how old were you when you accepted this was a masterpiece? i

He's a nonentity to me. Nobody takes him seriously - Sad!

>>7617336
>i disliked this in grade 8
>i hated it in 10th grade
>and i acted like I was above it in university
>reading it now ... it's an obvious masterpiece

This was literally me but with Catcher in the Rye.

>>7617336
Sorry I read literature, not dated Slice of Life genre fic

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Currently had to read it for an assignment. Not gonna lie, at first I was interested, half way through I despised it and by the end I glorified it.

The prose and story are beyond anything I had expected but I gotta say, the dialogue (and certain scenes like the dinner at the first chapter) leave little to be desired.

>>7617347
Currently reading this for the first time. It's absolutely cancerous, I've enjoyed John Green more. Swear to me it gets better than being nothing more than bitchy whining and the repetition of every other phrase.

>>7617365
What are you, 15?

>>7617346
Fuck off naby

it was certainly not the eleventh-grade coursework and class discussions which brought me to that realization

>>7617368
19, English isn't my first language so I'm only getting to this shit now.

>getting butthurt over people's ages on a Mongolian smoke signalling symposium anyway

>>7617393
Actually I'm just looking down on you for your tastes in Literature on a Literature-specific discussion board.

>>7617368
I think this for half the threads on here. So many people wank over summer reading books.

>>7617418
not knowing the meme. go back to reddit

>>7617336
Idk man. I'm reading The Beautiful and the Damned now and I'm convinced that the writing is good, but the subject matter, dialogue, and characters are all cheesy.

Bored by it in 8th grade grew into it 11th grade.

I wonder how influenced by The Great Gatsby Pynchon was. I wouldn't underestimate it. The way cleverness is an absolute priority to the narration and the sense of enigma that Pynchon took to a completely differently level by not answering his own mystery resemble Fitzgerald's voice. I don't think a true fan of The Crying of Lot 49 could dislike The Great Gatsby.

It sucks that this lifeless shit is his most famous work. He should be known primarily for Tender is the Night and This Side of Paradise

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I loved it as soon as I read it. I was only sixteen and read it over the summer, the year before we were required to at my high school.

Later that next school year, my teacher was out sick during our class discussion and the subsitute had no clue what the book was even about. So, I ended up having to teach the entire class why the book was such a masterpiece and connect it to their own lives. About half the class listened as I tried to keep a room full of bored teenagers interested in it for an hour. Nobody else talked the entire time.

>mfw

Granted, I did think that I changed some opinions about the book, so it may have been worth it.

>>7617835
That would fit with my loathing both. Thanks.

I liked it very much as a 6th grader, then again in high school.
As of lately I'm getting a little sick of it though.

>>7617336
I accepted it was a masterpiece back when I first read it, but I didn't care for it much. Now I go back and read it and I come away with the feeling that Gatsby was the most fake of all the characters, Tom was genuine, and Daisy was far smarter than Nick or anyone else seems to realize.

it's insane that high school teachers can't even properly convey Gatsby's status as an inoffensive front for wolfsheim's criminal activities and what it means to the other characters

It's good, but not Fitzgerald's best. His distinctive prose and style really come out in Beautiful and Damned. Extravagant (erring slightly on excessive) language.

>>7617336

>and i acted like I was above it in university

literally 99% of /lit/ when it comes to any book that isn't Finnegans Wake

>>7617365
>he enjoyed John Greene more than catcher in the rye

Learn 2 read

It's great and Fitzgerald was the perfect one to write it because he was deranged and deluded in similar ways as his characters are.

I recommend Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", it's a good read in general but especially for the long section describing Hemingway getting angry with Fitzgerald's insane high maintenance hijinks.

>>7617336
It's autobiographical masturbation and I've never seen any other than historic value to it.
Also never gotten around to Catcher in the Rye, my high school (mid-80s) let us skip some "classics" in favor of other literature.

>>7617336
I had more or less the same experience as you.

In my adult reading of it, I was struck not only by the quality of the prose, but also how ahead of its time it was. his seems to have been the style that everyone else followed. In that sense it's like Citizen Kane; the impact of the groundbreaking quality is lessened because it influenced everything that came after, we're used to it now. and yet, like Kane, it's still a fantastic work judged against the work that's followed.

>>7617336

I'm rereading it now. I always kinda liked Fitzgerald bit after reading a lot of prose and poetry from a few pages I'm already seeing just how fucking well written this book is. Nick's personality just floods everything over high-beams. Reminds me a bit of Moby-Dick in that sense so far.

>>7618347

(also I'm 20)

>>7617365

How can you enjoy John Green but not this? He set out (and failed) to copy the bitchy whining of the coming-of-age man.

>>7617835
lot 49 is probably pound for pound my favorite writing ever
you've convinced me to go pick up gatsby for the first time in years

hope you're right

>how old were you when you accepted this was a masterpiece?

What's so great about story that is about a guy who had to spend time with an adulterer and his ditzy slut wife and some rich cück who finally got laid by the said adulterer's ditzy slut wife?

>>7618565
Prose.

>>7618565
Literally memes: the posts

>>7617336
I realised it was utter trite at the tender age of 25.
It's the Citizen Kane of /lit/, appears as mature but really it's just of juvenile substance that takes itself too seriously. There's a reason it's read in school.

>>7618767
Nah

>>7618770
You're right, the real reason it's read in school is because of it's slave moralistic themes. Propagate the youth!

>>7618771
Alright

I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life

>>7618784
This is supposed to be its selling point? Blaaah.

Into the trash!! :D
It's really crap.

>>7617365
>>7617336
The ending was garbage, laughable.
>Now that G is dead, I will host the funeral! I must!
>I'm calling his friends to inform them! They must know!
>Huh? You can't come to the funeral? Huh?
>Surely the next person must show up! I am confident about this!
>Huh? Really? You also can't come? But how's that? Weren't you always there at his parties? Huh: BIG surprise!
>Oh boy, he always had such big parties with so many people there. I can't believe it! It's very SAD :'(
>Only his papa and I are here, he hands me a note it's so sad omg
>:'(

So forced, just silly.

>>7617336
First time I read the book. In grade 11. A great author is one that not only write well so they stay interested but so that the reader is constantly interested. and this book does this, with fantastic story, the movie is also great!

this part at the end of chapter 6 blew me away

He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was. . . .

. . . One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees — he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something — an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

>>7619028
which one?

>>7619028
You sound like a teenage girl that hasn't ever heard the combination of words that is critical thinking.

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>>7619168
terribly beautiful

>>7618784
>>7619168
This is all _tentatively overwritten_ rubbish. Reads like it was written by a woman.

I don't think many people even really get what it's about. It's not about Gastby's obsessive love for Daisy; it's about a disillusionment with the American Dream, and how capitalism influenced Gatsby's position: his rise and fall.

>>7619601
Jesus Christ it's spelled out in bold how would people not get it? But then agian ppl dont seem to be able to get dune either.... anyway it's still shite, gatsby i mean.

>>7619337
>>7619337
>tentatively overwritten
Please don't use words you don't understand.

>>7619634
Don't reply to posts you don't understand (and note that I didn't say please)

This book is very much overrated. I appreciated it a great deal in college and highschool, and then I moved to NYC/Long Island, and realized people really just act this way, and it hasnt changed.

>>7619601
I think most people get that, actually.

>>7619337
It's a fucking masterpiece of prose for anyone who isn't a contrarian faggot.

>>7619644
You use tentatively wrong, get over it.

>>7619650
It's a fucking masterpiece of prose for anyone who is a tasteless conformist.

>>7619660
>look how special I am, popular things are shit
ok

>>7619657
You can't understand a simple combination of ideas that isn't indexed in your list of clichés, and this is a literature board: leave it

>>7619665
>digging the hole deeper
the book people are laughing at you dude

>>7619664
>ppl who dislike poplar things are mere contrarians
shut up retard, it sucks

>>7618565
>Reading for Plot

Pleb detected

>>7619665
when people talk about cliches on /lit/ you know they have no idea what the fuck they're doing

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>>7617871

>>7619664
I think you've misrepresented my idea here. I was implying that your highly rating a thing that is shit makes you a conformist (and as an aside, popular things aren't the only things that are shit. >You, for instance, are not popular)

I remember when I was in high school we read chunks of Jacopo Ortis, I did not understand it, I mocked it.
Then years later we were studying Foscolo and thus I decided to read it on my own, I loved it, so I see where you are coming from and agree.
P.S.
Jacopo Ortis is an awesome book, better than Werther, because Jacopo also deals with the struggle of a man aware that his home lacks an identity and his inhabitants dont care.


>>7617347
I read it now as I am 22 for the first time, but I found it bland, I dont like the protagonist, the prose gets boring after a while, I hear teenager's rants as it is right now.

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>>7617336
I enjoyed it. I got assigned the book in 10th grade. Afterwards it was on everyone's Facebook. Every would be well read faggot (mostly girls in truth) readily claimed it was their new favorite book and extolled it as the American classic that it is, better even than Goosebumps or even the Harry Potter books. I never mentioned my thoughts to anyone, but once made the mistake of probing my peers their purported appreciation of Gatsby in class. It was comical to say the least. Can a novel be over recognized but under appreciated?

>>7619688
>try to be funny
>employ a pathetic red herring
>fuck up your green text

you managed a kek out of me anon

>>7619671
>>7619683
>more clichés
Why do you get so riled up by this notion? You should come to terms with the fact that you are incapable of original thought. You can't both embrace your inner mediocrity and keep struggling so.

>>7619665
>copying and pasting cliche so it has the tilde

>>7619714
I hope u wake up dead soon and I haven't even been in this thread senpai

>>7619725
>tilde
>not knowing your alt-codes

Shitting up Great Gatsby threads is a guilty pleasure, I think warrants the extra effort

>>7619697
you mean they could not convey what mesmerised them about it?
It is no wonder then, for very often one finds himself unable to describe even what he/she thought he/she knew.
Did I misunderstood?

The book is about marriage. The entire purpose of the book is to break down the form of marriage. The outward degeneracy of Gatsby's parties are a cover for the inward degeneracy of his "romantic feelings", for his "romantic feelings" are really just him refusing to accept that his old beloved is married and therefore forbidden. Daisy's husband is portrayed as an oaf whereas Gatsby is portrayed as a sensitive romantic soul. The subversive notion being that faithfulness to romantic feelings is higher than the faithfulness of marriage.

Gatsby suffers from its own fame. Because it's been forced into the American canon you have people ranting on and on about the symbolism instead of appreciating the niceties of the work. It's a strange book managing to be popular with both the lowest common denominator of literary thought and actual literati.

>>7619750
That might be one explanation, but I'd hazard they've read maybe 3 actual books and that this is their first foray into actual reading they are both impressed and looking to impress. I've nothing but disdain for people who claim to like the Great Gatsby depending almost entirely on their age group.

I mean, yes it's good, great even, but not a "masterpiece." Leave that to Borges and Joyce.

>>7619006
Does no one agree with me? I thought Goethe did it ten times better with Werther.

>>7617336
This is why nobody takes American lit seriously.

>>7619006

the book itself is a bit cliche social commentary. If you read it for that it's a bit forced like you point out. Gatsby reaching out to the Green Light alternates between mythical symbolistic power and pure silliness.

But if you read it for the point of discovering the intricacies of Nick Carraway -- how he sees things, how his jazzy romantic swagger fades throughout the novel, how he quickly judges everything and subtly forces himself out of this mode -- then it's actually a very good book. Nobody seems to read it for the latter reason. Nick is a work of genius but I can't speak as fondly for the rest.

>masterpiece
This book being regarded so highly by Americans says a lot about your culture.

>>7619685

I doubt he was tactlessly gibbering at his class, but the thought is pretty hilarious.

Thanks fedora-poster

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>>7619956
>implying Nick doesn't just seem romantic and different because he's a repressed faggot and doesn't quite fit in as such, except for when he bangs that painter dude while drunk

>>7619977
It was forced into the cultural fabric, there was an actual concerted effort to convince everyone of and institutionalize the book's greatness and American-ness. Why I don't know, maybe people were just desperate to establish some kind of American canon.

>>7619985
>maybe people were just desperate to establish some kind of American canon
This shows. In this, and in the whole obsession with "The Great American Novel", too. Literally no other country in the world does this. Let's not even mention the constant whining re: not getting more Nobels. No, there's no maybe about it.

>>7619981
>>7619981
>Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier I followed.
>"Come to lunch some day," he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.
>"Where?"
>"Anywhere."
>"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.
>"I beg your pardon," said Mr. McKee with dignity, "I didn't know I was touching it."
>"All right," I agreed, "I'll be glad to."
>. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in >his hands.
>"Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . .Brook'n Bridge . . . ."
>Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning "Tribune" and waiting for the four o'clock train.
>mfw

I never picked up that Nick was a fruit the first time, and now I wonder how that's even possible.

>>7619956
Hmm, never thought of it like this. Thanks.