the great gatsby. f. scott fitzgerald.

before i start, seriously how tender is the dedication page. it's about as tender as night is.

so as i explained in my previous post i wasn't impressed with my initial reading of "the great gatsby". looking back, it's probably because instead of getting a great love story between daisy and gatsby, i got a lesson on how one should leave the past in the past. and since i was looking for love and came up empty handed, i reacted like the cold hearted person i am, indifferent. it wasn't bad but it didn't make leave a lasting impression on me. plus "the great gatsby" is always always claimed as an important american classic but i didn't seem that great to me.

however, on my second read i had a greater appreciation for "the great gatsby". i am embarrassed that on my first reading, i neglected fitzgerald's beautiful prose. i remember finding so many great lines in "this side of paradise" (which was my second fitzgerald read) but didn't find any lines interesting on my first read, but that definitely changed on my second. maybe it's because i have become a more avid reader of the classics and also have read more of fitzgerald's works so am now more qualified to identify great lines. here are some of my favorite:

“if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life, as if he related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away."

“i hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

“and I like large parties. they’re so intimate. at small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

“i wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”

“let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”

"it was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.”

“in his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

“thirty--the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
(god, it sucks getting old).

and of course with this more careful reading, i realized how great of a novel
"the great gatsby" is.  the story line had so many twist and turns. first there is the mystery and suspense of "who is gatsby". my favorite tale was of the girl who ripped her dress at his party and how he sent her a replacement. then, of course the story of love lost then found. and last but not least the surprising ending of gatsby and the demonstration of how horrible and cruel people can be. unfortunately, gatsby's ending was for the best because as horrible as tom was, daisy would have never left him. and loke i said before it is so sad how daisy and tom ruined people's lives and then just moved on with their own.

in my usual fashion with love stories (see: anna karenina, wuthering heights) i could not indulge in gatsby's love for daisy. instead of finding it romantic, i found it pathetic. yes, i believe that everyone has one great love in their life but if life doesn't work out for you than that person was not your true great love. trust me, i spent years pining after one person in my twenties and realize now that i was not in love with that person but in love with the idea of him. and that is what happen with gatsby, he wasn't in love with daisy but the memory of her. daisy was no longer the young girl from louisville, gatsby fell in love with but he couldn't grasp that. gatsby's inability to understand this is because he got stuck in a moment (to quote U2). and that is the saddest part of the book, even more sad than his death. whereas daisy went on with her life: got married, had a kid and lived; gatsby stayed trapped by his love for her. he spent 5 years trying to impress her, some may call this romance but i call it a waste of time.

but of course, it's unhappy ending is what makes it more true. i know i hated it at first but in actuality it is what makes the story great. and my sincerest apologies to f. scott, it is great but still think it would have been more compelling if i read it at an earlier age.

ps. flavorpill had an article about reading "the great gatsby" for the first time at 37 article about reading "the great gatsby" for the first time at the age of 37. it best describes why one should read it at an earlier age though it is good at any age.