The Great Gatsby at 100

A Reader's Diary

On Thursday, December 5th at 5 pm, my local independent bookstore, Newtonville Books, is celebrating the 100th birthday of perhaps “the Great American Novel,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, with the second meeting of the High Tea Book Club, hosted by Newton novelist Jonathan Wilson. I’m planning to attend; if you’re local and interested, why not come? I’m guessing you have enough experience of the story to hold your own in conversation, but if you want a few reminders, I’m re-reading Gatsby for the first time in decades and will share a few thoughts.

It’s challenging for me to recall what I thought of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece way back then. I’m sure I read it for school, and even though I was not your typical student, turned off by any book that was part of the school curriculum, I don’t remember being as powerfully moved as I was when reading the other two leading candidates for “Great American Novel” status: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Moby-Dick (granted I read the latter at age 65). Just last month, the Boston Public Library asked me to vote for the greatest book from 1925; I went right for Mrs. Dalloway, not Gatsby.

What follows is a mini-diary, with my observations about Gatsby as I go along. As I go, I’ll keep two questions in mind: What is the case for The Great Gatsby’s greatness? and Am I enjoying the book, or simply doing my duty to read it before High Tea?

Day 1: What a slim book The Great Gatsby is! Only 9 chapters in length, I plan to read it over the course of five days, starting today with Chapter 1, which I have just completed. I’m struck already with the shallowness of the characters, with their wealthy Ivy League elitism in full display. Only narrator Nick Carraway comes across as particularly nuanced only because, as narrator, we experience his writer’s sensitivities as he introduces us to Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and their friend Jordan Baker. Right away, Fitzgerald sets up the contrast between West Egg/East Egg, but in a way that feels like one side is the well-to-do, and the other side is the very well-to-do. Is this concentration on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous enough to disqualify the novel from the running as America’s greatest? Until the last paragraph, Jay Gatsby is only hinted at. At the point where we finally encounter him, in the final paragraph of Chapter 1, he is already looking across the water, from West to East, at the green light at the end of the dock that has given English teachers something to go on about for the 80 years since Gatsby was in effect rediscovered. So far, I’m modestly amused at Gatsby’s narrative voice, but the book needs the jolt of energy that I trust Jay Gatsby will bring it soon.

Day 2: Chapters 2 and 3. So far, each of the chapters features a single set-piece. In Chapter 2, we meet Tom’s mistress, Mrs. Myrtle Wilson. It’s an attribute of Nick Carraway’s character that people of all sorts take him into their confidences, so Nick gets to accompany Tom and Myrtle as they head into New York City and throw a little party at the apartment that presumably serves as their love nest, a party that ends with Tom slapping Myrtle and breaking her nose. Knowing where the plot is headed as it relates to Daisy, it seems that Fitzgerald leaning hard on the overall reprehensibility of Tom. Chapter 3 finally brings with it a set-piece that shimmers: the party at Gatsby’s, with Nick in attendance as well as Jordan Baker and a group of her East Egg friends. We’ve heard rumors about Gatsby throughout the book so far. Now we meet him, and Nick right away nails the nature of Jay Gatsby, the juxtaposition of the “quality of eternal reassurance…concentrated on you,” and the “elegant rough-neck…whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.” Nick (and we) see the absurdity of the party, and Fitzgerald is wickedly satirical here, but Gatsby regards the party both as something he takes pride in having assembled and as something from which he is oddly removed.

Day 3: Chapters 4 and 5. Now that Fitzgerald has established setting, characters, and tone, we get the beginning of a narrative arc worthy of our attention: the story of Gatsby’s obsession with and/or love for Daisy. Up to now, others have embroidered the legend of Gatsby; in Chapter 4, Gatsby himself regales Nick with one likely tall tale after another. On their trip together to the city, we meet Meyer Wolfsheim, racketeer, gangster, crime boss, and acquaintance of Gatsby, the presumption being we now have a hint as to how Gatsby accumulated his riches. As to why he accumulated his riches, Chapter 5 brings us to the heart of the matter. Gatsby arranges with Nick to invite Daisy for tea, whereupon Gatsby arrives and eventually gives Daisy, with Nick in tow, the grand tour of his mansion. We know, and clearly so does Gatsby, that Daisy and Tom’s marriage is foundering thanks to the latter’s numerous affairs. As Chapter 5 ends, we watch to see if Gatsby’s attempt to re-win Daisy’s affection with the prominent display of his wealth will succeed or not. More than halfway through the novel, it has finally become a page-turner.

Day 4: Chapters 6 and 7. As I near the conclusion of Gatsby, I’ll refrain from spoilers. Maybe you’ve never read it? Or, maybe, like me, you have, but don’t remember exactly how the plot unfolds? Suffice it to say that Fitzgerald continues his pattern of exploring one scene per chapter, generally expanding the cast of characters we see interact such that by Chapter 7, we have all the major players coming together (Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and George and Myrtle Wilson), although they don’t all survive the chapter. Sometimes, I suspect that Gatsby’s place near the top of the list of great American novels is because it’s the ideal high school English class book. It’s short, it’s not overly challenging in terms of vocabulary, it allows for fruitful discussion of the idea of the observant first-person narrator, and don’t forget those symbols! Or, to put it another way, everybody’s read it. Plus it makes for a pretty sumptuous movie. It also leaves room for ambiguity when it comes to character motivation. Does Gatsby have a pure love for Daisy, or is she simply another rich possession to acquire? Is Daisy attracted to Gatsby for Gatsby, or does he represent the more glamorous life of new money when compared with old money? How does Daisy work through her feelings for her cheating husband vs. the tarnished version of Gatsby that Tom seeks to uncover for her? Discuss.

Day 5: Chapters 8 and 9. To the very end, Nick vacillates in his feelings about Gatsby. Practically Nick’s final words to him (“You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”) is immediately followed by this: “It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.” Yet Nick, unlike practically everyone else, is there at the end, allowing us to compare the final, desolate view of Gatsby’s mansion with the parties we recall from earlier.

If The Great Gatsby has a legitimate claim for the crown of Great American Novel, its slim size points the way. There are moments in both Huckleberry Finn and Moby-Dick where inspiration flags a bit, but there’s no fat to Gatsby. Every scene, every description, every symbol, every flashback, every twist and turn in our view of character, all the ideas about money. success, and love: nothing is wasted in this superbly crafted novel. At the level of the individual sentence, I personally lean toward Twain’s homespun humor and Melville’s Biblical cadences (and I’m still not changing my best-of-1925 vote for Virginia Wolff). but if your only experience of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece was way back in high school, celebrate the birthday of The Great Gatsby by reading it anew, then see what you think today.