'the great gatsby' by f. scott fitzgerald

when i was younger i was enthralled by the romantic qualities of jay gatsby, but now i am older and see only the pathetic characteristics he possessed. the close of the book mentions being "borne back ceaselessly into the past", but for gatsby he never changed. the riches, the luster, even daisey herself meant nothing to him so much as that past.

the great gatsby is a book meant for the hottest month of summer. the perfect short read with a wealth of lines allowing the reader to forget the heat, the imposition of oncoming winter; it is a book designed for cigarettes and a gin rickey. it is a novel of little wasted words with all ideas building upon one another, clamoring towards the conclusion.

gatsby was not an idealist but a singular action. a dreamer of dangerous levels who set his life on a course where only the absolute would mean success. his problems perhaps are obliged by the fact he is not a materialist, but an extremely insecure man, basing most of what he views as success on the opinions others have. when he finds daisey it is less the woman he falls in love with, than others opinion of her and, in turn, her opinion over other objects.

this is not to say he was a man who wanted what he could not have; gatsby did not know what he wanted. he was capable of only creating an opulent desire and building on that desire until, eventually, he found a desire no one is capable of doing: turning back the hands of time. despite the fact he had daisey again, it was not enough for him to simply take her, he had to have her renounce the lost years.

it is impossible not to pity and love gatsby, despite the inability he had to give up, move on. should he have emerged from the pool on that pre-autumnal afternoon, he would not be able to believe it was all over. he was not a man capable of taking his own life, but his plans would have become more radical, more hopeless and desperate. if his own inattention to his and wolfsheim's business did not catch up with him, he would have continued on the trail of daisey. daisey's love for him, for whatever it was worth, would never live up to what he wanted, needed.

the book largely mirrors fitzgerald's own relationship with the chicago heiress ginevra king, who broke off a relationship with fitzgerald to marry, the also wealthy, william mitchell. while fitzgerald ended up marrying zelda sayer, perhaps his sweetest revenge came in immortalizing king forever in his works of fiction. the finest piece being a line he delivered to king after she asked him which character she was in fitzgerald's the beautiful and damned: "which bitch do you think you are."

the great gatsby never was a commercial success in fitzgerald's life. fitzgerald would grade his life as a general failure and himself a hack. the alcohol, zelda, tuberculosis all culminated in a massive heart attack while he was writing bit parts in movies for the quick cash he could get in hollywood.

perhaps the best way to remember fitzgerald comes from his off and on friend ernest hemmingway. this is one of my favorite quotes and comes from hemmingway's a moveable feast:

his talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust from a butterfly's wings. at one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. later he became conscious of his damaged wings and and their construction and he learned to think and and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.