Beautiful prose, sexy twenties parties and all that jazz.

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

Right, so the Great Gatsby. I‘m pretty much on a quest to re-read all the classics that I read as a teenager and never really got. The Great Gatsby is one of those romanticized novels that most people say is about Gatsby who’s hopelessly in love with Daisy. So much in love that even though she basically dumped him by telling him “Hey-yo I’ll be marrying someone else,” he still gets rich and buys a house close to hers where he hosts a lot of parties hoping that she’ll someday stop by. Which is better than just…dropping by and saying “Heyyo Daisy what-up?” I mean the least he could have done was get close to her husband that would yield way better results…not that I know anything about stalking…

Anyways. This time, I realized. Nick Carraway is in love with Gatsby. So actually this is a book about romantic idolization. Gatsby towards Daisy and Nick towards Gatsby. So these people are hopelessly in love and idolizes their love interests. Even through some pretty terrible events. Gatsby is a grade-A stalker who covers for a murderer. Daisy is a murderer.

“I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

What I really wish that more acknowledged, is that Gatsby is a poser. He’s not cool.

He’s studied cool and he’s trying to emulate it. Nick is in love with him so he goes along with the weird jocular slang and exaggerated mannerisms. Saying *old sport* all the time is weird and Gatsby is so weird that the people in the novel call him on it several times. But Nick is still all like isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he honorable in his love for Daisy?

No, he’s not. He’s a fool and you can do so much better, Nick.

Oh, yeah. Also beautiful prose, sexy twenties parties and all that jazz.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.