Day 3,566 —my Hot takes on the Great Gatsby—

 It was so foggy this morning, it was hard to get a picture that had any type of focus that seemed right. What I took just ended up blurry, and I got frustrated trying to edit it, so you can see the lines better.

I have recently been re-confronted with the novel The Great Gatsby, which has never been one of my favorites. It is one of those books I have felt like I have read so many times but can never remember when. In high school, I think I just read parts of it and faked it. I read the short story that Fitzgerald wrote that basically had the same story and after that, I was like “I get it.”

But in college, I once again had to read it for my American Lit. Class. I had to read so many poorly written books in that class (there is just not as much American Lit compared to other nations). Some other American authors I have no affinity towards include James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorn. Don’t get me wrong, there are great American authors like, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and James Baldwin just to name a few. However, when they are bad they’re so bad, and I am like we need to stop celebrating these people! Not only was the writing poor but the messages in their books were usually harmful. 

I always disliked The Great Gatsby because almost none of the characters feel real to me, and the whole point of the book, the comment on the unattainable nature of the American Dream as seen through Nick and Gatsby, represented as Daisy, just makes me angry. Mainly because the character of Daisy does not seem real to me. However, the version of the female character of Daisy has been cluttering the thoughts of men who are forever searching for the “cool girl” they can save, and she just doesn’t exist. I think the best novel I have read that takes on this idea is Gone Girl. I love that book for that reason. 

But I am willing to say, I don’t know and reread Gatsby. Maybe my qualms are part of the book. I just don’t like reading books that don’t have characters that feel real to me. Because if they aren’t real, why am I reading this? Doesn’t that make all the points the author is making just seem flat and meaningless? Or maybe just purely intellectual. I just finished some of it this morning, so more thoughts to come.