So we beat on--

[trinityofone]

Today I am supposed to: write my Great Gatsby essay.

Today I have:

1) Managed a vague outline of my Great Gatsby essay while mostly looking over various bits of the book and sobbing, sobbing, because no book ever has or does move me like this one; it tears me apart and I am totally inadequate to the task of explaining why.

2) Eaten a sandwich.

But seriously, regarding 1)--I maintain and will continue to maintain that Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written, packing more into less than 200 pages than what others can manage in nearly 2,000 (and I have read War and Peace, so I know *g*). I cry every time I read it (and when I'm reviewing my notes to write an essay on it, apparently). Those of you who have read it: does it effect you in the same way? The class I'm writing the essay for is an American Lit class taught at an Irish university; the tutor has stressed that she thinks the novel highlights American themes--do you think that's true? I would say that the themes of Gatsby--trying to recapture the past, yearning to be known, loved--are universal. But then I am American, so I could be projecting. We do that.

What's your favorite book of all time? What book has moved you more than any other?

Comments

[pyrae.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna join in with the minority that really, really hated Gatsby, and I can't entirely explain why probably in the same way you can't explain why you like it. Mostly I suppose it's that I actively disliked all of the characters, and everything that happened to them more or less caused a "serves them right" reaction from me. The world it portrayed was dreary, dull, and depressing, and I could not understand how anyone could live such a life as any of them led without desperately hopping a train for somewhere, anywhere else.