I read this book in college, over summer break one year, and I don’t think I really appreciated it very much at the time. Now, something like 15 years later, I think I have a better understanding of a book that is widely considered one of the best in American literature, and how it is that it earned that stature. The writing is clean and sparse, yet affecting; timeless yet imbued with the flavor of its era; concrete and relatable, but a devestating critique all the same. So I have to admit, somewhat begrudgingly, that it was worth a second read, and the movie was definitely worth the somewhat inflated 3D prices.

There is however, one thing that I take issue with, vis-a-vis the conventional interpretation of the book. I don’t doubt that the novel was meant as a harsh indictment of American materialism and the myth of the American Dream. But I don’t think that’s all there is to it, either: I really think that this book was meant as a tragic love story of sorts. It’s commonplace to view the blinking green light at the end of Daisy’s dock as a conventional symbol of wealth and unattainable material success, but I think that’s actually shoehorning this complicated story into a simple narrative. The green light is also a symbol of a slow-burning but long-lasting love, faint and almost imperceptible on the one side but a focal point on the other. There is, in short, a real wealth of feeling between Daisy and Jay - it may be asymmetric, but I don’t think it’s entirely one-sided.

In a similar vein I don’t think Daisy is the capricious, thoughtless person that a lot of people make her out to be - it would be more charitable to think of her as the product of her times, someone who bends in the wind and tries to catch the sun. In that light her affair with Jay is not a meaningless dalliance which she thoughtlessly casts aside, but in fact an act of considerable bravery. I’m no fan of hit-and-runs, but I can see how a person in that situation could behave very erratically.

Perhaps my take is a bit sentimental or naive. I think it is certainly a good deal less neat than the conventional reading of this book as a criticism of American materialism, but then again, isn’t that the whole point? Affairs of the heart are never quite as cut and dried as money is.

Some other stray thoughts…

  • I really like the automotive theme, and the way it winds its way through the book in so many ways. It’s at once a concrete symbol of the times, and on the other hand an abstract symbol of wealth, mobility and grime that perfectly tie together the elements of the materialist critique.

  • I enjoyed that “old sport” bit of Jay’s. Annoying as it was, the only person to have objected to it was the one guy who was an old money sports jock, Tom.

  • Somehow all the good guys in this novel were Midwesterners. Isn’t that interesting?

  • … and don’t think I missed the not-so-subtle anti-Semitism around Meyer Wolfsheim, either.

  • I am always a fan of mistaken and obscured identity in novels, and of course in this one it’s everywhere. It’s a good reminder that we can’t judge a book by its cover.