Reviewed by Joséphine on
Initial thoughts: For some reason I expected to be enamoured by The Great Gatsby. I wasn't. On one level I found it rather simplistic in a way that causes people to read too much into things. Like that joke about a literature teacher's interpretation of a blue curtain when the author really meant nothing by it. On the other hand, there were subtleties in the story that perhaps not everyone picks up on on their first read — such as Nick Carraway deviating sexuality. I say deviating because anything other than heterosexuality was against the social norms as well as the law in the 1920s.
What didn't sit well with me was the disconnect from the characters. As significant as some of them might have been, they were pushed into the background, left to become the backdrop to Nick's fascination with Gatsby. Perhaps it was precisely because Nick wasn't just a narrator to Gatsby's life but a biased narrator very much part of the action, such that he had little to elaborate about the others beyond their relations to Gatsby.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 13 July, 2015: Finished reading
- 13 July, 2015: Reviewed