This past week I read The Great Gatsby, an 180 page classic written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had watched the movie and became obsessed with the soundtrack as well but I have been dying to read this book, as I feel everyone has except for myself. As usual I think the movie version doesn’t hold a flame to the book.
This book follows Nick Carraway, An Ivy Leaguer who moves to Long Island, NY and becomes the neighbor of Jay Gatsby. Other important characters in the book include Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom Buchanan. There are a few others but we will get there later. Nick spends time over at the estate of the Buchanan’s across the way from Gatsby’s estate. (Because everyone in this book seems to have a crazy amount of money.) Meanwhile, all four of them take a trip to the city and things go bad very fast. SPOILER ALERT AHEAD!!!
SPOILER ALERT.
Tom Buchanan has a side chick named Myrtle whose husband George finds out there’s another man. In an effort to be finished with the miserable trip the gang heads back to Long Island in separate cars. One in which Daisy and Gatsby are in, Daisy should not have been driving because she ends up hitting her own husband’s mistress, on accident I might add. The whole things gets really intense and ends with Tom convincing his mistresses husband that it was Jay Gatsby driving the car and in turn the husband shoots Gatsby while he is in his pool, then murder’s himself.
SPOILER ALERT OVER.
“I hope she’ll be a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
In the end of this book everyone ends up kind of miserable and not getting what he or she really desired. Towards the end of the book Daisy find’s out she is pregnant with a little girl and wishes that she is a fool in order to save her from the misery and pain that Daisy has gone through herself but in all honesty, everyone in this book doesn’t seem to act with a bit of sense whatsoever. I would say they all are fools, so I doubt her child would grow up with much sense surrounding her. Every high school English teach would love to point out all of the symbolism in this book like eyes watching over the city and of course the green light at the end of the dock. Some would think that this light is a representation of Gatsby’s hope and optimism, but at the end of the book it’s just a light. Gatsby is also delusional about his future with Daisy thinking that they will live happily every after. It is a great piece of literature and gives you a lot to think about when it comes to life, love, and the misery that accompanies both.
Word Count: 466
the dilettante 