[andrewce]

I've read "Gatsby" over 25 times in the last 5 years, and have taught it twice. It's my favourite piece of literature by far, and would be my nominee for "Most Beautifully Written Book In The English Language" (should such an award exist).

After you are finished, go back and re-read the first 2 pages or so (until the double-carriage return); they take on a whole new meaning when the end of the novel is known.

[cturner]

Found it through Google books. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FV5R6_FgLUAC&printsec...

Do you mean the idea of decay? That Gatsby is constantly building himself up, but prayed on by time and dust?

[andrewce]

I mean the whole thing. The advice given to Nick by his father (in his younger and more vulnerable years), the statements he makes about how others seem to see him as a confidante, and also the way he characterizes Gatsby ("a romantic readiness for hope"), and definitely the last sentence. Additionally: Nick's statements about conduct ("Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes...") and the "fundamental sense of decency". There's so much here.

When I taught "Gatsby", I did so in a Language & Rhetoric course. Instead of doing the standard New Critical Theory thing, we evaluated the statements Nick presents as factual, particularly those he makes about himself and about Gatsby, with the larger goal of 1) building a broader understanding of character as it relates to language and the presentation of the self, and 2) looking for inconsistencies (the end of Ch. 3, for example: "Everyone is guilty of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine. I am one of the most honest men I know." (paraphrased slightly)).

I can't speak conclusively to whether or not this was the best possible approach, but I will say that I had more than 30 students (out of just over 120) come up to me and say "Mr. E, this is the best book we've ever read in an English class." I'll also say that class discussions were livelier and better informed than any of the college literature courses I took (students were required to use quotations to back up almost every evaluative statement they made, and by the end of the 3-4 weeks we spent on "Gatsby" knew the book almost as well as I did. I cannot say the same for even my senior/grad level literature courses in college).

[cturner]

Thanks.

English was my favourite subject at school, but I didn't get Fitzgerald at all. I remember arguing with my teacher around the introduction - the teacher was trying to talk about the prejudices that the narrator brings to the book, but I thought the opening was Fitzgerald's attempt to convey that the narrator was largely free of prejudice.

Something put me back onto all this all about six months ago. I've just reread _Tender is the Night_ (fifteen years on after a couple of retries. I don't think I finished it at school although was somehow familiar with some of the end). I'm pleased I did, and now feel I'm doing better with that than Gatsby, which I'll tackle after I've finished _The Beautiful and the Damned_.

I will be content only when I feel that I know what Fitzgerald was trying to say.

If you're in London at a time and would be happy to let me buy you coffee to discuss Gatsby further, that would be much appreciated. There's lots of things I don't really get - valley of ashes, owl-eyed man, significance of who turns up at the funeral. As well as the arc itself. My email is in my profile. I do occasional trips to NY, Chicago and Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide too if you're around any spots there.

[jokermatt999]

Do you still have your notes for that course? I've been meaning to reread Gatsby for a while, and it sounds like this could be an interesting way of looking at it.