A Gatsbean Odyssey: The Man Himself (1/7)

I’ve never understood The Great Gatsby. Like Odysseus departing for Troy, every time I embark upon reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece I have the highest of hopes only to find myself lost at sea.

The main problem is Jay Gatsby himself. When I first approached the book as an adult, I thought Fitzgerald was offering us an image of the ideal man, an image to which we should all aspire. Perhaps I had this impression because of how perfect Robert Redford appears in the 1974 film, which was forced on us in high school. Perhaps it was because I had been reading a lot of Ayn Rand and assumed Fitzgerald was offering a kind of John Galt: a hero in demeanor and acumen.

 

I was disappointed, then, to find that whatever virtues Gatsby may possess, he is a fake and a crook. Of low birth by early 20th-Century American standards, he allies himself with bootleggers, World Series-riggers and thugs to become the gaudiest of the nouveau riche. He is desperate for a welcome by old money and, even worse, he has a serious crush on Daisy Buchanan, the most vapid and annoying character I have ever encountered in literature.

This confused me. Was Fitzgerald criticizing successful self-made men?

And yet Gatsby remains admirable. He is intelligent, capable, polite, kind, equable, and faithful to a fault. He shows a remarkable ability to create himself, exemplified by his to-do list as a boy: dumbbell exercise, practice elocution, study inventions, and so forth. He is too good for his own parties and doesn’t attend. He may be a copy of the gentleman of wealth, but he is a testament that some copies are very good, so good as to equal or even best their inspiration. Thus, Nick Carraway’s parting words for his neighbor are no surprise:

“‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’”

But this solves nothing. It would be one thing if he were a complex character with contradictory elements, but I always feel as if the two sides of Jay Gatsby fit together poorly. Each half undermines rather than complements the other.

What to make of such a man? I don’t know, and multiple readings have brought me little closer to an integrated picture of the whole character.

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