everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues

[gyzym]

This is totally a post about nothing except The Great Gatsby, and you should PROBABLY IGNORE IT.

1. Did you know that there is a Great Gatsby Game? Because I didn't until two_if_by_sea told me about it the other night, and I must tell you, my life is enriched. Apparently it was adapted for NES at some point and some guy has put it up online, and it is...oh my

Comments

[gyzym]

SO SHAMELESS AND SO ALL-ENCOMPASSING, THIS IS A LOVE THAT WE SHARE :D

[gyzym]

[sour_idealist]

Wow, I just read The Great Gatsby for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and... wow. It stuck with me, it still is sticking with me. Not in a can't-stop-thinking-about-it way, it just sort of... permeates into everything (which actually ended up at some absurdly inane places as it was still in the back of my head when I sat down to write fanfiction, but). The bit at the end, the very last couple of paragraphs, sums up so much of what I think about the lovely myths of this country, even all this time later. And I don't think I have ever read such a perfect description of decadence, capturing the glamor and the sickening side of it both at once. It isn't my One True and Overwhelming Great Novel (there I went for the even greater cliche of Holden freakin' Caulfield) but it definitely lingers at the back of my brain.

I'm sorry to be so incoherent; as you've probably guessed, I have not even come close to sorting out my feelings about this book yet.

[gyzym]

Oh, dude, no, your incoherence fills me with glee, because OH MAN I REMEMBER THE COMEDOWN FROM READING THIS BOOK, that like, month-long period where I kept reading into the symbolism of everything and dfhdshfds. HOORAY FOR YOU, I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU ETC.

Also, oh my god Holden Caulfield, I wanted to like Catcher in the Rye so much, but I think I read it too late? Like, by the time I picked it up I was past the point in my life where that like...quality of emotion was part and parcel of my day, and I could not relate properly. I FEEL LIKE I WAS CHEATED.

One of these days I'm going to do a post that is just book recs. ONE OF THESE DAYS.

[sour_idealist]

YEAH, I am pretty much... there, processing, trying to sort out everything that is seeping into and through and around my head. Now that I actually have time in my life for a few days, I should probably re-read it.

And Holden Caulfield, oh my God, I was fifteen and at exactly the point when I was just starting to figure out how much goes on in the world that is bad and how much it all changes and how much we all change and bury and fit into the way society works and how complicated it all is and... yeah, there could not have been a more perfect point in my life for me to run into this. All my classmates hated it and I was just... :/ BUT IT'S RIGHT.

I HOPE YOU DO THE RECS.

[regicidaldwarf]

I always feel like such a fraud when I start talking about Great Literature. Because, I mean, I'm a fucking English major - I've read some seriously pretentious shit, and even liked a whole bunch of it. But the books that really get into my soul are fantasy novels like Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, which is about sword fighting and dysfunctional boys in love. The most pretentious I get about books I love is pretty much Jane Austen. Which is pretty clichéd, I admit.

[gyzym]

Ahahaha, I have no feelings about Great Literature as a whole, because I was a terrible terrible English major. I just, you know...I just like shit, right, and sometimes it's Great Literature and sometimes it's like, Night Watch and Adverbs and the newest Greg Iles novel :D

[dremiel]

NGL I have purchased and given away so many copies of Swordspoint it's not even rational! Honestly, I had a big stack when it was out of print and still tend to buy used copies when I see them. I think the count is over 20 now!

iow - yeah, good story!

[gyzym]

She is just made of win, is she not?

[synekdokee]

Ohmygodyes

[gyzym]

:D :D :D