[artemisyna]

There's a meandering article here but not much of a thesis.

Even when the author addresses the title of the article itself ("So again: Why this book—for ninety-six years, over and over?") he goes back to meandering.

It seems like the author is trying to say something between "we read it because it's like watching celebrity drama and awful people are fun to watch" or "we read it because it's the American Dream" or "something along those lines, but again, it meanders so badly between unrelated (probably true, or at least opinion) statement to other (probably true, or at least opinion) statement where it ultimately ends up going nowhere.

[klodolph]

The thesis is that we read the book because it’s about performativity, and Americans have a different relationship with performativity than Europeans do. Every paragraph in the article from “so again” onwards is about performativity.

An example of performativity, from the book but not mentioned in the article—Gatsby’s house has bookshelves filled with books, presumably never read, only there for decoration. Gatsby is performing the part of being rich. Since Americans do not have nobility, we take our performance cues (how to act upper class) by imitating Europeans. It’s a hundred years later and we still imitate Europeans and ape European culture when we want to pretend to be rich and upper-class.

[graycat]

My wife got a high end Ph.D. in sociology: E.g., two of her profs were President, American Sociological Society. Well, high end sociology tries to be a science of groups of people.

Well, the theory of that field can start with a statement, observation, claim such as

"It’s a hundred years later and we still imitate Europeans and ape European culture when we want to pretend to be rich and upper-class."

I can believe that some or much of that is true! E.g., way back there when I wanted to learn to cook so I could serve something good to guests, I went for European cooking, sure, especially French cooking. Much of that cooking is still like the first class dinner scene from the movie Titanic! Even now, I'd like to serve guests something from Vienna coffee house cakes -- some of which look spectacular, even if actually they don't taste better than good American apple pie, warm, with good vanilla ice cream!

So, the statement seems clear enough, might seem like good insight, maybe it's obviously true, etc. Still, it turns out, it is usually not easy actually to validate such a statement just from data, e.g., survey data, and associated statistics. More generally, literature, i.e., belle lettre, is awash in statements that maybe one would like to validate with data and statistics as sociology science but which in practice is tough to do.

But for belle lettre, there is a way out!

First, f'get about asking if the statement is true in some scientific or statistical sense.

Second, instead, call the statement art as in the definition "the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". Then look at the statement as an example of such "communication, interpretation", that is, just see if the statement does communicate some emotions, impressions, feelings, beliefs, behaviors, suspicions, etc. of some people, maybe even some strange people with no attempt to consider average, most, or all people.

First, then with a lot of such examples of belle lettre, can accumulate a catalog of possibilities for people, call it a collection of Bayesian statistics priors, as first cut guesses when meet a new person.

Second, if some of those claims, etc., from literature seem to describe ones self, then can start to believe that are not alone, not the Lone Ranger, not a total anomaly different from everyone else.

Uh, I wish my various literature teachers, at least one of them, would have made those points to me!

[yesbabyyes]

> ... they don't taste better than good American apple pie, warm, with good vanilla ice cream!

Ahem... :) "Apple pie was brought to the colonies by the English, the Dutch, and the Swedes during the 17th and 18th centuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pie

[Terr_]

For a small amount of bonus irony, apples themselves are not native to the Americas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange

[machello13]

Yes, a great deal of American food was not invented in America. What's your point?

[hguant]

This article is written in what's becoming a new modern 'style' in which the author doesn't say much of anything at all, but makes references, references, and allusions to modern shibboleths and meta-idioms.

This is the high brow version of a 4chan post - its only purpose is to show how clever the author is, and to make the reader feel clever for being in on it.

[mcphage]

> This article is written in what's becoming a new modern 'style' in which the author doesn't say much of anything at all, but makes references, references, and allusions to modern shibboleths and meta-idioms.

Your comment is written in what's becoming a new modern 'style' in which the author rejects the notion that there can be anything smart besides what they're familiar with, and assumes that if they don't get it, then there must be nothing there to get—so anybody who claims to have gotten something from it must therefore be following some cargo cult.

[hguant]

As you might be able to tell, this comment breaks some of the first guidelines of HN, namely these two

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

In short - I didn't say the things you're implying I do, and your comment comes off as bad faith posturing.

[everybodyknows]

Don't disagree, yet last paragraph seems to claim a thesis:

>Daisy is this man’s objective, but she’s the wrong fantasy. It was never her he wanted. Not really. It was America.

Trouble is, the reviewer is dead wrong on Gatsby's psychology. Gatsby, like the protagonist of Tender, and various characters from his short stories, is a working-out of the central tragedy of Fitzgerald's own life, his failure to find a soul-mate. This is hinted at in Hemingway's Moveable Feast, and laid out fairly plainly in some of his letters.

Gatsby in particular fails because he fixes his desire on an unworthy object, who does not return his love. With mirror symmetry, Gatsby himself is unworthy of the love of a decent woman, being a grifter. The dramatic resolution can only be death for Gatsby.

[Izkata]

So I don't remember anything of the book itself, but I do remember my opinion of it when we read it back in highschool being very similar to your "meandering and going nowhere". Maybe the article's author is such a fan because they see themselves in the book's writing style.