Book smell rating - Well, I read it online so it kind of just smelled like electricity. Just like the character's lives in this novel, it was hollow and artifical! 

 Between page after page of rich people behaving badly, delightfully ornate descriptions, and enough drunken debauchery to make even the most devoted Dionysian blush, it may at first be hard to scour any meaning beyond the surface level aesthetic. However, by taking a deeper look, Fitzgerald might reveal to us some fundamental truth we can bring into this new decade. Or perhaps, this story should serve as less of a displaying of truth, and more of a warning. As Nick observes, in a way that doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as go running head-first through it, The Great Gatsby is ‘a story of the West’.  

It’s funny how fiction appears to anticipate reality. Fitzgerald provides a shockingly accurate diagnosis of an America spiraling towards disaster (this book pre-dates the Stock Market Crash by 4 years) all with a stylistic flair that I’m sure many aspiring authors would quite happily sell their souls for. Despite what some like Tom may assume, this remarkable ability of prediction is no ‘second-sight’ but instead, an unnerving prescience,  taking note of the social structures that defined Fitzgerald’s life, which was tumultuous to put it lightly. There are many parallels between Fitzgerald and his titular character Gatsby. Like Gatsby, they both fled from university by becoming soldiers and were (temporarily, for Fitzgerald) unable to be with their loved one due to a lack of wealth and notoriety, though the fame that they are met with does more harm than good. Fitzgerald was one of the first-ever ‘celebrities’, with all the good and bad that entails. Both characters too, experienced a fall from public grace, which Fitzgerald himself seemed to observe and acknowledge about himself, saying that a writer like him ‘"must have an utter confidence, an utter faith in his star. It's an almost mystical feeling, a feeling of nothing-can- happen-to-me, nothing-can-harm-me, nothing-can-touch-me.’ This utter faith, a key part of the novel, however, would ultimately spell the downfall of Jay Gatsby. It is his complete untouchability that means he cannot connect with others - having to pour his heart out to someone he hardly knows, or watch his loved one from outside her house, only getting a glimpse of her. Isolation spells doom for these characters. Yet so too does revealing your true nature. It is a risky tightrope walk, and Gatsby ends up plunging right over the edge. 

At first, the novel seems to be a terse drama about an ex-lover (Gatsby) reuniting with his sweetheart (Daisy) only for things to go quite… awry. These two star-crossed lover’s whirlwind romance is poisoned quite suddenly, by the manslaughter of Tom’s mistress (it’s a small world, really) and the death of Gatsby (spoilers! but it is almost 100 years old…). All of this is done from the perspective of a relative outsider, Nick. 

 Within the narrative, and on a meta-level, these character’s identities are not something intrinsic to them, but an outward image they can cultivate. Life is to be experienced, it seems, vicariously through your purchases - as opposed to anything else. Much of what forms these people’s personal identity is wealth and the material objects that they possess. You are invulnerable, unable to be picked apart or feel petty hang-ups like guilt, or sadness. But as a result, you don’t truly get to know anyone. This concept is captured most powerfully at the end - ‘we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’ Everyone is fighting their own battles alone, against a relentless wave of guilt, secrets, and our past mistakes. It is this feeling of untouchable-ness that renders  Gatsby’s sudden vulnerability as shocking, and even slightly repulsive to Nick. Fitzgerald illustrates the allure of wealth in beautiful, lengthy descriptions of setting and material goods - ‘ spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold’ which are set in direct contrast with the ash-covered desolation of the city. A Marxist critic is likely taking notes at this point. The class dynamics are a central part of this story -  the suspicion around Gatsby, to the point where they believe he ‘killed a man’ just because he is ‘new-money’, and dares to be (get your pearls ready people…) to be generous with it. The promise of the American Dream was yet to be quite refined, and so in this period reveling in a capitalistic boom - the rhetoric of equal opportunity and money for all was yet to be embraced quite as fully. Unfortunately, this generosity, like most of Gatsby within the book, is manufactured - just a means of advancing social capital with the flash of some cash… or a white Christmas card from a certain police commissioner. In this world, friendship is something that is bought and sold. However, what might be the most apparent representation of that divide is the eyes of ‘Doctor T J Eckleberg’, detached and gazing down on the workers - an ordinary man who has been rendered God-like because he could afford to pay for the advertising. The links to our current world, populated with perfumes that are more experiences than items, and the secrets to true happiness packaged in this brand new hoover you simply must try! 

Perception is also a key aspect of this story. It gives value - Gatsby forces Nick to bear witness to his relationship with Daisy, or with Daisy and his house. He longs for an old view of his new life, and so clings to Daisy like she were a raft in an otherwise empty ocean. It is through her eyes that he can see himself as he once was, younger and perhaps, untainted. But it also steals value. When you have your identity filter through so many eyes, you end up with a blurry image of yourself. One that fades away - and is forgotten, a fate Gatsby is left with. There are, of course, not only the eyes of T J Eckleberg, but also the abrasive eyes of Tom, a man so wrapped up in his fragile sense of masculinity that his vision is clouded by prejudice, and yet he believes he sees clearly. In Fitzgerlad’s world at the time too, there was the development of a new way of being viewed, and that was on the big screen. Hollywood was slowly being developed, with their first-ever movie The Count of Monte Cristo being released in 1908. New ways of being viewed, and seeing yourself from an outside perspective were constantly being developed. And not just that, ways of making money based on how you presented yourself were prevalent too. Suddenly the actress at Gatsby's party feels all the more significant. Fragility is present in all characters, for various reasons. Turns out that being pushed into the public eye almost constantly can have such an effect on a person. It recalls the bizarre giddiness that comes with receiving validation over social media - it’s a rush of joy, sure, but it brings with it a tinge of nausea. 

I attended a book club for this book, and while a deeply enjoyable experience, something that came out of it surprised me. Many expressed a deep dislike for Daisy. While I can understand, Daisy is far from the perfect person, I did not hate her. In fact, when she cried ‘Tell ‘em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’ a deep sense of melancholy struck me. 

Perception for Daisy proves to be a trap, perhaps even more so than Gatsby. Her entire being is dictated to her by the men in her life. She is Tom’s wife, Nick’s ‘second cousin once removed’, Gatsby’s link to the past. And so, when she falls short of the expectations loaded on her by the narrative, she does not merely stumble in our estimation, she falls. Women are not afforded the gift of complexity, or ‘messy’ qualities, a phenomenon that still lingers today, particularly with female celebrities. Take a look at how Hollywood treated Meghan Fox for example. Every character in this tale is deeply unlikeable in some way, and yet Daisy seems to provoke a particular sort of anger. This could be due to the fact that women can only be morally gray in a limited amount of acceptable ways, or maybe some people just didn’t like her character. She does have the money to fall back on, after all. And her abandonment of Gatsby is not to be ignored, but his reappearance was forced on her by him in the first place. She had no say in things and was instead swept up in memories of the past and wealth. The monetary safety net, however, comes with a deeply unhappy marriage that she is constrained by. Fitzgerald explores how womanhood can be presented through characters such as Daisy, who appears to be the embodiment of an ‘acceptable woman’ (which ultimately drives her into a life of misery), and Jordan, a ‘new woman’ who breaks gender roles with her bluntly sardonic attitude, and her ambiguously gendered name and is arguably one of the most likable characters. Likable in that she is open with her flaws. 

What makes me saddest about Daisy is the daughter, who longs for affection her mother is not prepared, nor educated to give. The hole, the craving for attention. It is still pure, in the sense that she only wants her mother’s attention - but perhaps once she finds that unfulfilled, she’ll turn to filling that gash with nice objects.

This novel has many excellent qualities, however, it would be remiss of me not to comment on the anti-Semitic stereotypes that are present. For a man who so astutely mocks and picks apart the prejudice present in Tom, showing it to be a form of white male fragility, Fitzgerald still manages to present Wolfsheim with plenty of anti-Semitic stereotypes and not feel a touch of self-awareness. It’s deeply disheartening and decidedly hurts my view of the overall story. If you are interested in finding out more about Fitzgerald’s anti-Semitism, or the general prejudice of the period check out this article, or this article. Anti-Semitism, and other forms of racism are very much still present today, it is our duty to discuss and pull them apart when we see it in action. 

All in all, the transitive quality that this book possesses is what means that, even today, there is an active interest in the novel. People online are still sharing their views on it, with minimal rude comments hopefully. For a book that’s almost 100 years old, that is not bad going. In the end, Gatsby achieves his goal. He is remembered eternally by people the world over. Alas, he is more likely to be remembered as a dead body floating in the pool and held up as a symbol of hubris, than the image of the debonair host he spends a good part of the story cultivating. Cruel irony truly knows no bounds.