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A review by paracosm
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3.0
I know that plenty of people had to read this one for high school, I wasn't one of them. Despite that, I have a pretty good idea of the symbolism that is supposedly present in this novel, thanks to all the literature memes I've seen. The main point of the book is that the American Dream is an unsustainable and impossible goal. There's this whole metaphor about a green lantern that Gatsby cant never reach. But I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about the gay parts, that's a lot more fun.
We follow a dude named Nick Carraway, the best way to describe him is that he is a secondary character in his own life. Through the entire book he just gets dragged to places he seems doesn't want to go. The only exception being the ending in which he gets tired of everyone's shit, decides that New York is terrible and goes back home.
After Nick moves to a rich neighborhood, he gets invited to a party and immediately falls in love with the host, Jay Gatsby (that's not his real name, by the way). If you dont believe me, let me tell you that he spends a whole paragraph describing how beautiful his smile is, Nick even mentions how:
[I]"It was one of those rare smiles with the quality of eternal reassurance in it that you might come across four or five times in a lifetime."
That's an actual quote from the book. In my opinion Leonardo DiCaprio nailed that smile in the adaptation, which was overall a pretty good one, go see it if you haven't.
Despite that, I believe Nick deserves better than Gatsby, who, as you might know, is totally obsessed with Daisy. I'll go back to that in a minute. Nick also deserves better friends, because everyone that's not him goes from "a little bit of a jerk" to "an absolute asshole", and that's not good for a person. The main example of that last bit is Tom Buchanan, who is a real piece of work.
This book includes many things, but romance is not one of them. Whatever Gatsby had for Daisy it's not love, it's an obsession. They only knew each other for very little before Gatsby decided to dedicate his entire life to her and spend millions and millions of dollars in parties with the hope that Daisy will attend. That's not a healthy behavior.
I honestly don't care enough about this book to analyze it further. If it wasn't for it's fame it would be a really forgettable read. I'll not stop you from picking it up.
We follow a dude named Nick Carraway, the best way to describe him is that he is a secondary character in his own life. Through the entire book he just gets dragged to places he seems doesn't want to go. The only exception being the ending in which he gets tired of everyone's shit, decides that New York is terrible and goes back home.
After Nick moves to a rich neighborhood, he gets invited to a party and immediately falls in love with the host, Jay Gatsby (that's not his real name, by the way). If you dont believe me, let me tell you that he spends a whole paragraph describing how beautiful his smile is, Nick even mentions how:
[I]"It was one of those rare smiles with the quality of eternal reassurance in it that you might come across four or five times in a lifetime."
That's an actual quote from the book. In my opinion Leonardo DiCaprio nailed that smile in the adaptation, which was overall a pretty good one, go see it if you haven't.
Despite that, I believe Nick deserves better than Gatsby, who, as you might know, is totally obsessed with Daisy. I'll go back to that in a minute. Nick also deserves better friends, because everyone that's not him goes from "a little bit of a jerk" to "an absolute asshole", and that's not good for a person. The main example of that last bit is Tom Buchanan, who is a real piece of work.
This book includes many things, but romance is not one of them. Whatever Gatsby had for Daisy it's not love, it's an obsession. They only knew each other for very little before Gatsby decided to dedicate his entire life to her and spend millions and millions of dollars in parties with the hope that Daisy will attend. That's not a healthy behavior.
I honestly don't care enough about this book to analyze it further. If it wasn't for it's fame it would be a really forgettable read. I'll not stop you from picking it up.