Monday, May 9, 2011

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

     The Great Gatsby tells the tale of Gatsby's love for Daisy Buchanan. He was in the army and she was a beautiful, popular young girl. They meet again after years under Nick's supervision, but nothing is as it was. Time changes things.

     I cannot say that I enjoyed The Great Gatsby. The novel didn't really seem to have a destination. Few things happened, but when they did, they seemed rather unconnected. Nick meets Daisy and Tom for dinner, then he sees Gatsby for the first time, then he goes to Gatsby's party. Suddenly Gatsby and he are the best of pals. I just didn't see any point in this.
     The characters themselves weren't particularly appealing either. The only one I actually liked even a bit was Gatsby, and maybe Nick. Gatsby was a really generous guy. I was fond of him for her his kind heart. Plus, I just felt bad for the guy. He was in love with someone he just shouldn't love. She was taken.
     At first, I thought Daisy was a great character. She was on the fence between her husband and the man she once loved. I could see how hard that might be. As time went on though, I realized that she wasn't a good person in the least. In essence, she was simply using Gatsby to have a little fun. After all, rich people can destroy things and then just pick up and move on, leaving others to pick up the pieces. That's exactly what she and Tom did at the end too. Things went wrong, so they left and Nick got to deal with the mess.
     Jordan I'm still not sure about. She was cocky, that's for sure. I didn't like her because she really couldn't care less about others. At the same time, she wasn't nearly as bad as Daisy turned out to be. She certainly had more of a personality than Daisy did as well. Daisy didn't really have any opinion of her own.
     All in all, this was not what I was hoping for or expecting. I suppose I set my standards too high because it is a classic. I wanted something that was timeless, and perhaps this is, but it didn't touch me the way it seems to have touched the world.
Rating: 2.7

1 comment:

Chris Phillips said...

Classic. Would have loved to have been there the night Andy Kauffman read it for a comedy show.