The Great Gatsby is the perfect summer novel. If you read it in school, read it again; but forget about all the silly Big Themes of which teachers are fond.
The problem with all the Great Book twaddle with which the book’s reputation has been embalmed, is the sneaking suspicion that, without the critical apparatus, the book wouldn’t be, all by itself, much fun to read — that it is one of those books that is Good For You, like oatmeal, or broccoli, and needs to be sugar-coated to go down easy.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Great Gatsby is first of all a crime novel — in roaring ’twenties New York, a bootlegging gangster is murdered after he puts the moves on a rich socialite. That’s the story.
Yes, it does contain a hundred or so pages of the most magnificent modern prose; and yes, one of its tastiest surprises is how after reading such a slight story about insignificant, mundane people, doing foolish things, one puts the book down feeling so very moved.
It is a great book but without seeming so. Only afterwards does it linger in the memory and grow in significance, not to Literature (whatever that is) but to the reader’s own soul, and reflections on her life.
Get the book and read it — it’s in print, in a handsome edition set in beautiful type.
