The Great Gatsby

Just read it. What's its message?

It's a great American novel about rich people. Thankfully it's about a tenth the length of Atlas Shrugged.
It's a bitch being rich.
Ann%20Romney
the rich get away with murder - unlike you and me. oh, and they are 'above' morality.
If you have to ask, reread it
OP = HS student trolling DL for answers to English assignment.
Think for yourself, dolt.
Whenever someone tells me that "The Great Gatsby" is their favorite book, I know that they haven't read anything intellectual since high school English. ("The billboard with the glasses! Such a great book!") Even worse is when they answer 'Shakespeare'. When pressed further, it's invariably some personalized variation of Palin's "All of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years".
There isn't a message, but there are themes. Someone be less snobby and help me out here.
Sure, R8. OP, here's the whole thing: [quote] 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 . . . . [quote] 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… And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past....
Rich people have troubles too...but they look nicer while suffering.
R7 neither of those answers are as bad as Catcher in the Rye. We get it, so you're so counter-culture and edgy for liking one of the best selling books of the past 60 years.
Overrated%2C%20thy%20name%20is%20Salinger
I understood Gatsby, but I don't get why so many people notice the billboard with the glasses as one of the standout things in the book. Why is this? The part where Gatsby's list is found really seems like something that overambitious helicopter parents would make their kids do nowadays.
R7, I don't understand your logic. So if I've read more intellectual books since Gatsby those have to be my favorites? When I think of my favorite books, I base it on how much I enjoyed the experience of reading them.
"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." -- F Scott Fitzgerald
I always liked my Gatsby with a bit of pot beforehand.
R7 makes perfect sense, R13. He's saying that people often just list off The Great Gatsby whenever they want to seem smart or well-read. It's fine if The Great Gatsby really is your favorite book. Just be prepared to justify it, since decades of idiots saying the same thing will cause any truly well-read person to look at you suspiciously. I agree, R11. The Catcher In The Rye is the favorite book of hipster pseudo-intellectuals.
It achieved a combination of poetic prose and tension that made it memorable. And the message is that rich people don't necessarily get away with murder.
Yes, R13, R7 sounds like worst kind of snob. The dumb kind. And what exactly does reading "something intellectual" even mean?
Anonymous
I read it earlier this year. I really approached it as one to "cross off the list," and in anticipation of the Baz Luhrmann film that was supposed to come out this year (and has been postponed to 2013). Now that several months have passed, it's not the characters that I remember, as much as the images Fitzgerald describes -- the green light, the ash heaps, the billowing curtains, the wet lawn, the auto accidents, the lavish parties and drunken revelry -- that defined the early 1920s. Most of the characters are shallow and superficial, except for one -- the narrator, Nick Carroway. The fact that he leaves the city and returns to the midwest at the end of the book serves as his rejection of the decadent lifestyle he experienced, and his desire to live a more authentic life than he saw in Daisy and Tom, and his dead "hero" Jay Gatsby. If only Fitzgerald had done the same...
Anonymous
Stay away from jazz and liquor and the men who play for fun.
Freddie%20Ebb
Don't cheat with a married man or 1 day when he's driving on the road he might accidentally run you over and keep on driving as you die.
You just come off sound peevish and overly offended, R13/R18. Not everyone sees The Great Gatsby the way you do. Let it go.
R16
"Whenever someone tells me that "The Great Gatsby" is their favorite book, I know that they haven't read anything intellectual since high school English." Assume much, don't we, Gladys?
Sheesh
Suburbs=Death
Jesus...R22, I only get peevish and offended around idiots and those that defend them. Anyone who'd type something as ridiculous as R7 did deserves whatever peevishness comes his or her way. Calm down already and go read something "intellectual".
R18
It's assigned in high school for a reason, R18. It's overly didactic and basic, the perfect novel to let students know what other, greater literary wonders await. Your wild-eyed ire is delicious. Freak out some more, because the DL lives for that. In the meantime, we'll enjoy the delectable irony of someone who lovingly fingerbangs "The Great Gatsby" calling others 'idiots'.
haha R5 nailed it!
[quote] It's assigned in high school for a reason, [R18]. It's overly didactic and basic, the perfect novel to let students know what other, greater literary wonders await. It's probably assigned because it can be read in an afternoon.
I always thought that money doesn't buy the Daisy's and that life in the egg. It kills the dreamers. Daisy et al don't dream
Read more F.Scott- he was a great writer. Some of his short stories are masterpieces. Tender is the Night and the Beauitful and Dammed are great books. Gatsby is a great book in high school because it has a great many symbols- high school English teachers love symbols. But the characters are American and real.
Anonymous
It is one of the four perfect American novels of the last century. The others are "Absalom, Absalom!," "American Pastoral," and "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Fitzgerald excoriates the American Dream, and what so often gets overlooked is how much like Tom and Daisy so many of us are. I dread the latest adaptation of the film.
ranger
LOL @ "wild-eyed" R26. That's as dumb as R7's "intellectual" literature comment. You should calm down too. Fingerbangs lol
R18
I love Gatsby. Love it. It's not the fault of the novel that it's taught in 11th grade. It's a nuanced, gorgeous novel that has universal themes, some of the best prose ever written, and timeless characters. That said, I get why people roll their eyes when someone says it's "my favorite book ever". The choices are often Gatsby, Silas Marner, and Lord of the Flies, as those are most likely the only books the person has read. Ranger, I couldn't disagree with you more. Trade "Light in August" for "Absalom", "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" for "Their Eyes Were Watching God", and "Tropic of Cancer" for "American Pastoral" and then maybe we could talk...
'lol' I rest my case, R18.
R26
Was Carrraway gay?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB2jVKZVeE4
I never thought the story was all that great, but Fitzgerald's writing style is gorgeous.
anony
Yes, R33! "Lord of the Flies" is equally abused by the illiterati.
R26
Its message is that Carey Mulligan belongs in The Hobbit.
R31-I love " Absalom, Absalom"- such a great book. And a great book about race in America and the death of a culture.
Anonymous
The message is that Daisy used Gatsby. I want to see this film, but can't stand Tobey Maguire...his squeaky voice and temper tantrums.
Its message is the same as MOBY-DICK: "be yourself."
Homer%20Simpson
Don't mess with Karen Black.
To Kill A Mockingbird
???????
The 1974 film version is a bore
Don't go swimming alone in the middle of the day in Long Island.
[quote]I always thought that money doesn't buy the Daisy's and that life in the egg. It kills the dreamers. Daisy et al don't dream Yes.
The point is: Nick is a self-deluded little motherfucker who says, "Everyone suspects himself of one cardinal virtue, and here's mine: I'm the only honest person I know." Or something. And yet: (spoiler alert): the dude is the only one - Nick is the only one, other than Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, who knows exactly who killed Myrtle. And Nick might easily have gone to the police and told his story. But he doesn't! He lets the lie stand. He lets his great pal Gatsby go to his grave as an assumed hit-and-run driver, a killer. So how honest is Nick, really? (The other point is: If you get rich, spend your money on shirts.)
The point is "Money can't buy you class" ps. "Elegance is le-earned, my friend"
The%20Countess%20without%20a%20show
I always thought it was a metaphor for living your life chasing after something (American Dream - Daisy) and then when you get it - it doesn't live it up to your expectations. Can even kill you in the end... Also there is a weird reference to Nick being gay at the end of the party scene with Tom and his mistress: "'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator. 'Where?' 'Anywhere.' 'Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy. 'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.' 'All right,' I agreed, 'I'll be glad to.' ...I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands. 'Beauty and the Beast...Loneliness...Old Grocery Horse...Brook'n Bridge...' Then I was lying half asleep in the lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o'clock train."
The great American dream is elusive invention of the national collective imagination. Those running after it are innocents who get eaten alive. Those who seemingly achieve it are never content. There are two kinds of people who reject the dream's allure: the callous boors who go along for the ride and the reflective gentlefolk who take it all in.
How is that a gay reference, r50? So the movie isn't Oscar bait for DiCaprio? Why else would they release it in May?
.... And, we have a winner at r51.
The message? Don't fall in love with a married spouse.