Blog 4- The Great Gatsby is Worth Reading

I finished reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald today. I liked the book, but that didn’t surprise me because I’m usually not a harsh judge when it comes to literature; I don’t ever remember not finishing a book. I didn’t like the book nearly as much as The Catcher in the Rye, which also surprised me because the storyline was more complex and exciting. I just didn’t have the same feelings for Nick, the narrator in The Great Gatsby as I did for Holden, the narrator in The Catcher in the Rye. I think the reason I wasn’t as emotionally attached to Nick was because he didn’t have as strong or definite personality as Holden did. I know I shouldn’t be comparing the two books; they’re by two different authors, and they have a completely different goal and storyline, but I wish Fitzgerald would have had Nick explain his feelings more in the book. Maybe he just didn’t have as strong of opinions as Holden always had, and he just “went with the flow.” To me, it seemed like Nick was the only “down to earth” character in the story. He seemed to be very realistic and sensitive to others. However, he also seems to be very fickle; he’s 30 years old, and he still isn’t married or is even that interested in anyone. He says that when he told Jordan Baker, a girl he had been seeing, that he was moving back home, he was “angry, and half in love with her.” Throughout the entire story, he never confesses his true feelings for her, which upset me. However, I didn’t really think he and Jordan were that good for each other anyway. Besides lacking some characterization for Nick, Fitzgerald includes much more characterization for the other characters because Nick describes them. They also seem to have much more extreme personalities than Nick. However, maybe Nick seemed to be the only “normal” one because he was the one telling the story, not wanting to point out any of his own flaws. This made the entire story very limited, being told from only one person’s point of view. However, I did like the plot. Gatsby and Nick become good friends, and they invite Daisy over for tea one day. She and Gatsby start seeing each other regularly again without Tom knowing. Eventually, Gatsby and Daisy tell Tom that they are still in love, but Daisy is unwilling to admit that she never loved Tom. She did once, when Gatsby was gone. Then, Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, gets hit by a car that Daisy and Gatsby are driving. She got hit because she was running out into the street to get away from Wilson, who had her locked in her room until they were ready to move away; he suspected she had been cheating on him with Tom. Then, when she gets hit, Wilson goes crazy and finds out from Tom that Gatsby was the one who killed her, even though Daisy had been the one driving. The next day, Wilson goes over to Gatsby’s house and kills him. I was so sad when Gatsby died. Honestly, sometimes I found him rather annoying because he was stuck in the past and thought Daisy would just drop everything for him. I did like him though because he was very generous and would do anything for Daisy. He knew that she wanted him to have money, so he waited until he was rich to come after her again. I was also sad that no one came to Gatsby’s funeral except Nick and Gatsby’s father, who was so proud of him and all his accomplishments. The Great Gatsby was not as easy of a read as The Catcher in the Rye, which is why it took me longer to read. It had a much larger vocabulary, and I had to reread some parts over and over to understand what was even going on. However, overall, I enjoyed the story, and I would recommend it to anyone in our class. I would just tell them that the plot doesn’t really pick up until about ¾ into the book, and then it’s worth it.