/lit/ - Literature

>>16033330
Maybe people making meme party themes about it tilted your perspective.

>Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Those last lines are absolutely killer material, it almost makes me cry

>Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope

Is really good too. Maybe even more impressive because it hasn’t got the weight of the whole novel behind it, it just jumps out at you; literally on the first page.

2013 movie sucked tho

Why do so many people miss the fact Gatsby was a con artist or gangster? There are so many clues throughout with Nick as the unreliable narrator.

>>16033590
>clues
isn't it mostly stated?

>>16033330
>Maybe its cause I'm not american
The “American Dream” and self creation myth are huge themes. You get that from the start where Nick talks about his old respectable midwestern family...a dynasty founded by his Civil War draft dodging grandfather. Tom is supposed to be ultra rich old money but he comes off as vulgar and crude. He could have any woman he wanted but chooses an older dumb lower class woman. Gatsby’s self creation and background as finally revealed are of course the main thing samples of this theme. You can be a nobody from nowhere but with enough money, generated from a cheap trashy corrupt society, you can be a Kang.

>>16033330
Nick and Jay are gay. That’s an important aspect.

It's about the american dream and the prose and the wonderful jazz age aesthetic. A great little book. I think I like tender is the night more tho

>>16033330
If you find the dynamics of social class interesting like I do then this story has plenty to mull about after reading it. I just think it's fascinating that the nouveau riche like Gatsby are so desperate to prove they aren't poor, but the old money guys still think they're fucking peasants because they lack the social graces of the true upper class

>>16035470
I thought Tom likes Myrtle because she's full of life while Daisy just sits there and looks pretty

>>16033330
I liked this novel but sped-read the ending because it was high school and I had to finishing it 30 minutes before a test and somehow completely missed that Gatsby died.
Like the question the test was
>who first discovered Gatsby's death
and I was like
>I reject the premise of this question because Gatsby didn't die but I could believe as a metaphor that Gatsby had "killed" his former self so the first person to discover this would be Nick.
I still got an A on that exam, I'm pretty sure.

>>16033479
>Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope

Was Fitzgerald soft or what?

>>16035351
Pretty much, yeah. Many people seem to miss that fact though, it confuses me.

>>16037063
I’ve never heard of anyone not picking up on it desu

>>16033330
It's a great book desu but it's reputation got inflated by the fact that the US army picked it up and distributed across the entire force and so a classic was made.
It might have fallen into obscurity if not , because before the army picked it up its sales where quite poor.

>>16038207
Gatsbys reputation grew after WWII but don’t attribute it to the Army lol
Look up “Armed Services Editions” and see how many titles there were in that program

>>16033330
>"wahh me rich and me don't get what I want"

You can use this format on absolutely any book in the world, don't confuse it for meaningful criticism. Fitzgerald was a fantastic writer for two reasons - he married an extremely keen eye for social behavior with an exquisite prose style that, combined, revealed exactly who the American upper and upper middle class were - and not without an excoriating self-criticism as well. Fitzgerald was condemning his own mediocrity as well as everyone else of his ilk in American society, and he did it with supreme writing talent at such an early age along with a highly observant nature for social behavior

>>16038263
wahh I want to kill the pawnbroker

>>16038270
Hey bud crime and punishment is amazing why dont you go read some light novels or something.

It doesn't have much to say under the surface. People teach this in high school to avoid having to teach any relevant literature.

>>16040729
Filtered

>>16033330
Why are you always looking for meaning in novels? Real life isn't high school, fago.

>>16033330
The most important theme in The Great Gatsby has nothing to do with wealth or "The American Dream." It is about nostalgia. Gatsby got cucked out of his true love because he was too poor, and wasted his life trying to perfectly recreate his romance with Daisy the way that he wished it had gone. Think about the "masks" Gatsby uses to veil his identity and his humble beginnings. Gatsby isn't the only person in the book who isn't altogether legitimately who they say they are, even Nick, who is supposedly an Old Money-ish type who can track his family back to the early american settlers, actually just came from a family who made money off of a hardware business a few generations ago. Lies are useful to Gatsby, they helped him make himself into someone new, he even told them to himself, he lies to himself about who Daisy really is, but the lies obviously have a downside as well.

>You can figure out the important part of it almost at once: Every line of dialogue in ''Gatsby'' serves to reveal more about the speaker than the speaker might care to have revealed. The author never permits his use of dialogue to become merely ''realistic,'' with people exchanging flat, information-laden sentences, but contrives time and again to catch all his characters, however subtly, in the very act of giving themselves away.

>I had never understood what Eliot meant by the curious phrase ''objective correlative'' until the scene in ''Gatsby'' where the almost comically sinister Meyer Wolfshiem, who has just been introduced, displays his cuff links and explains that they are ''the finest specimens of human molars.'' Get it? Got it. That's what Eliot meant.

>>16033330
American here: I felt the same way.

>>16033330
The prose quality is fairly good, but only Amerimutts think it is some top-tier novel for the ages.

>>16033330
Quality of the book aside (I love it personally), the cover is absolutely amazing. It's like that /mu/ Loveless meme about how the cover perfectly matches the contents. It just feels right you know?

>Fitzgerald? Um who in the heckin name of Big Keanu Chungus is this? *dabs* Does he have a TIkTok? Was he on CUmtown or something? I can’t believe my teacher assigned me this, I could be reading Dune

>>16042489
>zoomers reading dune
Has there been a Dune resurgence among today's youth? I don't get this meme.

>>16042508
Its just a shitty genre book and they are making a new movie. Was supposed to be pretty soon but idk with COVID

>>16042522
>that picture
Despair is how I would describe my feelings on it.

>>16033330
Why are you reading literature for a moral/message? Stop

Bump

>>16033479
>2013 movie sucked tho
I defend this movie. Its not perfect but its noble

>>16036492
Nick goes to his fucking funeral. Its a whole chapter

>>16039038
Cringe

>>16042489
Holy shit, is this how sad millennials critique Gen Z? I always wondered how it would inevitably come, but this is goddamn embarassing

>>16041611
>Fitzgerald naming the Jew.

Based.

>>16041505
This, meaning is for nonfiction. Novels are just entertainment, lol

>>16041611
What does this even mean? Do I have to read Eliot?

>>16045459
I think i remember that too, then he leaves in a rowboat, right?

>>16045552
He defines it as basically a telling detail that transmits meaning and emotion without laboring the point.
I think it’s generally something a bit more minor than a big symbol like say, the Green light at the end of the dock

>>16045635
thanks anon. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the essay or article? Seems interesting

>>16045650
“Some Very Good Masters” - Richard Yates
New York Times, 1981

>>16045459
>Nick goes to his fucking funeral. Its a whole chapter
Well excuse me, I thought it was a metaphor

>>16040729
It's a shit book

>>16045542
Based low-wit

Bump

>>16045675
Literally the high school reading meme incarnate.

>>16033330
The only lesson I think you can really take away from it in this day and age is "time goes on, don't cling to the past." It kind of gets buried under all the rest though.

>>16049196
See>>16042489

>>16045445
>le ebin hiphop gatsby
"No!"
The soundtrack was somehow more offensive than Leo's "acting". That movie was a fucking mess. It should have NEVER been made.

>>16033590
>>16033479
Look at all the babies talking about their high school-tier book

>>16050818
>it's taught in high-school
>therefore it's high school tier
Retard.

>>16050314
Nah, its all overbearing in the same inauthentic way firzgeralds prose is

>>16050836
Yes genius amerimutt keep reading your entry level highschool books, you are so smart.

>>16051226
don't argue with the retard that lives
in a bubble and reads nothing but fictional
nonsense and might as well be
watching movies and T.V shows instead.

>>16051242
There is no such thing as "non-fiction"

It’s one thing if it’s not your favorite but people saying The Great Gatsby is a bad book are likely /tv/ tourists who don’t actually read and clicked on the thread because they’re vaguely familiar with the plot.
Especially when they’re argument is “fictional nonsense” kek

>>16033330
i always liked the great gatsby idk. i think it very well portrayed the spirit of the age and the march against futility. always loved the last few lines too
> Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning----


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

>>16033330
>yeah so i read the great gatsby and yeah I haven't read much since hs and totally know its reading level is highschool-tier but I don't read much and and my intellect is stunted so I discuses this teen book still

>>16033330
This is the book that poorly educated amerimutts discuss lol

>>16051461
fictional novels from highschool is
all their brain can comprehend.

>>16051242
Nice poem, fag.

>>16051492
>noo you talked shit about my 200 page novel meant for highschoolers

>>16051504
reading 200 pages takes me at least a week that is a whole lot!

>29 posters
>4 low-effort identical responses about Highschool or whatever
>still 29 posters
Whatever at least I don’t have to bump the thread to keep my real responses in the catalogue anymore. Newfags don’t know how to sage I guess

>>16037026
No, just not retarded

>>16051524
Seething

>>16051504
It's not "meant" for high schoolers just because it's taught to them. As if any high schooler actually understood anything about the book - you certainly didn't

>>16051538
It is meant for highschoolers. It's a 200 page novel you fucking brainlet that is easily read by even middle school children. Stop coping and grow up.

>>16051538
>I'm in my 20's and still discuss the great gatsby! !!!

>It's not "meant" for high schoolers just because it's taught to them. As if any high schooler actually understood anything about the book - you certainly didn't

>>16051542
most american adults can barely read at an 8th grade level

>TFW 20 y/o and still discuss a TWO HUNDRED PAGE NOVEL lol

I liked Tender is the Night more but it's still okay. Haven't read it since I was a kid though. It's a pretty American book so naturally Americans will like it more and maybe understand it more.

>>16051536
>>16051542
>>16051558
>>16051614
Alright, what are the last three books you read?

Heh, wrong. Just because this 200 page novel that has a borderline Highschool reading level, does not mean it is meant for HSers!! tHEY Probably didn't even get this 200 page novel !! that anyone with an IQ above 100 could read in a day or two!!!

>>16051658
nigga just because a book is for highschoolers doesn't mean you can't talk about it
literal children's books can be a lot more profund than what meets the eye
you're just shitposting

>>16051542
>>16051545
>>16051558
>>16051614
>>16051658
Dude, you don;t need to keep saying this

>>16051656
Écrits and I'm currently on my third read of Critique of Pure Reason just for some recreational reading and I'm also enjoying some keats which was posted in a previous thread and thought I'd give it a try.

>>16051667
Keep talking about your 200 page highschool novel in your 20's you low IQ brainlet retard. cope

>nigga just because a book is for highschoolers doesn't mean you can't talk about it
>literal children's books can be a lot more profund than what meets the eye
>you're just shitposting

>>16051699
i have 130~ IQ and i was in GATE.