Day 35 : The Great Gatsby - A Book Review

You cannot be regular online book shopper or recommendations pilfer and not have come across this book's name thrown about a bunch of time onto you. It is like the cheeseburgers of classic stories. It is assumed that if you ever have read more than a couple dozen books in your life time. This has to be one of them. Especially if you have a bunch of bengali snobs as friends. So there you go, I've finally read this book. Happy now?

First reason to love - awesome cover!

This book is like a masterclass in novel writing. I wouldn't be surprised if they make students read this book as homework in every first year of every creative writing course. I mean, if nothing else, this book is very well written. The editing is on point. There are no paragraph out of place, no extra adjectives inserted, no words wastefully used. Everything so crisp and apt. Something that I fail a lot at, come to think of it. But Mr Fitzgerald is a natural at it. I am a fan just by that much.

Characters 

Nick Carraway - An unmarried veteran, recently starting out in the bonds business. He is not especially socially adept, but very optimistic and friendly. And as a new resident in a city like West Egg he finds none of those qualities actually amounts to much in here.

Daisy Buchanan - Nick's cousin. The main girl being fought over by the two alpha males. She is sweet, dreamy and the kind of girl who believes it when the fairy tales end with 'they lived happily ever after'.

Tom Buchanan - Daisy's husband, and pure-blood dude. He is rich, strong, flamboyant, charming and a philanderer. He is the kind of guy who has always known success and wealth, and truly believes his destined for nothing less than greatness.

Jay Gatsby - The mysterious filthy rich guy in town. Famous for throwing the most outlandish of parties, everyone is invited. Weekends at his house is filled with the who's who of West Egg. And nobody really knows who he is or why he throws these obscene parties. There are equally obscene and outlandish theories about him. But as they say, the truth is more strange

Plot Summary

The main plot of this book is how a guy who was always destined for greatness, after having amassed great big shiny things, now has come to an unknown town to win back the love he'd once lost. This plot I would guess has been recycled and reused multiple times over the years. I like to think this was the first of those. Must have been pretty fresh back then.

The protagonist is the eponymous Gatsby. A mysterious rich guy, who befriends his new neighbor, invites him to one of his famous parties. And in turn, starts on a path that he was confident he'd planned it all ahead and nothing could go wrong. But it inevitable does. He hadn't considered one important detail - human frailty and naive refusal to accept change or defeat.

Gatsby's main goal here is to get back with Daisy, who is now married to a wealthy alpha male Tom. Tom, though not without secrets of himself, does not take easily to Gatsby's sudden appearance in their lives. And is distrustful of the way his wife looks at him. His wife's brother, the guy who is narrating this story to us is Nick, the guy Gatsby befriends to get closer to Daisy. Nick is like the generic narratoresque character in any movie or book ever. Starts with a introduction about everything, inserts himself into every darn incident, and in the end concludes the story about what he'd learnt post the whole incident. Nothing new to see here.

The conclusion of the book is very Citizen Kane-ish. There is that Rosebud point here where the Nick is confronted with how, even after being the popular guy he was Gatsby in the end, had even lesser true friends than that guy you knew in the high school who could flip a coin off girls behind. Being popular and being friends with, are two different things.

Overall this book is a masterpiece. A classic. There are a lot of times in this book when you will pause and think, hey this is exactly what had happened in that book or that movie. That I suppose is mainly cause this book has always had an impact on so many peoples' creative language. I am sure a lot of writers having read this book have in some way changed how they tell their stories.

This I think is the real success of the book. Even after having been in circulation for nearly nine decades this little book like an annoying friend, will never quit teaching writers how to write. And like most friends, even though we hate being preached, we will still agreed to it do what it says. Just because, sometimes these annoying friends are right. Some times.

Day 10 : Of Mice And Men - Book Review

This is definitely a wonderful book. It was written a long while back, evident in the language and prose. It has very old-fashioned lead characters, setting and manner of dialogue. And since I am starting on a oldie-but-goldie spree this one seemed as good a start as any. I am glad I did.

The lead characters are two migrant ranch-workers who are apparently drifting around in a southern American state. The pair would seem pretty commonplace in any "bromance" movie off late. And since this was written much sooner than any of those became a trend, I think this was the first ones amongst those. One guy is tall and strong and dumb. The other is short and intelligent and sensitive. One is the well-intentioned clumsy dimwit. Other is the cynical closet-optimistic. One who is too young for his age, other older than his. One who likes to pet tiny animals and anything soft, other who has already discovered the world for the hard place that it is. I love them both, namely Lennie and George.

And like most other stories of this age, at the center of all the trouble is a woman. Here this one is never mentioned by name. It's usually 'Curley's wife' or that tart who gives other men the eye, which is old-fashioned-speak for a promiscuous woman. She is described to be very attractive young woman who dreamt of big things for herself, but now has found herself stuck in a loveless marriage. Very Gatsby or Mad Men-ish. 

The plot is pretty straightforward, and predictable. Only because we have now seen or read so many books with similar story. But I am going to give this book a benefit of a doubt. I am going to assume that this was the one that became so successful with its plot that it inspired a chain of copycat writers in its wake. Just because this is actually a well-written honest book. This is a short book, not longer than any typical novella. But still it has so many good that is going for itself that you come to forgive it for not giving its characters a bit more depth. Well, this was the good old days of yore. People are not supposed to have a personality. You are just born, categorized into a specific slot by the society and there you are to stay for the rest of your life. There are not many who did overcome that hurdle during those times. There is a black stable-hand in the book called Crooks whose character explores this side of life during those times.

There is a lot of heart in the book, and a lot heart wrenching scenes. This book, if published now would very well be dismissed off hand for being to mushy. Even with the number of times that the author uses the N-word in this book. This book would never have been edgy enough for the reader of today. And I am fine with that. A good book doesn't necessarily have to be edgy and pushing the boundaries all the times. Sometimes it just needs to have a compelling story that pulls at your heartstrings and makes you feel feelings you've never known. And this book is definitely successful at that.

I wish I'd read this book when I was much younger. Empathy is something that a lot of us could have more of.