The Quiet Pool


The Great Gatsby
June 10, 2008, 4:59 am
Filed under: Literature | Tags: , ,

Because I was so taken with A Moveable Feast when I was in Paris and Hemingway goes on and on about the book when talking about Fitzgerald and then talking about his life with my professors The Great Gatsby was the first book that came to mind when I though it was time for me to start reading good books again. I do not think now that there is a better book that I could have read. From the very first page I found it intoxicating and having read over the introduction again it is even more beautiful in light of the story it precedes, which I suppose is the was with this sort of thing:

When I came back from the east last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes thousands of miles away… No-Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

Approaching this story with that mindset, I feel the weight of Gatsby’s struggle and I wish with all my heart that I could stand with him and help him, but really, what would there be to do? I could not tell a man like Gatsby to stop reaching for him dream however hazardous it was, for the result of that would be just as tragic as watching him fail to attain his goal. I am left feeling just as I am meant to feel, empty and deprived of good will towards all those men who are so false as the people who destroyed Mr. Gatsby. In spite of everything then I defend him and it is clear that there is no clear answer most of the time. Most of the time people will be like the people of this story and although they confide too much, they tell you nothing at all. Tom may tell Nick intimate truths about his affairs, but there is no honesty in him. But then Gatsby is just the opposite; telling no truth about who he is, but he is all the time real and honest. What I would not give for this type of honesty and confidence from some of my closest friends!

The next book I am reading is A Farwell to Arms, and after that I am open to all suggestions.



The Great Gatsby & The Old Man and the Sea

He wanted me to read the new book, The Great Gatsby, as soon as he could get his last and only copy back from someone he had loaned it to. To hear him talk of it, you would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non-conceited writers have when they have done something very fine, and I hoped he would get the book quickly so that I might read it.

I was enthusiastic about the trip. I would have the company of an older and successful writer, and in the time we would have to talk in the car I would certainly learn much that it would be useful to know. It is strange now to remember thinking of Scott as an older writer, but at the time, since I had not yet read The Great Gatsby, I thought of him as a much older writer.

From the “Scott Fitzgerald” chapter of A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway

I have decided to fill this “fresh time,” as I am calling it, with those books that have for almost a year now, been calling my name and begging for my attention. Ever since I returned from Paris there has been this urge for 20th Century American literature flowing coolly through my veins, that was until recently, stifled my much more aggressive and unhealthy urgings. But now that all that is finished I have come to these books like a puppy to it’s chew toys. I just finished reading both The Old Man and the Sea, and The Great Gatsby. The latter I read in the greater Cincinnati airport during a rather nasty layover I had coming back to school, and the former I bought and finished this evening. I am rightly ashamed of myself for never having taken the time to read these books before and I am pledging to make it up to them by reading other books in the very near future.

I would like to go right on talking about them both but I am so taken over with The Old Man and the Sea right now that I feel I should really take some time to collect my thoughts about it before trying to write them down. So I will have a go at talking about The Great Gatsby for the present.