The Great Gatsby

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Perhaps I read The Great Gatsby in High School. I have vague recollections of spending time my Sophomore year listening to my teacher talk about the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock in Long Island. I remember thinking my teacher’s crush on Robert Redford was funny, as he was clearly a Very Old Man. And, I’m very sorry to say, that’s all I remember.

Maya read Gatsby this year for her English class, and she seemed to be far more captivated by the story than I was. Perhaps she read the novel, while I read the cliff notes version. She was touched by the love story of Gatsby and Daisy, and drew pictures of them in her spare time. She spoke of the American Dream and how it was represented as unattainable. She clearly got more out of the story than I did.

After seeing a few previews for the new film version coming out this May, I decided that maybe I should give it another go, read the book again, and see if I enjoyed it more, at least enough to make it memorable. I’m glad that I did.

The story itself is relatively simple, but the writing brings the characters alive, brings their fears and dreams into sharp focus in a way that is compelling and compassionate. Gatsby’s all consuming dream is to find Daisy Buchanan, the girl he loved before he went to fight in World War I. Daisy was a rich girl from Kentucky, a girl who could have any man she wanted, but she falls for Gatsby as well. They have a short, passionate affair, after which he leaves for Europe, and she is left behind to try to make sense out of her feelings, out of the pressures that society puts upon her, out of her loneliness. Eventually, with Gatsby at Oxford, the pressures Daisy is feeling are too much, and she falls in love and marries a man more her social and economic equal, Tom Buchanan. When Gatsby finds out she has married, he is devastated, and determines to become wealthy enough to win her over. And money he does make, a lot of it, through various unscrupulous means. He buys a mansion across the sound from Daisy’s house, and throws huge parties, attended by the jet setters of the day, hoping that Daisy will happen upon one, and he can casually impress her with his success.

Enter Nick Carraway, Daisy’s distant cousin, who moves into the cottage next door to Gatsby, and becomes friends with him, while bringing Daisy and Gatsby together.

Then there’s Tom Buchanan, and his married mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Tom brings Nick with him on an excursion into New York with Myrtle, where they invite Myrtle’s sister over and have a small party in the apartment that Tom and Myrtle use for trysts.

Nick, Daisy’s cousin, is the narrator and conscience of the novel. He has genuine fondness for his cousin, and considers himself a close friend of Gatsby, but he (mostly) holds himself aloof from what he sees as the immoral behavior of the party goers, his girlfriend Jordan’s cheating at golf (she’s a professional, so that’s a big deal), the nefarious business deals he witnesses, and the single minded obsession of Gatsby’s love for Daisy.

I liked Gatsby a lot more than I expected to, though I’ll admit that it devastated me more than I expected as well. I came away from it wondering if Gatsby loved Daisy, or the wealthy life that she represented. I suspect that in that first kiss, the two were entwined in his mind and heart, so there was no way for him to be happy having one without the other.