The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read this book my Junior year as part of my AP Literature class. I was very excited when my teacher handed us her well-worn copies from the storage room for two reasons: a) I had heard it was a great book, and b) the cover intrigued me. "Who's the chick on the cover?" I asked myself. "Why are her tears green? And more importantly, how can she possibly be sad when she's hovering above a Ferris wheel?" I read the Great Gatsby fervently, searching for answers to my deep, philosophical questions.

Unfortunately, none of these questions were ever answered. If they had been answered by Mr. Fitzgerald, the book probably would have been a lot more interesting.

That's right, folks. I didn't like The Great Gatsby. At all. I thought it was a dreadfully boring book, due in no small part to the dreadfully boring lives the main characters lead.

The book is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, a self-proclaimed outsider who is "inclined to reserve all judgments," a statement which I could spend a whole other post disagreeing with. He spends most of his time either bored at his cousin Daisy's mansion, bored at a party, or bored while commuting to New York City. In fact almost all of the main characters are utterly dissatisfied with their luxurious lifestyles. Dozens of pages are spent just explaining that the Buchanans are reclining on sofas in their living room and complaining about the heat. Pages that could have been spent describing the Buchanans' excitement from riding a Ferris wheel at an amusement park, perhaps.

The only characters of any interest are Myrtle and Jay Gatsby, and that's simply because I feel sorry for them. Both of them desperately want to fit in, and yet despite their connections (For Myrtle, it's her affair, for Gatsby it's his newly made fortune), they are forced to watch while the Buchanans have everything they want.

I understand that Fitzgerald's intention was to show the flaws in the American Dream. Money doesn't make the world go round. In the words of a British rock band, "Can't buy me love" (Which I, for the longest time, thought was "Can puppy love." Anybody? Nobody.) But I feel that there are better ways of showing the characters' discontent with their lives. Ways that don't involve the reader feeling discontent with her life.

That being said, I did like his use of color symbolism. Green representing envy or money. White representing the "holier-than-thou" attitude of the upper-class. It made the experience slightly more enjoyable.

But only slightly.

That's all for today. My next review will be A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. See you next time!