Poughkeepsie’s The Big Read 2008

As an English teacher at Poughkeepsie High School, I make a living talking with students about truly great novels and the lessons about life they contain.  My students, ever-so-quick to pick up on the emotions in any work of literature, relish an intense love story.  They believe The Great Gatsby is one.  The adults in my book group, however, had quite a different reaction.  So…I pose the question:  Does Gatsby love Daisy?  Is Fitzgerald’s novel a love story?  If so, why is it a love story?  If not, why not?

Many of the recent bloggers have referenced color. Although you are discussing it in terms of Fizgerald’s basic use of color to convey standard symbolic meaning, I wonder if you are not pulling the layers of the text back to analyze a deeper meaning. Because, as I am sure you have all noticed, almost all of Fitzgerald’s descriptions include color. Why doesn’t he use it subtly? What is his purpose in including it? How would color possibly relate to the universal themes the book conveys?

Welcome to the official Big Read blog where we will discuss various aspects of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. Since this is the first post and some visitors may not have read the entire book yet, I think a conversation about Fitzgerald’s distinct style may be an appropriate starting point.

Immediately, the author’s usage of language is impressive and unique. An interesting mix of sophistication and colloquialism is apparent in his combination of advanced diction with contractions and a conversational tone. The novel’s sixth sentence reads, “Most of the confidences were unsought – frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.” There is a certain density to his prose which may not be immediately rewarding, but upon repeated consideration reveals a pronounced appreciation of nuance and simple human truths.

Personally, I read the first twenty pages of the novel and then put it aside two separate times before eventually devouring the entire thing when finally it was assigned for an English class. Initially, I could not decipher what was going on. There were too just many words. My thirteen year old sister put it perfectly when she said, “It took a while to get used to the way he said things. Instead of just saying something, he described and went on and on about it.”

The description is, indeed, prominent, but that is what turns the fairly simple plot into such a gripping tragedy. Furthermore, Fitzgerald can do as much with a few words as with a string of detail laden sentences and uses the contrast to emphasize particular actions in dramatic fashion. My favorite paragraph of the novel simply reads, “Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.” Thirteen words, one sentence, one paragraph. He rigidly reports and moves on. In the midst of massively minute details, the major action is relegated a relatively minor amount of attention. The reaction and psychological implications are more important aspects of the event than the action itself.

Each word seems carefully chosen and perfectly placed. Fitzgerald was a devout revisionist and went through the text countless times. While I am always fairly awestruck when I read the novel, other readers have said the text feels overwrought, almost too articulate and calculated. This is admittedly somewhat valid, but I just cannot deny the feeling of gliding effortlessly through the story, following the flow that was so expertly crafted.

To begin the discussion, I ask:

What is your opinion of Fitzgerald’s style?

Is he an American master or merely an overrated wordsmith?

-Dean Engle

Welcome to a new addition to The Big Read: A community discussion on a dedicated blog. This blog will be moderated and postings are limited to comments pertaining to The Big Read.