Home > The Book Page > Archives > 2008 > February > 20
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
What is it about Gatsby?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just about everybody acknowledges that “The Great Gatsby” is pretty great. Any time anybody ranks the greatest novels of the 20th century, or the best American novels, it’s near the top of the list. Even teenagers who hate to read anything that doesn’t have “Harry Potter” in the title and are forced to read it in high school will grudgingly admit that it doesn’t suck nearly as bad as the other books in the high school curriculum.
An article in the New York Times recently pointed out that even some immigrant students dig Gatsby. They see him as someone who is ambitious to make himself better, and Tom Buchanan as the jock who’s never as cool as he was in high school, and Daisy as a 1925 version of Paris Hilton.
Hey, at least they’re reading and thinking about what they’re reading.
I think one of the reasons “Gatsby” is so highly regarded is that it works on so many different levels. It’s a straightforward story, short and easy to read. It’s both very romantic, and Romantic. Dig a little deeper, and it’s a pretty harsh assessment of the American dream of Horatio Alger and self-improvement. And of course F. Scott Fitzgerald’s prose is just as clean and pure as it gets.
A novel could be all those things, of course, and still not be read or appreciated like “Gatsby” is. So what is it about “Gatsby” that makes it darn near universal in its appeal?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: News and Reviews
