What makes the novel The Great Gatsby, great? It is a small enough novel with simple enough story line. Lovers re-united after one of them is married & husband helping crucial mis-understanding that kills the upstart and wife returns to husband. The writing is good, even very good. The characters are fairly drawn & the story moves at rapid pace. The time period is exciting with the parties and the general euphoria that was the pinnacle of jazz era. Thing to note is that Gatsby was not a best seller when it was released. It sold significantly less as compared to other Fitzgerald books. It is a book whose appreciation and place in popular culture has enhanced as time has gone by.
Two main themes that always accompany Gatsby are its foreshadowing of Great Depression & the American dream. American dream for me makes sense. The books infers a story of a man who was willing to do anything to make money. In itself, this is not something which is unique to America. What is unique is that with money, Gatsby was able to throw parties & get social acceptance. So the ability to reach the top of social strata by spending money was American dream & something that was quite different from the aristocratic way of rest of world at that point in time. I have not read of too many books from 20’s but Gatsby is the one which is best known example of realization of this American dream and this thing, for me, is one of the reason why it is so relevant in terms of understanding that period & American dream in general.
As for Great Depression & Gatsby foreshadowing it, I do not believe it to be the case. Gatsby did not stop parties because he grew poor. He stopped because he had achieved his dream of being with Daisy. Also his death was not because of his excess but because someone else manipulated the events and he paid by life for trying to do noble thing.
And this takes me to second part of American dream. I will call it American reality. It is that achieving what you want is not enough as you always want something more, something unattainable. Gatsby did not just want Daisy but he also wanted to her to acknowledge that he was her only true love. He believed in it and her being his only true love. And this belief was the end of him. He was not happy that daisy loved him. He wanted her to say that he was her true love. And his money was not able to help him achieve this. And this is why he is like a bewildered child as he is not able to understand why daisy does not acknowledge him that he is only one. Here is Gatsby, with his big mansion, lots of money, social status of being elite with a girl that is with him and still wanting more.
And if you see US today, it is still the same. Bush or Obama are Gatsby’s of today. Bush launched attack in Iraq and expected people there to welcome him with flowers instead of guns. He had freed them from a Tyrant after all. Obama became president and expected everyone to get reasonable just because he was president and people had voted for his message of hope. This childlike expectation that they will get everything just because they got what they wanted in material terms and being unable to understand when reality is otherwise is strain that runs even today in Americans. And for me, this makes Gatsby great. It captures the American dream and the American reality.
And the book is gives some insight into why America is dream of so many. There is this underlying innocence to Gatsby as a character. A nobleness that comes through even though he might be involved in sordid activities. He is a dreamer who wants love. And the society/culture allows him to go for his dreams and his money makes him acceptable. In a world stratified by class, caste, religion, ethnicity, this was representation of society where only thing that was required was money. Money that anyone can make anyhow. For those who could never be elite in their existing society because of reasons mentioned above, I can understand the powerful attraction of being in society that allows you to reach top purely by making money, which is untainted by any of those prejudices.
So for me, the well written story that brought home all the things I wrote above is what made The Great Gatsby a novel that I loved.
Coming to movie, instead of focusing on superficial things like jazz music or hip hop music, Luhrmann got the main things right. The excess of the 20’s with loud parties, the casting of characters and the underlying wistfulness of the book. Nick is plain, Gatsby is magnetic, Tom is brute & Daisy is pitiably human. I think that the movie has got all this right. And Dicaprio has provided a presence that is in tune with character. He is innocent but canny. A dreamer who is unable to accept the reality. I liked the movie a lot because of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment