Gatsby!

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

I'm sure since you are reading this you have either, read, seen, or heard about The Great Gatsby in someway. Now, I do not fancy myself to be a critic of any kind, especially of such an amazing book, but these are just my thoughts, and comments on my all-time favorite novel.

To start off I am just going to say that I love this novel. It is one of my most worn out books in my collection, and it is literally falling apart at the seams. I have highlighted every quote, and sentence in this book! I think that Fitzgerald was a man wise beyond his years. I was first introduced to Gatsby in high school. I had never heard of the book before then and like most of the kids in my class, honestly didn't even read it. Spark-notes, my friend. You can find every answer to a reading quiz in the short paraphrases on there. Honestly I can remember going online and even finding the answers on Google, but I digress. I only started paying attention when my teacher started actually reading the book in class. I heard the quote, “You see I usually find myself among strangers, because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me," and of course being a teenager then I had just assumed that bad things had already happened to me, so I fell in love. Anyways, that's basically the back story to me and Gatsby.

"The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece. The best reason to read literature is for pleasure." To me that's what this book is all about, although the ending may not have been what everyone wanted, it is still a joy to read and a book that I recommend to everyone. To summarize, Nick Carraway is the narrator of the story, but Jay Gatsby is the main character. He was born a poor boy, named James Gatz, and by a bit of luck, he turned his entire life around. He went from poor to extremely wealthy, and he basically centered his life around a woman he fell in love with 5 years earlier, Daisy. Now, Daisy was from "old money" basically meaning, that she and her husband Tom Buchanan, had basically had it passed down from their families. The narrator decides he is going to get away for the summer, and he finds himself in a little cottage right beside this enormous mansion. Jay figures out that Nick is related to Daisy, so he sends an invitation to Nick to come over during a huge party one night, he meets Gatsby, and they come up with a plan for Daisy to come over to Nick's for tea and Gatsby will just happen to swing by. Well, this all takes place and Jay and Daisy start an affair, while the entire time Tom has been seeing a woman named Myrtle. Jay wants Daisy too admit to Tom that she never loved him and to leave him and come live with him. They all end up going to a lunch when Daisy admits how bored she is and asks Gatsby if he wants to go to the city and they take Tom's car, while Tom, Nick, and Daisy's friend ride in Gatsby's car. They race to the city and get a suite at the plaza. There Tom and Gatsby get into it because Tom suspects Jay of lying about going to Oxford and then Jay admits to the affair and that Daisy loves him. Daisy gets frazzled and her and Gatsby leave in his car. Myrtle sees the car coming and runs in the street thinking that it's Tom and Daisy accidentally hits her and kills her. Tom and them drive up next and Myrtles husband accuses Tom of killing Myrtle and he tells him that it was Jay. So after all of this Jay is waiting for Daisy to call him by his pool and Myrtle's husband comes up and shoots him. Daisy and Tom end up moving and Nick leaves too after being the only one to attend Gatsby's funeral, and that's the end.

After reading the book thousands of times, I still get to the last page and expect there to be a happy ending. I think that after Tom finds out Daisy realizes that she has always loved Jay and then they get together in the end. She divorces Tom, moves in with Jay, and they live the coveted life that everyone wants to have when they find the one they love. I think that Tom should have just stayed with Myrtle because they had more in common then him and Daisy. Myrtle loved the glamorous life and her and Tom got along pretty well... when she wasn't talking about Daisy. I think that Daisy should have grown up and admitted to her adultery instead of running away from her problems like the little cunt we all know her to be now. That or she should have never led Gatsby on, because she could have been planning to stay with Tom the entire time.

Honestly I would love to say that this book was revised and is now a happy story, but it does have some lessons to learn from it.

1. You can NOT repeat the past. You need to live in the now. They are in the past for a reason, and you should leave it at that just like Nick says in the book.
2. The " American Dream" is alive and real. It may mean different things to different people ,but it is definitely out there.
3. You should not let love blind you.
4. DAISY IS A CUNT. It broke my heart for Jay. He didn't deserve any of that.

There are of course some honorable mention quotes that I was going to add to this, so here they are for your enjoyment.

• “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”
• “His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
• “He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.”

• "You always look so cool."

Thanks for reading!