Book of the Week

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Recommended by Thomas Wong

At once a belief underpinning perhaps the most advanced nation on earth and a seething conflation of avarice, arrogance, and narcissism, the pursuit of the elusive American Dream has definitively shaped modern society, acting as both cause and catalyst of innovation the world over. Aptly does the cautionary tale of the Great Gatsby illustrate such failures of man ever-proud.

For this particular narrative, we find ourselves four years after the Great War, in the West Egg district of New York. Following the activities of a young and aspiring Nick Carraway, we soon discover the volatile world of the exceptionally wealthy, where the surreptitious machinations of men too immature for the responsibilities of wealth run rampant.

Haunting the initial chapters of the book, the enigmatic character of Mr Gatsby is everywhere and nowhere, a remarkably prominent topic of conversation yet with the more substantial and tangible aspects of his acquaintance being withheld for future vendition. Indeed, in the ineffable Jay Gatsby Fitzgerald has created a striking centrepiece to his work, whose eccentric nature and mysterious background captivates both Long Island inhabitant and reader alike.

 

An ostensibly perfect gentleman, through Nick Carraway we are privy to a far more explicit rendering of Mr Gatsby's character, where we find a hash of skewed values - Gatsby is obsessed with superficial qualities of sophistication and aristocracy, fabricating a noble background and decorous mannerisms in attempts to court high society - and lovesickness so acute it would make Romeo's suicide seem trivial.

 

However, it becomes apparent that such affections are not mutual, bringing us on to the matter of one Daisy Buchanan, the subject of Gatsby's enterprises. Once again, a charming outward display of light-heartedness and innocence is but a façade, with Daisy's true intentions aligned to selfishness and her only object a fulfilment of her desire for material luxury and pecuniary wealth; all of which she finds in her brutish husband Tom. Tom Buchanan is a strong, stubborn, and hard-headed man, inflexible in his views and desires. The story goes that, as a college athlete, Tom became a nationwide star, the consequent years being ‘an anti-climax’ and expended in the pursuit of the thrills he knew as a student.

Given this incredible roster of impeccably stable minds, Fitzgerald delivers an intricate web of ulterior motive and scandalous affair, leaving our bemused narrator Nick to make sense of a tragic tale of love and deception. All throughout this adventure, Fitzgerald excels at creating passages that flood a reader's senses, as in a certain transcendent flashback of Daisy and Gatsby's past. Whilst describing the two lovers taking a walk five years prior, Fitzgerald renders a beautifully poignant scene of fantastic and unabated love, exploring Gatsby's deep desire for Daisy, who for him is more than a lover - a purpose, an ideal for which he strives. Delivered elegantly through a supple blend of synesthesia and metaphor, this represented a personally touching moment for me as a pure display of emotion, powerful and affective.

Further, perhaps quite a disregarded, nonetheless charming passage, is Daisy and Jordan's introduction, in which we are taken through the Buchanan's sitting room on a breeze, pervasive and magnificent. What I found really special here is Fitzgerald's incredible ability to imbue the wind with motion and have it whistle across the room, quite a feat of literature.

Taken as a whole, The Great Gatsby is a superbly penned investigation into the cogs and gears of American society, brutally stripping away the layers of what really makes up the American Dream. A classic and timeless story, this piece has garnered praise from the very greatest of writers and critics, definitively American and proudly so. However, whether it has earned the title of 'The Ultimate American Novel' is perhaps more sensitive. Though Fitzgerald's work is undeniably a classic piece of literature, personally, there is not much at hand that places it securely above other works. Perhaps one day a truly excellent work will take its place on top of the American literary world.