9/18/11

The Great Gatsby || F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’ve heard much of this famous work of art from majority of literary circles and a few deep inside the plot of other novels. The reviews it received were all positive. Before reading, I also discovered that the book is on its progress to be adapted as a film. To be honest, the mystery of why this book was so popular actually compelled me to expect a lot from the film, which I guess was a regretting stance to be conscious of. The novel disappointed me in a bit regarding overview sense of the story. It told a semi-setting of one’s mid-age life but the content and plot that is found at the heart of the book lacked it’s strength and gripping hold to one’s emotive mind. I liked the effort of somewhat revealing the culture of its time setting but it’s not something I haven’t encountered from some other writers. It’s still a very good read though, just fell short of expectation.

COMMENTS

Plot: Nothing too exciting but there was an interesting turnaround regarding human behaviour and our incompetent control over the whole scheme of things. The dialogues were quick and somewhat realistic if you take the anti-hyperrealism of the term. However, it’s not so much my cup of tea since the content can be very well governed by other novelists such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and even Ayn Rand.

Characters: Nick Carraway felt like a true person and I did liked some of his passive conscious thoughts, I think it’s more or a narrative taken upon one’s reflection after a course of day. They’re not at all full of content and reflective thoughts but just specific memorabilias one has gathered out of instinctual attentiveness.

Imagery: Not much to highlight here. It was more romantic than descriptive. It gets really figurative whenever the leading character experiences inspired passion for a beloved and then the imagery is set to tone.

                The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain. I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.
-          The Great Gatsby, 64. F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Reflections: Nick Carraway’s reflections were really voiced convincingly and astoundingly. He spoke like a neighbour being interrogated or interviewed by a person committed to the public. He told the story in the sense of compassion, even if it’s a bid odd yet realistic to imagine.

I liked Gatsby’s silent and vile reflections as well whenever he shares his feelings with Nick, delivers it to a larger crowd, and how the most important relationship with Daisy wasn’t even at all magnified. It’s an interesting way of narration.

Writings Style: Even though we cannot place Fitzgerald in the same category as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, this work still speaks a lot and clearly stands out its own place and time. The culture was presented but not in the way that it advertises itself to you. That takes a unique and stoic kind of personal formula in writing. It also seemed like it has its own feeling of emotion towards the world as if we are swayed with the writing style of that of a romantic. That everything relating to passion and emotion is highlighted with a great collection of words. Still not very impressive but belongs to the discussions of literary circles.

Quotables:

As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be overdreamed—that voice was a deathless song.
-          The Great Gatsby, 72. F. Scott Fitzgerald.
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... One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb on it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
                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 for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
-          The Great Gatsby, 84. F. Scott Fitzgerald.
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“I can’t describe to you how surprised I was to find out I loved her, old sport. I even hoped for a while that she’d throw me over, but she didn’t, because she was in love with me too. She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her... Well, there I was, ‘way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?”
-          The Great Gatsby, 115. F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Reference:  Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 1925. The Great Gatsby. London: HarperCollinsPublishers.

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