"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made ..."
I just finished The Great Gatsby. All nine chapters of it. I won't see the movie because I prefer to read the book. I read it 25 years ago but can't remember what I thought about it at the time. I'm sure there was probably an English exam question which asked us to comment on the above sentence; a sentence which really cuts to the core of the book.
Read it?
Know people like Tom and Daisy?
Feel sorry for Gatsby?
Feel sorry for F. Scott Fitzgerald whose book only attained plaudits after he died?
Think Baz is a goose?
Spill it.
I feel sorry for Tom & Daisy, so lonely underneath it all.
ReplyDeleteI do love Baz though, what goes on in his mind.., it must be like a permanent roller coaster of details and visuals.
Elizabeth,
Deleteinteresting. I'm not sure I feel sorry for Tom and Daisy. I think they're too selfish to know what they do to people. Maybe they are lonely. But why didn't Daisy wait for Gatsby after the war?
Baz is very creative, but also a bit freaky!
I must read it again. I just remember thinking those people were so sad.
ReplyDeletexo
Read it Deb. It'll take you an evening. I couldn't read it fast enough.
DeleteOh, I really must read it again! I read it many, many years ago, and don't remember all the glorious details. I do remember, though, the decadence and the loneliness. I saw the movie too, I can never resist a Robert Redford movie, what a beautiful man...
ReplyDeleteTove, I think the loneliest person is Gatsby. Having all those parties in the hope Daisy might come, and then dying because of something she did, and dying alone. So sad.
DeleteThat quote sums up perfectly how I feel about the family here in Fort Worth that has treated their architecturally significant homes with such carelessness and disdain. They don't care what they destroy, as long as they can go to the country club at the end of the day and hang out with their other wealthy friends.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel sorry for Tom and Daisy. I feel much sorrier for Gatsby himself, for not realizing that Daisy is unworthy of his adoration. But most of all, I feel sorry for Fitzgerald himself, whose tragic relationship with his wife Zelda began very much as Gatsby's did with Daisy, and whose short, unhappy life was fraught with illness and alcoholism.
I think Baz Luhrmann hasn't figured out that the public wants more than glamour these days. I haven't seen the film either, because I think he completely focused on spectacle instead of story.
Dana, hit the review on the head!! I agree with you. Gatsby. What a tragedy.
DeleteI, too have been meaning to re-read this one. Books read to be torn apart by our senior English class never leaving room for much enjoyment. I've heard mixed reviews of the film, won't be watching.
ReplyDeleteFiona, I think that's possibly why I don't remember it. Reading for a purpose does sap the enjoyment out of reading. It's quite a sophisticated book. Too sophisticated for a 17 year old school girl. Or maybe I was a bit simple?!
DeleteRead it
ReplyDeletethen devoured it
then analysed it
then read it again
then agonised and felt all the pain and frustration
then wrote a brilliant essay on it in my final exam and passed with flying colours.
The same could not be said for Tess of the D'urbvilles
This book was part of my final year high school English reading list and still features highly on my list of most profound books Ive ever read.
Loved it not so keen to see the movie though worried it might ruin the whole experience for me.
:)
The Great Gatsby is one of my very favourite books. It's one of the few books I can re-read without feeling like I should be moving onto something new. I saw the fil-um on Sunday night. Afterwards I felt like I'd walked in on Santa on the loo, shocked and disappointed that the magic had lost some of its sparkle.
ReplyDeleteThe 1920s were over top, but the movie was just camp (not surprising considering the film maker)and the sound track made it seem 'pimped up'. Why make a movie set in the Jazz Age, but not include any jazz - was that meant to be clever?
They were crazy dudes back in the 20s, with all that drinking, smoking and driving (usually all at the same time), but the era was elegant and sophisticated. The movie was just crass and cheap, although I'm sure it cost a bomb to make.
Also, I'd be interested if anyone else thinks this, I'm sure in the book there is a reference (only one) made to Daisy's 'dark hair', yet she's always portrayed as a blonde in the movie versions. Has anyone else noticed this tiny remark in the book? Maybe I'm imagining it?
Gee I sound like a dork.
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