The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Classics - Literature
180 Pages
I just finished reading this book for school and I enjoyed it... to a point. The storyline was well written, from Nick Carraway's point of view. The story was about Jay Gatsby, a man from the western United States who moved to West Egg in New York, and his love for Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan.
In the beginning of the story, Nick Carraway has just moved to West Egg. He moves in next to a "party house" occupied by Jay Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby lives alone, except for his house staff, but throws lavish parties every weekend which just about everyone in New York and New Jersey attends. Nick spends the first chapters visiting with his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom over in East Egg. While there, he is introduced to golfer extraordinaire Jordan Baker, who he later realizes that he loves.
After a while, Nick is personally invited to one of Gatsby's parties through invitation via Gatsby's Butler. Most people just show up by word of mouth. He attends the party and runs into none other than Miss Jordan Baker. They drink, and eat, and dance through the night. As Nick decides to get ready to leave, he runs into Mr. Gatsby himself (not knowing that it was actually him) and they form an instant bond making plans to go out on Gatsby's boat the next morning.
Later on in the book, Gatsby has Miss Baker tell Nick about his past with Daisy. Apparently, Gatsby and Daisy had a fling before Daisy married Tom Buchanan, and they were really in love. What was going on though was that Gatsby was making extravagant promises to Daisy that he had absolutely no way to keep. At this time he was poor, without a nickel to his name. When he has an opportunity to make money, he leaves daisy and goes into the army. The army gives him enough pay to travel and try to find Daisy again. Of course, Daisy is now married to Tom and thinks that Gatsby wouldn't come back to her. Little did she know that Gatsby had been working up the nerve to ask her cousin to invite her for tea so that they (more he than she) could spark up the old fire that was burning between them and make a future together.
At the end of the book, Gatsby and Daisy have been spending more and more time together and Tom is starting to notice. When Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Nick, and Gatsby all get together one day, Tom straight out accuses them of an affair. (Of course, Tom has had many mistresses throughout his marriage...but nobody says anything about that, now do they?) Everyone gets into a tizzy and Tom and Gatsby start going at it, with poor Daisy in the middle of it having to pick a side. The man she once loved and has rekindled the fire with? Or the man who she is married to, for better or worse, but cheats on her constantly (currently with the mechanic's wife.)? Now, back then, divorces were not common at all. And when your husband was having an affair, you just gathered up your girls played bridge, drank tea (or in Daisy and Jordan's case, sometimes whiskey) and complained and gossiped about their husbands and their mistresses.
Gatsby drives Daisy home, while Jordan and Nick ride with Tom back to East Egg, and on the way Tom, Jordan and Nick run into traffic by the auto shop. They get out and go to see what's going on and it turns out that the mechanic, George Wilson, and his wife, Myrtle Wilson (also Tom's mistress), got into a fight and Myrtle runs out getting hit by a car. A yellow Rolls Royce. Tom holds himself together while at the scene, and then returns home.
Gatsby holes up in his house after this incident and fired all of his house staff to keep the secret safe. Turns out, what happened was Daisy was driving the Rolls and Myrtle ran out into the street. Daisy swerved to avoid her but there was a car coming the other way and swerved back and hit her. They drove off because Gatsby didn't want Daisy to get in trouble (and I'm sure Daisy was scared out of her mind and didn't want to stick around either.). Daisy and Tom take off, so that Tom can keep Daisy away from Gatsby, and in the meantime, tells a crazed George Wilson that it was Gatsby's car who hit Myrtle. Tom admits at the end of the book to Nick that he did this while Mr Wilson had a gun the entire time. I have no doubts that Tom knew that George was going to shoot whoever did this and wanted Gatsby out of Daisy's life for good. Wilson went over to Gatsby's house and shot him while he was just hanging out in his pool.
The end of the book was just funeral planning, scrounging for people who would actually show up to the funeral, meeting Gatsby's dad (who showed up out of nowhere considering Jay Gatsby never ever talked about him) and getting dumped by Jordan Baker, who was now engaged to another man.
Overall, this book was disappointing. I read a lot of books and I feel that this book was rushed. Only nine chapters for the whole story was not nearly enough for me. I know that this is a classic and everyone has read it, but I had high hopes for this book. I wanted more insight into who Jay Gatsby was, his life, and his feelings. What I got was Gatsby's life and feelings through the eyes of Nick Carraway. I know that that is the point of the book, to show how Nick was integrated into Gatsby's life and became so close to him, probably his best friend, but there just was not enough detail for me.
A couple things about the book that I didn't hate- I thought it was kind of funny that Gatsby had such a hard time asking Nick to invite Daisy over. He couldn't even tell Nick his and Daisy's history... I guess maybe since Nick and Gatsby didn't really know each other that well and Daisy was Nick's cousin? I guess Gatsby was just uncomfortable when presented with the opportunity to bring it up, so he had Jordan Baker, Nick's girlfriend, if you could call her that, do it. That is honestly about it. There weren't many character relationships that I could get behind and encourage and there weren't any characters that I fell in love with. I finally got around to reading this book and all in all, I am very disappointed.
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