Don't give me that look. You've probably read The Great Gatsby at some point in your life. But let me tell you, the third read-through of such a novel is a wake-up call. I had to read this book so I could teach it to my 11th grade class, which made me really analyze the book so I could teach my students how to analyze it. But since I have almost 15 years more experience than they do, there were things I caught that they did not. And I wondered if The Great Gatsby, known to be a timeless classic, is starting to, well, age. Not of it's own avail, mind you, but the initial interpretation has gone to hell with a new generation of readers with new moral understanding.
For example, the novel is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway. He tells you information out of order and he says he's the "most honest man he knows." This manipulation of facts in sequence makes Nick an unreliable narrator. You truly can't trust him, because what else could he be holding back until a later time? But my students argued that he was honest and it didn't matter when he told you something...as long as he told you. I then posed the question, "Well, he held a number of secrets from his own friends. And he never planned to tell any of them. He knew Tom was cheating on Daisy, Daisy was cheating on Tom, and he never told them. Is that being honest?" And they still argued, "Yes, that information isn't his to tell Tom or Daisy. That's none of his business." So, to the Internet Generation, holding back crucial information still makes you an honest person...and supposedly, a good friend. I wonder if F. Scott Fitzgerald would agree.
There is something lovely about this tragic tale, though. Reading the story again made me really sympathize with Gatsby (though my students had no sympathy for him - he was a creepy stalker in their eyes) and it mirrored our current society's lack of responsibility for poor judgment and actions. There is no justice at the end of the novel. Tom and Daisy stay together, no one gets arrested for the hit and run of Myrtle Wilson, and Gatsby is murdered even though he wasn't the one driving the car. It's like all those corrupt companies that get a little tap on the fingers with a ruler and then keep on going about their business.
And so I rate The Great Gatsby a 7/10. -1 for a confusing beginning, -1 for lengthy sentences that sometimes can put a reader to sleep, and -1 for lacking a real plot until around Chapter 6, when things start to pick up.
