GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[Paul Mackin]

My reading of Gatsby would be that G oh so very much IS F. At least
in the important respect that both dreamed of breaking away from their
origins (in F's case the potato famine Irish part of his heritage) and
making it in the dazzling world of money and glamour, both succeeded to a
degree, and both decidedly experienced the downside of the dream. The
difference is that F the artist sees the ambiguity of it all, but it is
unthinkable that this prescience could ever have turned him away from
seeking the big prize. Where does this leave Nick? Nick is the
nice average guy telling the story. Or Nick is the part of F who foresees
the fall, which began shortly after the great novel was written. No need
to add that Zelda's and Daisy's problems were not all that dissimilar.

Readings will vary.

			P.

 
On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, jbor wrote:
> 
> I was interested in your reading of Fitzgerald's Gatsby as the epitome of
> the American "self-made man", and the idea that that wonderful novel is
> somehow affirmational. This would rely on taking Nick Carraway's somewhat
> naive conclusions at face value, and overlooking the shadowy hinted details
> of Gatsby's rather heinous past and his shallowness and irresponsibility in
> the present. Perhaps it is read differently by Americans, but I've always
> envisaged it as an exemplification of the divorce between author and
> narrator. That ashheap between the Eggs and the city, Wilson's appalling
> Garage, Dr Eckleburg's eyes, Daisy and her neglected child, the cheating
> golfer ... it's a tragedy and a savage critique, surely, and sits alongside
> *Death of a Salesman* as another nail in the coffin of the "American Dream"?
> In fact, I think that it is Nick rather than Gatsby who is the real focus of
> the novel, the personification of what it will mean to be American in the
> "brave new world" to come: Gatsby's self-destruction is also the inevitable
> snuffing out of the Jazz Age and its attendant excesses, and of FSG himself;
> with Nick we get the new generation's idealisation of such superficial
> obsessiveness and such waste. FSG is not Nick, nor does he share Nick's
> idealisation of Gatsby, for Gatsby is FSG himself, and the novel is
> catharsis, a manifestation of self-loathing almost (much like Pollock's
> art). Imo.
> 
> best
> 
> 
> 
> ----------
> >From: "Dave Monroe" <monroe at mpm.edu>
> >To: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
> >Subject: Re: GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb
> >Date: Sat, Jul 1, 2000, 5:22 PM
> >
>