In this edition of Chatting The Classics, we decide whether he achieved his goal, as well as explore Fitz's struggles with his own genius, the ameritween dream, and how google advertised this to us whilst chatting about The Greatest Great American Novel: "EMO DATE SITE EMO GOTH SITE EMO PUNK SHOP".
But first some sample lines:
"I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity."
"She appeared at his side like an angry diamond and hissed."
"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."
"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."
just sayin.
Redford and Farrow as Gatz and Daisy gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh
Faults, Females and Franzia
Emily: So even though F thought the novel was brilliant, one area that he acknowledged as weak was his development/ lack thereof of Daisy.
He wrote to critic Edmund Wilson:
“the worst fault in it, I think is a BIG FAULT:
I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relationship between Gatsby or Daisy from the time of the reunion to the catastrophe [the car accident that kills Daisy’s husband’s mistress].”
Meredith: Interesting. I definitely felt that. That's the downside of having the 1st person limited narrator--they become the most flushed out and there's a necessary balance between telling a story and having the narrator be believable. So other character development might suffer as a result.
Emily: This essay that I read by Sarah Beebe Fryer* says that F was as confused by Daisy as Nick was, and then she drops this on us:
“Nick's keen observations of her behavior demonstrate not that she is unable to feel and express strong emotions, but that she deliberately avoids them, because she recognizes the pain they can entail.”
which, WHOA
DONT WE ALL
Meredith: OH
MY
GOD
that's it.
Emily: also: "Daisy clings-- unsuccessfully-- to a gay, superficial ‘careless’ world in an effort to protect herself from what are for her the terrifying dangers inherent in caring.”
hello, human condition.
Also, he worried about his lack of development of her and focus more on Tom and Gatsby would make the book more of a "mans book" and hurt its popularity amongst the womens.
Meredith: The lack of emotional detail of Daisy and Gatz around the accident was interesting.
Emily: I like how Fitzgerald does that, and conceals some detail from the reader, rather than shoving it in the reader's face.
It's more intriguing.
I love Nick’s judgments of Gastby et al, because they're so severe in a way.
But don’t necessarily dictate how we should feel about the characters, and really say more about Nick himself.
He says toward the end he never trusted Gatsby.
I did.
also I’m drinking Franzia.
*Donaldson, Scott. Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1984
Did Chris Carrabba Like English Class?
He wrote to critic Edmund Wilson:
“the worst fault in it, I think is a BIG FAULT:
I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relationship between Gatsby or Daisy from the time of the reunion to the catastrophe [the car accident that kills Daisy’s husband’s mistress].”
Meredith: Interesting. I definitely felt that. That's the downside of having the 1st person limited narrator--they become the most flushed out and there's a necessary balance between telling a story and having the narrator be believable. So other character development might suffer as a result.
Emily: This essay that I read by Sarah Beebe Fryer* says that F was as confused by Daisy as Nick was, and then she drops this on us:
“Nick's keen observations of her behavior demonstrate not that she is unable to feel and express strong emotions, but that she deliberately avoids them, because she recognizes the pain they can entail.”
which, WHOA
DONT WE ALL
Meredith: OH
MY
GOD
that's it.
Emily: also: "Daisy clings-- unsuccessfully-- to a gay, superficial ‘careless’ world in an effort to protect herself from what are for her the terrifying dangers inherent in caring.”
hello, human condition.
Also, he worried about his lack of development of her and focus more on Tom and Gatsby would make the book more of a "mans book" and hurt its popularity amongst the womens.
Meredith: The lack of emotional detail of Daisy and Gatz around the accident was interesting.
Emily: I like how Fitzgerald does that, and conceals some detail from the reader, rather than shoving it in the reader's face.
It's more intriguing.
I love Nick’s judgments of Gastby et al, because they're so severe in a way.
But don’t necessarily dictate how we should feel about the characters, and really say more about Nick himself.
He says toward the end he never trusted Gatsby.
I did.
also I’m drinking Franzia.
*Donaldson, Scott. Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1984
Did Chris Carrabba Like English Class?
Emily: so I just started reading Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo by Andy Greenwald of Spin.
it’s completely ridiculous but I can't put it down.
So he begins with a scene of a Dashboard show.
which, BEEN THERE.
Meredith: l0ser.
Emily: um, plz it was transcendent.
At the end of the intro, Greenwald says:
"Emo is seeking a tangible connection out of intangible things.... emo is Fitzgerald’s eternal green light and emo is Salinger hoping beyond hope that Jane Gallagher will keep all her things safely in the back row..."
!!!!!!!!!!
Meredith: guhhhh
Emily: It just grabbed my attention because I picked up this book from the "hot picks" shelf at the public library because it appealed to my tween nostalgia, and it JUST HAPPENS TO MENTION Fitz, Gats and the Green Light. And that seems to be the true, immortal legacy of this book-- that it's code for connecting oneself with the Grand Legacy Of American Literature, that The Great Gatsby in itself means The Great American Novel.
Meredith: didn't you say that when we were reading Franny and Zooey?
that Salinger/Franny and Zooey were totally emo
Is it that writing style that's totes emo? or the men who author them?
Emily: Well in that case, Salinger and his characters are so angsty that you can't help but be reminded of emoness.
But in Greenwald's analogy, I think he's using the Green Light of Gatsby to represent a certain longing
that defines all great art?
not sure
that may be overreaching
also emo is not great art
but, LOVE U CHRIS
Meredith: lolz
Emily: So Greenwald says that emo music is a form of "connection" in the way that the green light is Gatsby's connection to Daisy from across the bay of East Egg.
It leads him to what he wants, but can’t quite reach, in the same way emo is to teens to what they want, whether it’s for society to "understand them" or their crush to like them back or whatever it is that tweens spend their days journaling about.
Meredith: so wanting to shop at PacSun and for the cute boy in school to reciprocate the crush is like the ameritween dream.
Emily: yess!
Meredith: does T.J. Eckleburg understand the dream?
his stature almost seems mocking.
Emily: Money is God
Upward mobility is God
Meredith: dang
The Anxiety of Influence
it’s completely ridiculous but I can't put it down.
So he begins with a scene of a Dashboard show.
which, BEEN THERE.
Meredith: l0ser.
Emily: um, plz it was transcendent.
At the end of the intro, Greenwald says:
"Emo is seeking a tangible connection out of intangible things.... emo is Fitzgerald’s eternal green light and emo is Salinger hoping beyond hope that Jane Gallagher will keep all her things safely in the back row..."
!!!!!!!!!!
Meredith: guhhhh
Emily: It just grabbed my attention because I picked up this book from the "hot picks" shelf at the public library because it appealed to my tween nostalgia, and it JUST HAPPENS TO MENTION Fitz, Gats and the Green Light. And that seems to be the true, immortal legacy of this book-- that it's code for connecting oneself with the Grand Legacy Of American Literature, that The Great Gatsby in itself means The Great American Novel.
Meredith: didn't you say that when we were reading Franny and Zooey?
that Salinger/Franny and Zooey were totally emo
Is it that writing style that's totes emo? or the men who author them?
Emily: Well in that case, Salinger and his characters are so angsty that you can't help but be reminded of emoness.
But in Greenwald's analogy, I think he's using the Green Light of Gatsby to represent a certain longing
that defines all great art?
not sure
that may be overreaching
also emo is not great art
but, LOVE U CHRIS
Meredith: lolz
Emily: So Greenwald says that emo music is a form of "connection" in the way that the green light is Gatsby's connection to Daisy from across the bay of East Egg.
It leads him to what he wants, but can’t quite reach, in the same way emo is to teens to what they want, whether it’s for society to "understand them" or their crush to like them back or whatever it is that tweens spend their days journaling about.
Meredith: so wanting to shop at PacSun and for the cute boy in school to reciprocate the crush is like the ameritween dream.
Emily: yess!
Meredith: does T.J. Eckleburg understand the dream?
his stature almost seems mocking.
Emily: Money is God
Upward mobility is God
Meredith: dang
The Anxiety of Influence
Emily: so, this is the most rated English-language book of the 20th century.
do you think it deserves it?
Meredith: well
it's the Citizen Kane thing
No Spoilers!
where you look at what were the ideologies of the time, what the author was doing during that time, what other authors were not doing during that time. it explains the success.
No, I don't think it was the best book ever.
but I do think it was incredibly valuable and changed the way we view novels.
Citizen Kane makes me sleepy. but it's beautiful and brought artistic cinema to the mainstream.
do you think it's deserving of that title?
Emily: first of all, that trailer is spooky as fuck.
ORSON WELLES' VOICE
Well, I can see why Gatsby does have that title.
it’s sort of like that buzzband that blows up and wins a Grammy
like the Arcade Fire
Safe enough for the grammys, uproariously boring.
They knew the whole time that they were doing something different than everyone else
and then they win a Grammy
and redefine everything afterwards
for a minute, at least.
I do think that his style was incredible strong
The intention in his phrasing is so subtle but powerful enough to move a train
[see: lines from intro of this post]
Meredith: hah absolutely
Emily: that’s what I loved about it
the restraint
but in a much different form than Hemingway
Comparing the two, Hemingway was intentionally holding back in a really loud way, but F was whispering, and whoever wants to listen closely will have their mind blown
Meredith: mmmmmhm
there was a modesty about his writing, for sure
but then you run into passages [see above above]/the whole book that really blow you away
Emily: right!
like: "He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American-- that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth, and even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games."
!!!!!!!!!!!!! what?!?!?! amazing.
It seems quiet, but when added up you really step inside his genius.
Anyone can write a few great lines.
No one can compile them into a successful composite
except this guy.
I like how the "modernists" weren’t afraid to be beautiful and epic.
Whereas the postmodernists don’t want either.
possibly because there's no truth to tell
and no beauty to tell it with.
BLAH BLAH "I studied liberal arts and now I'm sad about things kind of!!!™"
But really, I can't think of a specific Delillo passage I recopied or really asserted itself in a poetic way
Meredith: yeah absolutely.
Actually, White Noise was the last book I finished before this one, funnily enough.
and I remember smiling/lol-ing at certain points but nothing made me doggy ear the page due to beautiful writing.
only an expected mind fuck here and there
or like a "bwhoa!"
Emily: I miss books that weren't secretly about the apocalypse
Like this one.
Meredith: Yes. Gatsby is a simple-ish story with a greater meaning, but that meaning was not The End.
Emily: Does our obsession with the apocalypse distract us from love?
and other human things?
i.e. our collective cultural obsession
Meredith: is love a distraction?
Emily: no, that’s the whole point
what else are we here for?
Meredith: why weren't people in the 1920s writing about the apocalypse?
Emily: because they were drinking moonshine
and having a time
women were sort of liberated
and being scandalous, showing their calves, and the dudes were distracted
because of all those calves
and then the "stock market crashed"
probably due to the high volume of exposed calves
Meredith: paranoia wouldn't be invented for another 50 years
Emily: but people still believed in things
and then we went to war to make money for the country
millions of people were murdered thanks to the mechanism of progress
and then no one believed in anything ever again
the end.
yup.
BUT WAIT...
Meredith: um also, the cover was painted by an artist and was commissioned prior to the book being finished
Emily: that’s an awesome cover
Animal Collective's "Bluish" vid was sort of based on it!
do you think it deserves it?
Meredith: well
it's the Citizen Kane thing
No Spoilers!
where you look at what were the ideologies of the time, what the author was doing during that time, what other authors were not doing during that time. it explains the success.
No, I don't think it was the best book ever.
but I do think it was incredibly valuable and changed the way we view novels.
Citizen Kane makes me sleepy. but it's beautiful and brought artistic cinema to the mainstream.
do you think it's deserving of that title?
Emily: first of all, that trailer is spooky as fuck.
ORSON WELLES' VOICE
Well, I can see why Gatsby does have that title.
it’s sort of like that buzzband that blows up and wins a Grammy
like the Arcade Fire
Safe enough for the grammys, uproariously boring.
They knew the whole time that they were doing something different than everyone else
and then they win a Grammy
and redefine everything afterwards
for a minute, at least.
I do think that his style was incredible strong
The intention in his phrasing is so subtle but powerful enough to move a train
[see: lines from intro of this post]
Meredith: hah absolutely
Emily: that’s what I loved about it
the restraint
but in a much different form than Hemingway
Comparing the two, Hemingway was intentionally holding back in a really loud way, but F was whispering, and whoever wants to listen closely will have their mind blown
Meredith: mmmmmhm
there was a modesty about his writing, for sure
but then you run into passages [see above above]/the whole book that really blow you away
Emily: right!
like: "He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American-- that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth, and even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games."
!!!!!!!!!!!!! what?!?!?! amazing.
It seems quiet, but when added up you really step inside his genius.
Anyone can write a few great lines.
No one can compile them into a successful composite
except this guy.
I like how the "modernists" weren’t afraid to be beautiful and epic.
Whereas the postmodernists don’t want either.
possibly because there's no truth to tell
and no beauty to tell it with.
BLAH BLAH "I studied liberal arts and now I'm sad about things kind of!!!™"
But really, I can't think of a specific Delillo passage I recopied or really asserted itself in a poetic way
Meredith: yeah absolutely.
Actually, White Noise was the last book I finished before this one, funnily enough.
and I remember smiling/lol-ing at certain points but nothing made me doggy ear the page due to beautiful writing.
only an expected mind fuck here and there
or like a "bwhoa!"
Emily: I miss books that weren't secretly about the apocalypse
Like this one.
Meredith: Yes. Gatsby is a simple-ish story with a greater meaning, but that meaning was not The End.
Emily: Does our obsession with the apocalypse distract us from love?
and other human things?
i.e. our collective cultural obsession
Meredith: is love a distraction?
Emily: no, that’s the whole point
what else are we here for?
Meredith: why weren't people in the 1920s writing about the apocalypse?
Emily: because they were drinking moonshine
and having a time
women were sort of liberated
and being scandalous, showing their calves, and the dudes were distracted
because of all those calves
and then the "stock market crashed"
probably due to the high volume of exposed calves
Meredith: paranoia wouldn't be invented for another 50 years
Emily: but people still believed in things
and then we went to war to make money for the country
millions of people were murdered thanks to the mechanism of progress
and then no one believed in anything ever again
the end.
yup.
BUT WAIT...
Meredith: um also, the cover was painted by an artist and was commissioned prior to the book being finished
Emily: that’s an awesome cover
Animal Collective's "Bluish" vid was sort of based on it!
Strawberry Time Lapse from animal collective on Vimeo
Next Time on Chatting The Classics: The Doors Meet the African Jungle! More Hemingway! British stuff! And everything else you never read in high school because you were too busy writing Thursday lyrics in your spiral notebook.
