The Great Gatsby: Part Two

About the work which was initally dismissed by the critics and ignored by the public but would eventually immortalize him, Fitzgerald proclaimed "I want to write something new, something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."
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?

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

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!

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.

The Great Gatsby: PART ONE

Dear friends and stalkers,
Welcome back to 2Literate2Work. We'd like to apologize for the long recess between chats-- we were both busy turning 26, Meredith moved across the country and Emily paid off almost all of her library overdue fees. But we never did finish Jane Eyre (srry CharBro).

For this chat, we took to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, or that book that everyone lists as their favorite because they were required to purchase it in high school, it's about money and they don't know how to read. It's always seemed a little pale but apparently Hunter S. Thompson re-typed the manuscript as a youth so he could feel what it was like to type a masterpiece. We figured we should give it another shot.

For our readers who are illiterate or homeschooled, Gatsby is considered by many to be the defining American novel of the 20th century. It's narrated by Nick Carraway, who finds himself entangled in the of world Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire next door. Affairs, automobiles and moonshine are the other characters. Gatsby was written in 1926, "The Height of American Excess" (tm) version 1.0, right before the stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. =PARTY TIME.



Love, Money and Death in Modern America

Meredith: sitting at a cafe, getting ready and to chat and drinking a coffee and taking notes, was listening to some ella fitzgerald and thelonious monk to set the mood
but they're playing KE$HA "we r who we r" in this shop, and that fits so much better
spot on
re: moral decay
Emily: wait, are you drinking?
should i be drinking?
Meredith: ugh no. just coffee.
WWFScottD?
Emily: G&T!
but I'm only drinking tea.

so THIS BOOK. Love! money! the American dream!
Meredith: anddd how!
Emily: had you read it before?
Meredith: nope. you?
Emily: I was supposed to for my junior year English class, but didn't
my misspent youth, etc.
But I remember my teacher, Mr. H. Wayne Curtis, telling us that T. J. Eckleberg, the big glasses that served as an advertisement and watched over East Egg was a representation for god. Metaphor for decreased prominence of god in the modern world? CHECK
Meredith: yeaaah wow
So Nick moves from the mid-west to New York to work in "bonds" and other boring things in the city
Emily: right, he's an outsider to the east, as are all the main characters
I read it as sort of a cautionary tale of the new American mobility of the twentieth century.
For the first time, you didn't have to risk your life in a covered wagon to go east or west
And New York is where the most cherished American commodity was: money
Meredith: yes
Emily: what did you think of the specific characters?
Meredith: well I thought the great Gatsby would be "greater" or i guess i didn't know in what sense he was great. i certainly wasn't expecting someone so fallible.
Emily: yes! but that's him as the representation of the American dream: he ascended from nowhere to become this titan.
Meredith: so clearly his money was his greatness in many senses. it was really sad at the end that no one showed up to his funeral.
(spoiler alert, yadda yadda yadda)
Emily: that’s when i almost cried! In public!
Meredith: was it because people were "busy" that they didn’t go to his funeral or because they didn't want to risk getting in trouble, if they were bootleggers?
Emily: it's the contrast between old and new money. All the people at his parties were old money and the ones who really knew him acquired their money in unsavory ways, and couldn’t be associated with him. Hence, his empty funeral.



I also thought Fitzgerald was attempting to point out the frivolity of the upper classes, in that sense
Meredith: so if the American dream was to have lots of money and live lavishly, why didn't Daisy leave Tom for Gatsby?
Too much of a hassle?
Emily: ah, ok so this was also hearbreaking and earthshattering: Daisy really loved them both. She gave up Gastby, who she loved more, for the security of Tom.
Meredith: did she love Tom?
Emily: in a certain way. she can't truthfully tell Gatsby she never did.
it's the DECEIT OF THE HUMAN HEART!
which is why this book is so huge
it tackles the nature of human love, money and modern america all at the same time
in less than 200 pages
Meredith: myessss so good
Emily: so Tom Buchanan
Meredith: yeah wtf Tom
Emily: he reminds me of every conservative I’ve ever met
Meredith: hahah yeah. just kind of a hypocritical jerk
total square
doesn't like "art"
Emily: yeah, super dominant authoritarian personality. and racist.
Fitzgerald really explores a lot of different personality archetypes.
Tom, the "brute" as Daisy calls him
Nick is the sane, thoughtful one
and Gatsby is a hyper-driven mystery
And Daisy and Jordan-- Daisy is a pretty fool, and Jordan is a little tougher and more jaded.
I do like how he writes the women. They felt real to me.
Meredith: me tooooo!
Emily: good work, F.!
Meredith: his writing made me melt toward the end.
Some of the most beautiful prose ever.
like this: "it was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey turning, gold turning light. The shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the dew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves. There was a s low pleasant movement in the air, scarcely a wind, promising a cool lovely day."
HOW'D HE DO THAT
There’s also a lot of talk of movement, it seems like things are constantly moving, which speaks to what you were talking about the new modern mobility
Alsoooo, a lot of "east and west" talk
And he was among the expats to move east across the Atlantic to France
Emily: with Hway and stuff! they were friends!




Hway and Fitz in Paris


It seems like his prose exists somewhere in the middle of the hypermodern (for the time) of Hemingway and the more descriptive Victorian style, which is ALSO what the book was about! Transition.
Meredith: i kept being surprised that this man writing in the 1920s was writing with emotion.
it was great!
hemmy trained me well
Emily: yes, seriously. It seems like a simple book but it's a machine.
And it went unrecognized in his lifetime!
Meredith: right. Well it's super autobiographical, which, show me a book that isn't. But this one very much so.
Emily: true! Zelda[Fitzgerald’s wife] almost didn't marry F. because he didn't have money!
And she was a southern debutante! JUST LIKE GATS AND DAISY



F. and Zelda, 1921

Meredith: also, it might be my birthday being right around the corner, but the passage where Nick Carraway talks about his birthday. There was lots of drama going on. And he just suddenly remembered. Which I thought was really sad.
And then: "thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair..." f. scott f. was 29 when this book was published!
Emily: UGH
yes
I hope I forget about this book before I turn 30.
Meredith: i found myself feeling so sorry for him.
Emily: I love the scene where he and Jordan break up over the phone.
"I don’t know who hung up with a sharp click but I knew I didn’t care."
it’s so brutal.
Meredith: yes
Emily: ALSO
there is some dialogue in here that killed me
when Daisy says to Gatz "you look so cool. you always look so cool." And Nick describes that as Daisy telling him she loves him in front of a room full of people, including her husband.
I was like GAHHHHHHHHHH
those lines are quiet but so powerful.
Each character has a really distinct voice.
Meredith: Also "angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."
Emily: yesss! Who doesn’t live in that space 24 hrs a day.
Meredith: for reals, love that shit.
I really didn't know the story when I was starting it. And to be honest felt myself dipping into boredom. But definitely redeemed itself and it might have just been where I was.
But it was funny-- you texted me "i'm at the good part"
and right when i got there, i knew what you were talking about.
Emily: yes! Toward the end when Daisy and Gatsby are sort of getting together but you know it doesn't end well.
speaking of
this line KILLED ME: “they had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”
Meredith: I
KNOW
RIGHT
jesus
talk about melting
Emily: I was like uhh, yeah, thats everything, ever, right there.
Then the flip side, when Gatsby goes back to to Daisy's in Louisville after he gets back from the war, and she's already married tom:
“but it was going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”
GUUUHA it so perfectly captures the feeling of having had everything and losing it, and in that moment the life and fulfillment you thought you would have disappear forever. The end of youth.
Meredith: I have such a crush on F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Emily: he is crushable.
Can the modern world even make someone like this?
No one is sincere or believes in lips brushing collars anymore.


The Drunk and The Careless

Meredith: Woody Allen just made this film, Midnight in Paris
where he kind of reconstructs the feeling of the 20s and the world that F. Scott conveyed
and Owen Wilson’s character desperately wants to live in the 20s, in Paris, with Hemingway and Fitz-g, and Gertrude stein, etc.
and there are characters playing f. Scott and Zelda and Zelda is a drunk, but actually kind of charming. and F. Scott is such a real guy. and Hemingway is the best.
mixed reviews on the film, but the FEEEEELING was nice
also Adrian Brody plays Salvador Dali. Ooof.

Emily: !@!!!!!1 me: ok, I’ll have to see it.
yeah, Fitz was a drunk but apparently didn’t drink and write.
or edit
Meredith: it's interesting, the edition I got from the Seattle Public Library, Ballard location, is the 75th anniversary edition (wow!) and it spoke about how he wasn't a strong speller and edited SO MANY drafts.
Emily: back in the age of typewriters!
Meredith: this one said it restored it kind of close to the original
And they restored thousands of commas or something
Because those things are no decorations
But yeah, I can imagine him going back and forth between leaving and omitting a comma. It can totally change a sentence, as we great writers know.
So many dogs with rain coats on right now, btw
Emily: my edition said that he had a “pitch perfect sense of the English language,” which I think definitely comes through.
comma misuse is enraging.
Meredith: yesss, that phrase is really incredible, and was certainly proven true.
what did you think of nick as narrator?
Emily: I liked him. He’s understated but reliable, and he has his own personality.
I like his contempt for everything in East Egg by the end.
Meredith: I liked him too. very sincere
He says "I am one of the few honest people I know."
Emily: yes, judgmental but also knows his own flaws.
So towards the end of the book, Nick decides Tom, Daisy and everyone of their class are "careless" and I think that’s an interesting word to use.
it seems simple and almost weak but when you think about it, it’s pretty cutting.
it’s close to selfish, it almost seems to mean lazily so.
not even selfish for a reason, just completely disregarding of anyone else at all.
because they can afford to be.
Meredith: which, is that exemplified in the accident, when Daisy kills Myrtle, the woman Tom’s having an affair with while driving Gatsby’s car?
Emily: yes, totally. and the affairs themselves, and Gatsby’s death, when Myrtle’s husband kills Gatsby-- Daisy and Tom just leave town.
Meredith: the lack of any type of emotion except from Tom seemed careless to me, too.
Emily: they've purchased immunity from the norms or courtesies of human interaction.
they don't have to abide by them.
which is why nick judges and dislikes them.
Meredith: right. he's a humble mid-westerner.
just like F. Scott F.!
Nick seemed so reluctant to go east at the beginning of the book
like he was doing just because that's what he's "supposed to do"
go to college, get job, meet wife, etc.
which doesn't sound too different from 2k11
except Yale probably cost a couple hundo more
I downed an americano at the last cafe I was at because they didn't have wifi! doh
so now I’m at vegan bakery and it smells weird and spicy
Emily: where are you, Kuwait? who doesn’t have wifi?
Meredith: srsly.

Emily: Fitz knew he was destined for greatness with this book, BUT NO ONE ELSE DID!
one of my favorite things about F. is that he knew he was a genius
he really pushed this one through on his faith in it
Meredith: did he feel like that with all his work? or was it just this one that he thought "that's gonna be a good one"?
Emily: he said: "The author would like to say that never before did one try to keep his artistic conscience as pure as during the ten months put into doing it... what I cut out both physically and emotionally would make another novel.”
and, the first printing was only 5,000!
and the obits barely mentioned it when he died!
and the NYT said "he never grew up"!!!!!!!!!1111111
Meredith: how old was he when he died? and was it from 2 much booze?
Emily: He was 44. And I think so... all the best ones go that way. BUT, he thought it should become a favorite of "classrooms, profs, lovers of English prose."
AND IT DID!
Meredith: YES IT DID
I read that he was in Italy when it was in the publishing process
so he wasn't right there through it all which I can imagine was stressful. he should have just skyped
Emily: I am lisnin to Justice's new album right now in honor of F's Parisian expat days



Meredith: ah tres bien! j'adore les artists francais
Emily: si si!
have you seen the Gatsby movie?!
w Redford?!?!?!?!
and Mia Farrow?



The greatest love story of our time!!!!
Meredith: noooo!
Emily
you'll never believe this
I just went to look it up
they're making a 2012 version, in production now
this is like that time we read jane eyre (hyperlink to ourselves)
Emily: srsly@!!!!!!!
Meredith: leo diCappiez!
Emily: Hollywood is cesspool of mediocrity and needs to Hunter S. Thompson itself
Meredith: was HST gun to the head?
Emily: yeah
Speaking of death:
F's grave is inscribed with THE FINAL LINE FROM GATSBY: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Meredith: jeeSUS
Emily: that is pretty heavy
Meredith: IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL
Emily: "epic" in the most-non fratty use of the word possible
Meredith: legit.

Next: Is Daisy a fully realized character? Is Nick a judgemental douche? How can we talk about Dashboard Confessional in conjunction with the text? AND MORE