Classics have been given a weird reputation in the past few months, where you’re not a true reader if you haven’t tried the classics and you are pretentious to say that otherwise. And I will admit I have DNF’d classics the most out of any genre to the point where I do want to read them less.
This one I didn’t. What does that mean? Well, in the history of my classic DNFs it means it’s easy enough to read and has pacing that doesn’t make me want to die in my sleep.
When Nick Carraway moves to Long Island and gains work in New York, he rents a small cottage next to the estate of Jay Gatsby. As he grows fascinated with the spectacle and enigma, Nick gets approached by Gatsby to reunite with his love who Nick is related to.
The standout of this novel was narrative voice and basically what everyone talks about, and I can see why now I’ve read it. There’s something about the rose coloured glasses that the POV character Nick wears that make this novel so charming. He makes artistry out of otherwise mundane glam, and the way he pours his emotions into everything makes a quite nice unreliable narration.
That being said, a lot of the plot felt like a blur with both the author and Nick’s attention to detail and the way he fluffed everything up. Even though I read this novel quite recently I don’t quite know what went on. It’s just a big general idea of Nick’s observations of interpersonal conflict going on around him. In retrospect that sounds like me and makes him so relatable, but enough of that tangent! When everything in a story matters, this was hard to discern.
A lot of people say that Gatsby’s character is the one that shines, but maybe they were overshadowed by DiCaprio’s depiction. I was certainly expecting that coming in to read this book, but found that he fell flat in comparison. So much for him being the titular character. He felt relatively passive and generic as a love interest, the only thing making him appealing was how he was less toxic than his love interest’s husband.
The characters that I felt were way better and compelling, aside from the POV character of Nick of course, were Daisy and Jordan. I feel like my younger “feminazi” self who refused to have a favourite character who was male, but no need with these ladies. I felt for Daisy’s want to get out of her husband’s shadow and to decide on a life for herself and how Gatsby symbolised that for her. And Jordan’s personality, maturity and interpersonal skills made her far more charming than the titular character. Maybe it should’ve been titled better.
So yeah, Great Gatsby is a classic that exists. That’s cool.
The Great Gatsby gets a score of 3/5. Just Watch DiCaprio I guess.
Yours in writing
Amy