MADreads

Gatsby’s still great

July 24th, 2008 Jon - Central Library

I groaned when I learned I would have to reread The Great Gatsby for a school assignment.  Reread the one about the guy with the fancy library?  Come on.  I don’t know how it happened, but a literature professor friend of mine and I were so bored with Gatsby that we started telling everyone we knew that they should forget Gatsby and read The Day of the Locust instead.  So after years (seriously, years; this little joke took on a life of its own) of rolling my eyes at Gatsby, the last thing I wanted to do was reread the one with the floating eyes in it.

Now that I’ve done the assigned reading, I have to admit that telling people not to read Gatsby was a colossal mistake.  It’s so well put-together that you can’t tell it’s been put together.  The commentary is there, the symbolism is there, but Nick Carraway’s ambivalence ensures that it’s all entirely believable and real.  Each scene is crafted with that rare level of precision that makes great novels seem completely natural.

So, English teachers everywhere are right. We should all read Gatsby and, if we’ve already read it, we should reread it, for the story and for the commentary and for a writing lesson.  And then we’re allowed to read The Day of the Locust again, if we really want to.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction