* I am a little behind in
“Goodreads Book Reading Challenge, 2012”. So I am reading only short books and
this one has a mere-200 pages.
Beginning Line:
“In my younger and more
vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in
my mind ever since.”Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told
me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the
advantages that you've had.”
Read, mind said wow, such an intriguing
line, yes, you are absolutely correct, Mr. Fitzgerald. Sometimes we forget this
and what we do? Just picture the people in a way we want, attribute the
characters we seen not in them, but in our eyes only, not ready to understand
them, not ready to give a least shit on them - suppose we do, that is also the
way we feel, began to criticize them. We criticize them saying this, that,
every bullshit but not ready to accept that he/she is not me and he/she hasn’t
had the advantages that we have had.
The Great Gatsby isn’t great
instead it’s a tragic tale, simple but well composed, finely narrated, about
Jay “Great” Gatsby, who came from rages into riches, who orchestrated opulent
parties, but himself absent in most of them, who loved a single woman till his
death, for that he was killed.
I must appreciate the author. The
writing is intense, full of life in detailing the things, describing the scenes
with a realistic aura that looks like a painter painted an ordinary hut but
with so much precision and passion that it is looking like a villa in a
countryside.
The best thing about this book is
Nick as a narrator who observed every virtue of the Gatsby. Other characters
are empty. The story started and ended very quickly which, might be avoided the
unnecessary details, but left the story incomplete. Gatsby is good, but he
could have been great only if didn’t choose Daisy. Daisy is a woman with a fiery burning passion. She chooses Tom to marry over
Gatsby. But she wants Gatsby’s love. About Tom, I don’t have any specific
opinion. Actually I don’t consider him much as a part of the story much either,
even Tom was the reason for the tragedy. Tom and Daisy, as Nick said, are
simply careless people who do things carelessly for which people like Gatsby
are needed to pay, a high price, sometimes with people lives. In the end, what
happened between Nick and Jordan, I didn’t understand.
“Can’t
repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”.
This is what Gatsby said. At that
moment my reaction was “what fuck he thinks he is doing”. Recently, I just failed in that.
But, whole heartily, I wished he could do that; change the Past and make Daisy
love him. Is it possible to change the Past? I, myself want to do that; undo
the things I did and do the things I didn’t. I know Gatsby is not only the one
and will not be the one who tried to repeat the past. But, all these for whom?
For the people like Daisy who took the careless decisions for which Gatsby
needed to take the blame. When he said that, I am totally afraid of the thought
that is Gatsby inspiring me to repeat the past which is almost succeeded in
erasing myself out from my own life. In the end, Gatsby failed, no defeated by
his love for Daisy, most accurately Daisy herself made Gatsby to be
defeated.
Ending Line:
Gatsby believed in the green
light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us
then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms
farther ... And one fine morning ---”
“So we beat on, boats against the
current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Mr. Fitzgerald again bewildered
me with unimpeachable words. I completed
the book. Just sitting there, thinking this phrase only. What I was feeling, didn’t
know. I didn’t get the answer why did Daisy leave Gatsby? May be I will never
know the answer.
