexity for the sake of complexity is bad writing; the structure
> of The Great Gatsby is functional. The reader is required to
> reconstruct the actually chronology of events, much of which is
> revealed in flashbacks--thereby becoming a collaborator in the
> narrative. More important, the reader is responsible for sorting
> and re-ordering the lies and truths about Gatsby.
> --Mathew J. Bruccoli
> That's the whole burden of this novel--the loss of those illusions
> that give such color to the world so that you don't care whether
> things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical
> glory. --F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1924
Coincidentally, another author i very recently read, Haruki Murakami,
translated The Great Gatsby to Japanese and it's his favorite novel.
The Great Gatsby translated by Haruki Murakami
The book has a strong opening in chapter 1. I was immediately
impressed by the quality of the writing. It is dense and not
suitable for casual reading. Another analysis states:
> The actual text is short, only 50,000 words, but also like poetry,
> it is the compression of an enormous amount of content and meaning.
In this respect the novel reminds me of "hyperlink cinema," and also
a "novel of circulation." In The Great Gatsby the focus is not a
physical object but on the identity of Jay Gatsby.
Hyperlink Cinema (Wikipedia)
Novel of Circulation (Wikipedia)
What follows are interesting quotes from the book, with my comments
in square brackets.
* * *
In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that
has opened up many curious natures to me and, also made me the victim
of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and
attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person...
Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.
And, after boasting of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it
has a limit. ... I wanted mo more riotous excursions with privileged
glimpses into the human heart.
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then
there was something gorgeous about [Gatsby], home heightened
sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of
those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles
away. ... it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness
such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not
likely that I shall ever find again.
[The narrator possesses an ideal of infinite hope, and apparently
sees Jay Gatsby as a model.]
* * *
"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've
gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read
'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"
"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
"Well, it's a fine book and everybody ought to read it. The idea is
if we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly
submerged. It's all scientific stuff, it's been proved."
"The idea is that we're Nordics. I am and you are and... we've
produced all the things that go to make civilization--oh, science and
art and all that. Do you see?"
There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his
complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.
... Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if
his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy
* * *
He smiled understandingly--much more than understandingly. It was
one of those smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that
you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed
to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then
concentrated on /you/ with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.
It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood,
believed you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you
that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you
hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished--
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues,
and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have
known.
* * *
I couldn't forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done
was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and
confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up
things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or
their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together,
and let other people clean up the mess they had made...
* * *
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by
year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no
matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...
See also:
Decoding the Iconic Cover of The Great Gatsby
author: Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_Great_Gatsby
LOC: PZ3.F5754 Gr
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/6/4/3/1/64317/
tags: ebook,fiction
title: The Great Gatsby
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fiction
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