The promised book post

[gryphonsegg]

Yesterday I did something that I had previously told myself I'd never do: I reread The Great Gatsby. I first encountered this book as required reading in high school and predictably hated it. Recently, someone who loves it convinced me to give it another try, having argued convincingly that one needs life experience to appreciate all its merits

Comments

[kansan_entrails]

I actually really, really liked The Great Gatsby when I read it the first time I read it back in highschool. I probably didn't catch everything, but the writing is well paced and creative as well. Also it probably helped that my literature teacher at the time also had us read things like Their Eyes were Watching God and Reservation Blues.

[gryphonsegg]

Oh, that's interesting. Now that I think about it, that and To Kill a Mockingbird were the only twentieth century novels my class got assigned. We got multiple Shakespeare plays and lots of nineteenth century books and short stories, but not much from the twentieth century. Our history classes always skimped on the twentieth century too, at least partly because the teachers didn't want to have talk about the Civil Rights Movement, so we didn't have enough background knowledge of WWI and the Roaring Twenties to put it into context.

I really, really want to talk about it now, LOL! What else did you think of it, apart from the writing being well paced and creative?

[kansan_entrails]

Yeah we didn't have to read Dead White Guy authors all the time so it didn't get so old to me.

...now that I think about it one of the biggest reasons why I love this book is because I'm fascinated by Daisy as a character. I remember most of my class hating her and thinking Gatsby should've just moved on, but I always felt more for her to be honest. She's been controlled by her family despite having wealth and time from not having to work. Yet she has to maintain her role both as Tom's wife and an old money socialite. Then along comes Gatsby who was obsessed with his idea of what Daisy was and she went for him simply because he was exciting. However she retreats to the safety of a world she understands especially because she realizes just what Gatsby's new money statue meant especially since he got his fortune illegally.

Also I really like the old movie Great Gatsby. Everyone in that flick was perfectly cast except for Tom. They also portray Daisy with a lot of sympathy if I recall.

[gryphonsegg]

Interesting-- one of the many differences for me between my first read and my second is that I was much more sympathetic to Daisy the second time around. I used to be quite the Special Girl-- even though I had stirrings of feminism already, I only applied them to women whose life choices I approved of. I definitely didn't approve of anyone's choice to marry a man like Tom, so I wrote Daisy off as unworthy early on. As an adult, I've gotten over enough of my own issues to see in her just what you so eloquently describe.