That's Why They Call Him Great

This is the second time I've read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The first time I read it for a class with a teacher who made it as dull as humanly possible. The answer to every question was "the American dream," and she actually read us the entire novel out loud in class. Note for all future teachers: If you would like to make students hate a novel, follow her example.

This time, I read the novel at my own pace, in my own head, and loved every word of it. The surface action of the novel is fantastic. It's got it all, New York City, gangsters, flashy cars, big parties...I mean, this is why we read about the jazz age, right? But underneath that there's this haunting, terrible story.

I love it when books tell two stories at once, and that seems to be present in spades here. Not that there are two plots, but the story that the action follows and the story that is implied by the narrative are vastly different. The second story is really what you learn without being told.

Great.

Oh, and that's number nine, folks.

coming soon: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Emma by Jane Austen