Why I Despise The Great Gatsby

Doesn't pull many punches.

Schulz: Why I Despise The Great Gatsby

Quote :

I find Gatsby aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent; I think we kid ourselves about the lessons it contains. None of this would matter much to me if Gatsby were not also sacrosanct. Books being borderline irrelevant in America, one is generally free to dislike them—but not this book. So since we find ourselves, as we cyclically do here, in the middle of another massive Gatsby ­recrudescence, allow me to file a minority report.

I happen to agree with the reviewer. I never liked Gatsby and sort of pissed off the English professor who assigned it when I called it empty and fake. I just didn't like it, I think it's too preachy as well, as though it was written strictly to convey the moral message.

I've never understood the reverence given to this novel. It's been more than fifty years since I read it, and the best I can recall of my thoughts after reading it was, "Ho hum." Were this book written today, I think it would be a major flop (even the basic-cable movie that would no doubt be made from it).

_Howard wrote:

I've never understood the reverence given to this novel. It's been more than fifty years since I read it, and the best I can recall of my thoughts after reading it was, "Ho hum." Were this book written today, I think it would be a major flop (even the basic-cable movie that would no doubt be made from it).

It was a bit of a flop when it was written. I think people were smarter back then. The article mentioned the army distributing it, but I think schools had a part in this too. They pick some of the suckiest books to be "classics" and leave some of the best to be ignored.

I don't know if people were smarter back then; there were just fewer critics.

Shortly after reading Gatsby, I read To Kill a Mockingbird, which had just come out. I think Mockingbird is a far superior piece of literature. I do recall that I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I did Gatsby.