How a novel,
which was dismissed by contemporaries and left the author to believe on his
deathbed 15 years later that he had failed and would be forever forgotten, has developed
into a national treasure in its homeland, selling millions of copies worldwide
too, being read and studied by students globally, with two Hollywood
blockbusters and four other film versions being made of it, as well as opera,
radio, theatre, book and video games adaptations, is quite frankly beyond
belief.
A passionate tale
of love, mystery, obsession and death, which on the surface had all the
elements to create a book to delight and captivate readers, was rebuffed at the
time, but now has a golden history spanning 90 years already.
1925 saw the
publication of The Great Gatsby,
recounting the raving events of the long summer of 1922 in New York’s affluent society,
with its wild parties and the total disregard for prohibition, its devious and
immoral characters, depicting the Roaring Twenties at their height.
So just how did
this fairly short fiction, firmly based in its time in history, the Jazz Age,
come to be such a huge success, securing Fitzgerald’s place among the great
writers of the 20th century, albeit posthumously?
So much of the
story’s enchantment comes from the intrigue surrounding the main character, Jay
Gatsby. Speculation and mystery encapsulate this figure, whom the narrator
doesn’t meet until well into the third chapter of nine. Is he a German spy? Has
he killed people? How did he make his fortune? Why does he not attend the
lavish parties that he throws at his waterside mansion?
Moreover, even
once we’ve finished the book we are no closer to knowing why the title is The Great Gatsby. Why great, and in what
sense? This ambiguous term offers so much but delivers so little and certainly
leaves the reader curious.
Look into the
novel beyond the superficial and that’s where you will discover the most
fascinating elements of the book. The storyline itself is gripping until the
end, but beneath it lies a vast oasis of insight, explorations of society,
morals and people, hopes and dreams that are symbolised romantically,
poetically and sometimes overtly and bluntly. How the eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg
observe Wilson, his garage and the goings-on there. How the green light on
Daisy’s dock embodies all the hope, envy, dreams and much more for Gatsby.
Green to illustrate what the first settlers in the New World would have seen on
approaching land: all the promise of a new life, prosperity and optimism, similar
to Gatsby who has settled across the bay from the green light where his one
major ambition resides.
The book
epically portrays the excesses of a specific time and place: New York in the
postwar boom, where people got rich and drunk, cheated, bootlegged and worked
their way uncompromisingly towards their imaginings of the American Dream. This
dream was, however, unattainable, as Gatsby himself would discover.
Social status,
money, tradition and geography play their part too, bringing unlikely
characters together and shattering their worlds resoundingly. The light in
which woman, or ‘flappers’, are shown is particularly revealing, although this
would be a reason for critics to renounce the novel.
Privately, a
number of renowned and revered writers praised Fitzgerald for his work, but
public opinion at the time of publishing was not so considerate. Fitzgerald’s
thinking was ahead of his time, and maybe the book couldn’t be appreciated by
those still living out their own Jazz Age story. It’s no secret that Fitzgerald
and his wife Zelda lived an extravagant life, with a profligate attitude
towards money, spending beyond their means. Maybe those outside their promiscuous
circle didn’t see what Scott saw, his preempting of the fall of this period and
the deceiving nature of their dreams.
The Great Gatsby is inexplicably great and remains so today, immortalising the author and his protagonist. Ultimately for
me though, the reasons I keep coming back to read this book time after time are
the sheer poetic beauty of the writing, and how it is still so relevant in the
present, so long after its publication. The refined, long, meandering sentences
tie together fantastic people, places and dreams. It is art at its pinnacle, and
does not just paint a scene of 90 years ago but it reminds us of the fickle
nature of dreams, of creating an image of the self, and of hedonism and
materialism.Mark Savile
(WhatWeLearntToday.blogspot.com)
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