“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s not matter–to-morrow 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.”
I re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, after I heard Hunter S. Thompson remember how he re-wrote the book to get a sense of good style. I didn’t have the patience to write the whole book over, but reading it over made me realize why this truly is an American literary classic.
With so many plot lines, so many themes, ideas, characters, symbols, Fitzgerald effortlessly pieces it all together, weaves so much together, and makes it all come full circle. His story about the upscale culture of the early twenties is about so much more.
It is about the peculiar experience of being American. That strange notion we call the American Dream. The purely American trait of gazing into the future, while holding onto the past, while climbing up the social ladder, simultaneously falling down the morality ladder. The excessiveness amidst success is distinctly an American duality.
Not only is it a compelling story, but it is unbelievably well-written. Everybody can write, but not everybody can use words as an art form. Fitzgerald does just that. His words appear well-chosen, with a well-crafted style which flows how a piece of literature should. Not too simple, not too complex, just the perfect balance.
I suggest everyone reads, or re-reads it, you will find at least something noteworthy.
I’ll end with one of my favorite lines, “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
