I was lucky not to have The Great Gatsby ruined for me by having to read it in high school. I borrowed it from the library a couple years ago, and wondered if it could live up to the massive hype around it. I have to say that it does.
Mencken's critique seems to be that for all the craftsmanship Fitzgerald displays on the page, the story itself is rather thin and contrived. I don't think I'd disagree with that, though it is interesting that we still read (and teach!) this book a hundred years later. It has a hold on the American psyche not just because the writing is superb (some pages are truly astonishing), but because it feels uniquely American. There is still a recognizable reflection even today in the mirror that Fitzgerald holds up in Gatsby.
Dunno -- I got it in high school, and it's one of the few "class" books that have stayed with me through the years. I'd say On the Road, A smattering of Shakespeare, and 1984 did that as well.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
You can't look at modern life without seeing that.
The BBC's In Our Time discussed Gatsby last year. The guests had a great comment: at the time the story in Gatsby was considered trashy and not worthy of a great novel. It would be as if a great modern author wrote a novel about the Kardashians. Today's readers don't have that problem and can enjoy the great writing.
I was lucky enough to read it (I think for the first time) in an American Lit of the 20s class I took on the side in grad school. The professor, who I knew well, was a Fitzgerald and Hemingway scholar. It's too bad classes weren't routinely recorded back then.
I wish I saw what you saw. I was also fortunate not to have it ruined in high school. I didn't read it until my 50s.
I just didn't get it. All I see is a bunch of horrible people being stupid and terrible to each other.
I don't doubt that that's a very American thing. I just don't want to read about it, no matter how well it's written.
Inconsistency note: I love doing Shakespeare, even though it's precisely a bunch of stupid people treating each other horribly, but very, very well written.
Gatsby, like most officially great novels, is the least good of Fitzgerald's books. Tender is the Night and The Beautiful and the Damned were way better. There was something about critics of the time who needed to suffer to appreciate anything and it was good of Mencken to hold Fitzgerald to his own standards, but what made authors of the era great were the books that were actually enjoyable. When you look at other authors of the era, where W. Sommerset Maughm is known for his miserable slog, Of Human Bondage, when The Razors Edge, Cakes and Ale, and the Painted Veil were way better, and he's even credited with being the precursor of the spy novel with his Ashenden stories. Hemmingway was a short story writer, but somehow he is remembered for the fawning reception of Farewell to Arms. Evelyn Waugh was savagely funny if you have read Scoop, Decline and Fall or Black Mischief, but Brideshead Revisited was the critical success that got made into a sappy miniseries.
It's like critics take your least spectacular and most vulnerable work and tag you with it as your best so as to ensure you are never known for the great stuff that got you on their radar and that might put their own work to shame. However, it doesn't matter, their lives are absurd. Quite a number of them make a living criticising food now, mostly because it can't defend itself.
The era of great criticism that began with characters like Mencken and, earlier, Bierce ended with the death of Christopher Hitchens I think. None of them, including Vidal, or Hunter S. Thompson would survive the culture today. I think it's too bad that the idea of a literary rivalry now seems as dated as fighting a duel with sabres, and it's as though there is nobody writing today who is capable of putting down a challenger when instead they can claim to be the victim of harassment to attract a mob. Mencken was great, and given Fitzgeralds other work, his Gatsby review was an act of mercy, but I bet he would be banned from social platforms and probably have trouble getting a bank account if he were writing today. Hard to say what we lost, but reading Mencken now, it's definitely gone.
Not sure I agree. You, as with most critics actually, seem to be asserting there are clear "quality" lines to be drawn between great novels. IMO we're into the realm of subjectivity here and it's really up to the reader to decide what they like.
I didn't like Tender is the Night too much, and I love Hemingway's novels more than his stories (generally), chiefly The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Do I know better than you or do famous critics know better than me? I don't think so.
I went on a Mencken binge a few years ago and read a lot of his (mostly excellent) writing. I was surprised to find a recorded interview with him, done in 1948:
I’ve never quite been able to put into words why The Great Gatsby falls short of my expectations for a “classic” novel, but Mencken nails it. This was a fascinating review and i look forward to exploring more of Mencken’s writings. Thank you for sharing.
Length is probably a factor. It packs a lot of nice prose in a slim little volume. Its simple story and characters are, at least, more complex than your average pulp adventure tale—combine that and the length and it's just about an ideal Baby's First Real Literary Novel, which is probably why it's assigned so much in high school and 100-level undergrad literature courses.
I also take a bit more depth from between the lines in the novel, than it may always get credit for, but that may just be me. Largely due to Fitzgerald sticking (perhaps too much) to his perspective character's limitations, there's a lot happening just off the page. A lot of suggestion, a lot left to the reader to fill in, which I personally enjoy.
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Mencken has a point: Gatsby, like much famous Science Fiction, derives its strength neither from story nor from depth of characterisation, but from the world which it depicts.
The silly criticism of the story itself is the first paragraph, true, but then he goes on, beautifully, about Fitzgerald's writing, in a way that you'd rarely see today.
As for the characters: he's right, the author doesn't go inside their heads. In that way, it's more like a play or a movie, where we can only see them from the outside. I think that's perfectly fine. "Third person omniscient" is not the only voice a novelist can have.
I have always been genuinely baffled by the admiration people have for The Great Gatsby. It’s not the best F Scott Fitzgerald book. It’s not even the best novel of that year (Mrs Dalloway is so much better it pains me to mention it in the same sentence).
One thing about the The Great Gatsby (and I do think it's a masterpiece), is the famous closing paragraph - does anyone else find it just a bit overwrought?
jihadjihad|3 years ago
Mencken's critique seems to be that for all the craftsmanship Fitzgerald displays on the page, the story itself is rather thin and contrived. I don't think I'd disagree with that, though it is interesting that we still read (and teach!) this book a hundred years later. It has a hold on the American psyche not just because the writing is superb (some pages are truly astonishing), but because it feels uniquely American. There is still a recognizable reflection even today in the mirror that Fitzgerald holds up in Gatsby.
wiredfool|3 years ago
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
You can't look at modern life without seeing that.
deeg|3 years ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r4tq
elliekelly|3 years ago
ghaff|3 years ago
jfengel|3 years ago
I just didn't get it. All I see is a bunch of horrible people being stupid and terrible to each other.
I don't doubt that that's a very American thing. I just don't want to read about it, no matter how well it's written.
Inconsistency note: I love doing Shakespeare, even though it's precisely a bunch of stupid people treating each other horribly, but very, very well written.
dredmorbius|3 years ago
It is quite the yarn.
motohagiography|3 years ago
It's like critics take your least spectacular and most vulnerable work and tag you with it as your best so as to ensure you are never known for the great stuff that got you on their radar and that might put their own work to shame. However, it doesn't matter, their lives are absurd. Quite a number of them make a living criticising food now, mostly because it can't defend itself.
The era of great criticism that began with characters like Mencken and, earlier, Bierce ended with the death of Christopher Hitchens I think. None of them, including Vidal, or Hunter S. Thompson would survive the culture today. I think it's too bad that the idea of a literary rivalry now seems as dated as fighting a duel with sabres, and it's as though there is nobody writing today who is capable of putting down a challenger when instead they can claim to be the victim of harassment to attract a mob. Mencken was great, and given Fitzgeralds other work, his Gatsby review was an act of mercy, but I bet he would be banned from social platforms and probably have trouble getting a bank account if he were writing today. Hard to say what we lost, but reading Mencken now, it's definitely gone.
johndhi|3 years ago
I didn't like Tender is the Night too much, and I love Hemingway's novels more than his stories (generally), chiefly The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Do I know better than you or do famous critics know better than me? I don't think so.
keiferski|3 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_(critic)
tsujamin|3 years ago
keiferski|3 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpGzpqU-b04
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
marcusverus|3 years ago
pmayrgundter|3 years ago
elhudy|3 years ago
yamtaddle|3 years ago
I also take a bit more depth from between the lines in the novel, than it may always get credit for, but that may just be me. Largely due to Fitzgerald sticking (perhaps too much) to his perspective character's limitations, there's a lot happening just off the page. A lot of suggestion, a lot left to the reader to fill in, which I personally enjoy.
Tomte|3 years ago
> Evil. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
> There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.
myrmidon|3 years ago
> The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
dredmorbius|3 years ago
The one extant audio interview I'm aware of was made at the Library of Congress, in 1948. It's now available on YouTube:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=QpGzpqU-b04>
082349872349872|3 years ago
lostlogin|3 years ago
Their comment combined with yours might explain my bemusement once I’d finished it.
‘What was that and why is it so well regarded?’
AlbertCory|3 years ago
The silly criticism of the story itself is the first paragraph, true, but then he goes on, beautifully, about Fitzgerald's writing, in a way that you'd rarely see today.
As for the characters: he's right, the author doesn't go inside their heads. In that way, it's more like a play or a movie, where we can only see them from the outside. I think that's perfectly fine. "Third person omniscient" is not the only voice a novelist can have.
seanhunter|3 years ago
Nomentatus|3 years ago
Tycho|3 years ago
ghaff|3 years ago
ADDED: I think there's a rhythm to the words and that presents a good opportunity to see how natural the TTS is.
jedbrown|3 years ago