The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

25 Jan 2012

19 Comments

Is it just me or is it harder to write about a book that you loved than a book that was merely pretty good? A great book brings to my mind a million jumbled ideas all trying to tumble out at once. There is an awful lot of time spent staring at the wall trying to decide where to start and what to make the focus of my post about..

I’ve been wanting to read The Great Gatsby for a very long time. I am already a big Fitzgerald fan. But I wanted to wait for the perfect moment because I was afraid if I rushed into it, my treasured hope of loving the book would be ruined. I wanted The Great Gatsby to be the culmination of all the promise I saw in Fitzgerald’s other works.

I’ve read The Beautiful and Damned, This Side of Paradise, and several of Fitzgerald’s short stories. In each, there are perfectly strung sentences and quietly dropped metaphors which give that tense warmth in the chest that beautiful writing can cause. Fitzgerald is the master of the unexpected adjective, that quality gives a unique joy to his writing, for me. But the previous novels I read, as a whole, did not live up to the individual sentences; and the short stories often lacked soul. In The Great Gatsby though, it all finally comes together. I have a couple more Fitzgerald novels to read, Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon, but I’ve heard nether of these are on the same level as The Great Gatsby and it almost makes me teary to know that we will never have another example of Scott Fitzgerald living up to his potential.

I know many people do not like The Great Gatsby. My Dh had to read it in high school and hated it. I think I can understand that feeling. I have a couple theories on why it is a loved or hated book. First, I don’t think it is ideal for teens or anyone who reads primarily to relate to the characters. When we are in our teens and early 20s I think we often read books to find others who understand us. We look for characters who typify our experiences, struggles, and emotions. Fitzgerald is not an author to turn to if you are looking for that connection, unless you are a middle class kid trying to fit into an upper class clique lol.

There are young readers that look for things beyond personal identification in books. I think for most though, this comes later in life, with maturity (or for some it may just be a lifelong taste). Therefore, like The Scarlett Letter, I really can’t get behind teaching The Great Gatsby to high school kids. There may be one or two in a class that enjoy it, but for the most part the kids won’t be able to connect and won’t see the worth in it. Classic lit that is more plot driven is better for teens, in my opinion. I do think a couple years on, in college where the students have chosen their classes, The Great Gatsby should most definitely be included in a literature or writing curriculum. The book is a beautiful work of art but best appreciated by those with the mind set to view it independently not as an extension of self.

My second suggestion for The Great Gatsby reading success, would be to read it straight through if possible. There are some books you slowly slip into, day by day, (Charlotte Bronte’s work comes to mind) and then there are some that you need to tumble down into completely. It’s important with Gatsby to immerse yourself in the world and not break the spell. Fitzgerald is a short story writer and I believe Gatsby should be read like one. If you read one chapter a day, a little at a time, I think the tension and desperation of the characters would be totally ruined. And since there is likely no character in the story that you will fall in love with, the overall tension is that much more important to maintain. Though I would hope readers new to Gatsby would read it in just a day or two, it would be heartbreaking if they rushed. Fitzgerald’s writing needs to be savored. It’s all in the sentence, not so much the events.

My last suggestion is not to be thrown by the first few pages of The Great Gatsby. It feels a little disjointed and not what you are expecting when you first opened the book, but it’s all integral to the story because Fitzgerald is setting up Nick to be the perfect narrator. Nick is the outsider observing the mess to follow. You feel you can trust his description of events and his judgement of character. He is the reader’s companion because, like you, he is skeptical and cynical towards the other character’s behavior but he also sometimes finds himself dazed by the beauty of it all.

As usual with my posts, it’s not the plot of the book I want to talk about so much as a theme that caught my attention. My favorite aspect of The Great Gatsby is the worlds of artist and illusion vs realty and disillusion conflicting. Jay Gatsby is the artist. He literally creates himself, his life, and his money. He creates a beautiful world, the never ending party, but he does not participate in it himself. Instead he stands apart, looking from above at the living dream he built for some one else.

On the other side of the bay we have Tom, whose physicality and cynicism is the exact opposite of Jay’s dream. Tom has absolutely everything anyone could ever want, and yet he rants about “civilization going to pieces”. He has a beautiful wife that everyone adores and yet he spends his time with a tacky and irritating mistress. Frankly, Tom is a character that you just want to punch in the face.

Nick, our narrator, exists between these two worlds.

I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

Nick is also an artist/creator, as the teller of this story, but he looks straight on at the events, unlike Jay who observes through his own daydream. Nick was a writer in his youth but has come East to learn the money trade. He left his home in the West because after what he witnessed in the war he was unable to believe in the easy morals of his hometown. But he finds the alternative, complete disillusionment and materialism of the East, more false.

One of the illusions that Nick is tempted to indulge in is that beautiful women, like Daisy and Jordan, float innocently above the corruption…

The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

How can you not love that writing?? *head explodes*

Although in some ways I understand the sentiment, it is also so curious to me that when people talk about The Great Gatsby, it is automatically “a book about rich people, that you can’t connect with, having lavish parties”. That is such a small part of the story. Yes, in the first few chapters Fitzgerald does create a beautiful dream built with impossible amounts of money but more of the book is about how wealth and the past corrupts that dream and tears down the future. I won’t talk about the events but my heart was aching at the end. And yet, not in that obviously contrived way that most modern writers try to “pull on the heart strings” by killing off characters or putting children in horrible situations. Even though The Great Gatsby is so much about untouchable illusions and even though you are not driven to connect one to one with the characters, to me it felt more genuine and more universally tragic.

her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened — then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Finis, analysis and reviews, Modernism Tags: ,

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume II

17 Jan 2012

10 Comments

Back around the first of the year, I finished up the last of Sherlock Holmes Volume II. I have now read all 60 Sherlock stories and I would say, overall, Volume I has the better collection. Volume II did have some good ones though, The Valley of Fear being my favorite. The Valley of Fear felt to me more of a modern detective story. Anyone who loves stories like the Untouchables, would like The Valley of Fear I think.

It seems I enjoy the longer Sherlock stories, the novellas, the most. Not surprising because you just get so much more in the longer pieces. More character development, more suspense, and more immersion in the action. Most of the short stories are only 20 pages or so, which really doesn’t give enough time to build tension.

There are some shorts that shouldn’t be missed though!
From Volume I my favorites are:

A Scandal in Bohemia- There’s not a lot of “story” in this one but Sherlock meets his match in Irene Adler. It’s good fun to read someone getting one over on Holmes.

The Five Orange Pips- Classic Holmes, one of the more referenced stories.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle- Has a great example of Sherlock’s deduction skills, all based on a hat.

The Musgrave Ritual- Some more great details about Holmes, like how he keeps his letters transfixed by jack-knife into the center of the mantlepiece and shoots holes in wall when bored.

The Final Problem- Of course you have to read this one, although it’s a bit spoiled now since we know there are more stories to come.

The best thing about Volume I is that the longer and most renown stories- A Study in Scarlett, The Sign of Four, and The Hound of Baskerville- are all collected in it. The shorter stories are wonderful for following along with Dr Watson as he uncovers Sherlock’s character and idiosyncrasies.

Volume II has quite a different feeling than Volume I. In the second collection of stories, things become much darker, more violent, and Sherlock has become cynical of working with the Police. Very often in Volume II Sherlock acts as judge and jury, deciding on his own who should be held accountable for their crime and who acted as any one of us would act in the same situation.

Some of the best from Volume II

The Adventure of the Empty House- Sherlock and his nemeses, Moriarty and Moran

The Adventure of the Dancing Men- Fun cryptogram

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton: Holmes and Watson become burglars.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans: If you watch Sherlock, the series, you’ve heard of this one.

The Adventure of the Dying Detective: Holmes near death…

As I go through the book, there was actually quite a few good stories in Volume II. They just feel a little less fresh when you’ve already read 30+ Holmes tales.
Do you have a favorite Sherlock Holmes story?

_____

Slightly off topic note- I just want to say I am extremely bitter that all you UK-ers are now watching the second Sherlock series! Dh and I are dying but I think we have to wait until Spring for the show to air in the US.

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Edwardian, Finis, analysis and reviews Tags: ,

A Moveable Feast by Hemingway

13 Jan 2012

4 Comments

In those days…..
in those days there was no money to buy books
in those days we did not trust anyone who had not been to war, but we did not completely trust anyone
in those days, though, the spring always came finally
in those days you did not really need anything, not even a rabbit’s foot
..but climbing was fun and no one minded it in those days

A Moveable Feast is a work of reflection. An ode to the past. The past as seen by one man, not all men. Hemingway is often criticized for cruely depicting his friends in AMF. But I admire him for standing behind his memories and not nice-ing them up. The pictures Hemingway paints of those that surrounded him in 1920s Paris, are just that. One dimensional images burned into his memory. What comes forward in his description of people and place, is like a 30 year long aftertaste, sweet and sharp.

Looking back into our past we do not remember all aspects of all things. Time distills our experiences to the essential bits. Only those most potent memories, and from our point of view, intrinsic truths, come shooting back. And, it’s with these singular pieces that our mind rebuilds the whole.

The memories we retain about a person are not always the most flattering aspects of their personality. And often what remains, says as much about us when we took the snapshot as it does about the person we observed.

This exercise in memory is what I find most fascinating about A Moveable Feast, but there are many other things to love about the book. Who does not want to bask in the sunshine reflected off the river Seine or hover over a notebook in a cafe sipping a warm rum? How can you not love encountering Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, Picasso, and host of others with each flip of the page? Hemingway immerses you in his memories. And though he may be unflinching about many of the people he knew, he is quietly poignant about those he loved and admired.

Re Scott Fitzgerald

he spoke slightingly but without bitterness of everything he had written, and I knew his new book must be very good for him to speak, without bitterness, of the faults of past books. He wanted me to read the new book, the great gatsby, as soon as he could get his last and only copy back from someone he had loaned it to. To hear him talk of it, you would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non-conceited writers have when they have done something very fine, and I hoped he would get the book quickly so that I might read it

I don’t know how anyone who loves to write could not love A Moveable Feast. Hemingway’s thoughts on fellow writers may be skewed lol, but he writes so honestly about the craft of writing. His words about writing one true sentence will always stick in my mind.

do not worry. you have always written before and you will write now. all you have to do is write one true sentence. write the truest thing that you know

Hemingway was in his 50s as he wrote A Moveable Feast. He was a man that had lived a hard and full life. He was mentally and physically breaking down. He looked back on himself as a young man and remembered what he chose to remember. He wrote the past as it was and as he wish it to be. Whether he was ungenerous to his friends and fellow artists or not, it is still a privilege to walk by his side through Paris.

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Finis, analysis and reviews, Modernism Tags: ,

Becoming a Writer

9 Jan 2012

12 Comments

I came across the book Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande yesterday. It was written in 1934 and goes to show how good advice is timeless. In Becoming a Writer Brande talks not about the technical aspects of writing: characters, plot, sentence construction, but instead about how to move past the mental obstacles that prevent us from writing. Now before you think it, this is not a namby-pamby chicken soup for the writer’s soul. But instead straight forward, useful advice. Brande’s voice is like having an affectionate aunt who also happens to be a professional writer. You sit earnestly beside her drinking up the 30 years of accumulated writing experience that she so easily pours forth. And, she never stops to give you side eye for not already knowing this through some sort of writer’s divine inspiration.

From the introduction:

Ms. Brande points out — with the delightful wit we find everywhere in her book — that for the writer suffering from uncertainty and self-doubt, writing teachers and books about writing, not to mention symposia of famous authors, do to the young (or old) struggling writer just about the worst thing they could do: “In the opening lecture, within the first few pages of his book, within a sentence or two of his authors’ symposium, he will be told rather shortly that ‘genius cannot be taught’; and there goes his hope glimmering. For whether he knows it or not, he is in search of the very thing that is denied him in that dismissive sentence.” Ms. Brande’s purpose in Becoming a Writer is to make available to the writer the very thing usually denied.

She is right that genius can be taught (once the secret emptiness of that phrase is understood) because in fact genius is as common as old shoes. Everybody has it, some more than others, perhaps; but that hardly matters, since no one can hope to use up more than a very small portion of his or her native gift.

In Becoming a Writer, Brande points out that we are not all born writing with ease. Some have to work very hard at writing and that is nothing to be ashamed of. She even notes that some of the most artistic writers are the ones that have the hardest time writing. That the sensitivity that can make a writer great, can also hold them back from ever beginning.

First there is the difficulty of writing at all. The full, abundant flow that must be established if the writer is to be heard from simply will not begin. The stupid conclusion that if he cannot write easily he has mistaken his career is sheer nonsense.

the beginner may be waiting for the divine fire of which he has heard to glow unmistakably, and may believe that it can only be lighted by a fortuitous spark from above.

One of the first writing theories Brande puts forth in the book, is that we each have two writerly sides: our conscious critic/editor and our subconscious imaginative writer. To write with ease she says, you must train each side of yourself so that you can call them up individually when needed. That you must quiet your conscious critic to allow the subconscious freedom to write your story. But also, you must put in the hard work required to bring that subconscious to the forefront on demand. This might sound a little like embracing our auras or something but fear not lol, it’s actually practical advice. If you have ever sat staring at a blank page, feeling like you must beat your head with a club in order for the words to come out, then you are already familiar with the subconscious that Brande wants us to train.

Her first suggested exercise is to wake up a half an hour early each day and write. Write immediately, before reading your email, before flipping on the TV, even before a sip of coffee. This was a little terrifying to me because I am not willing to admit that writing, nor even the whole world, exists before I have had my coffee. The point of writing first thing in the morning though, is to one: to write on demand and two: to write before even the slightest outside influence has infiltrated your brain. Our world is overflowing with words, that hit us immediately from every direction, and Brande wants you to get down your words, in their most natural state.

You will remember that one of the conditions set was that you should not have read one word before beginning the morning’s task, nor, if at all possible, so much as spoken until you have finished. This is the reason. We all live so surrounded by words that it is difficult for us to discover, without long experience, what our own rhythms are, and what subjects do really appeal to us. Those who are sensitive enough to want ardently to become writers are usually a little too suggestible for their own good.

(Her comment on being too suggestible really spoke to me because I have the habit of picking up on the tone, accent, even body language of others in almost a creepy fashion lol.)

When writing in the morning, you are not allowed to edit. You just must pour forth anything and everything that comes to mind. I started this exercise this morning and I certainly did not have anything writerly to say. My first word was: UGH. But I am approaching Brande’s advice with patience and humor. I know it will not come right away and until that time that stories or interesting thoughts start to come out, I will see the silliness in my attempts and not get down on myself about it.

She advises to continue writing in the morning for several weeks and NOT look back on it, no rereading at first. Later we will begin rereading these Morning Writings to pin point our natural style and what themes we frequently write about.

Further on in the book, Brande had some advice that I found particularly interesting, she says to not share your early writing. This is pretty common advice but her reasons for it I had not read before, and that is that once you share and talk about your story, you will become bored with it. It will become a twice told tale and you won’t have the motivation to actually write it down. This has me written all over it lol. I’m so glad she pointed that out.

Much of the advice Brande gives in the book reminds me of Hemingway’s musings in A Moveable Feast

If you can discover what you are like, if you can discover what you truly believe about most of the major matters of life, you will be able to write a story which is honest and original and unique. But those are very large “ifs,” and it takes hard digging to get at the roots of one’s own convictions.

you may at last persuade yourself that it is your insight which gives the final worth to your writing, and that there is no triteness where there is a good, clear, honest mind at work.

 

I’m looking forward working my way through the advice in Becoming a Writer. I find the division between our conscious critic and subconscious writer so interesting. I had not thought of it that way before but I realize that the inner monologue running through my head, constantly recreate or inventing conversations, or stories, or blog posts, is my subconscious writer. I look forward to not only calling it up on demand but also quieting it. Never turning it off completely but pushing it towards the back of my mind to work silently until I am ready for it. One reason I feel like I have to read at night, is because if I don’t my mind runs on endlessly. Sometimes it is exhausting! I must learn control my creative mind and save it for when I am writing. I also realize I need to stop meaningless tasks and sit down and write when the subconscious is on a roll.

If you’re interested, you can read Becoming a Writer in PDF for free HERE

By: Shannon Category: Non-fiction, Writing Tags: ,

Elliott Bay Book Co

7 Jan 2012

6 Comments

Last night I discovered my new favorite book store, Elliott Bay Book Co in Seattle.

One of my goals in 2012 is to get out to more independent local book stores. Unfortunately, the book store selection with in an hour’s drive from me in all directions, is pretty bleak! I can go to Barnes and Nobles or small shops that mainly sell used copies of best sellers previously bought at Walmart :( I live in a small town and I know if I want a decent selection of anything, I’m going to have to make the trek to the city. Seattle, it is said, has about 70 book stores. So lots for me to explore in the coming year! Any new discoveries though, are going to be hard pressed to live up to the store I visited yesterday, Elliott Bay Books.

Elliott Bay’s fiction selection was about a million times better than what you will find at B&N. When it comes to classic lit, I’ve already bought everything B&N has to offer. Literally, I bought their Classics Collection and there is nothing left in that store that I want lol.

I was instantly smitten with Elliott Bay when I saw this pretty shelf full of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Now I didn’t have time to thoroughly comb the fiction shelves, but what I noticed just by glancing through Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Shelley, was that the store often offered more than one edition of the more famous works. Imagine that, a selection for the customer!


Here is the Hemingway selection. I was SO tempted to pick up the complete short stories, or the Scribner hardcover of The Old man and the sea. The Fitzgerald hard cover of The Great Gatsby was also screaming my name.


But no, I was well behaved, this day, and did not buy any hardbacks.

Running through the center of the store, there was several low shelves, you can see them here in the distance.

Three or four of these cases were stuffed full of books on books, essays and criticism. Another two or three cases were filled with poetry. I could have spent ALL DAY looking at these shelves alone. Upstairs was a large biography section and many, many bookcases devoted to history. In the back of the store is a very nice kid’s section, with some interesting and beautiful hardcover books,including the Penguin cloth bounds.



I was a bit dizzy with choice but I finally decided to buy the paperback Old Man and the Sea and Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. I was so pleased to see such an obscure Shelley book I couldn’t help but grab it.

A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley’s most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of art to redeem the doomed characters.


One book I can’t get off my mind is this one on Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I think I did an eye bug when I spotted it, Dh laughed and said he knew I was going to pick that one up.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway might have been contemporaries, but our understanding of their work often rests on simple differences. Hemingway wrestled with war, fraternity, and the violence of nature. Fitzgerald satirized money and class and the never-ending pursuit of a material tomorrow. Through the provocative arguments of Scott Donaldson, however, the affinities between these two authors become brilliantly clear. The result is a reorientation of how we read twentieth-century American literature.

Known for his penetrating studies of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Donaldson traces the creative genius of these authors and the surprising overlaps among their works. Fitzgerald and Hemingway both wrote fiction out of their experiences rather than about them. Therefore Donaldson pursues both biography and criticism in these essays, with a deep commitment to close reading.


That may be coming home with me next time!
You can visit the Elliott Bay book store blog HERE

By: Shannon Category: Book stores, Classic literature, Cover art, Modernism, Non-fiction Tags: ,
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