The Great Gatsby

Sue mentioned a number of books in her beautiful post Genuine Piece. Here's a summary of the Great Gatsby:

Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.

Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.

After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.

A Genuine Piece

"The hand-writing of your letter is so miserable, that I am not sure I have made it out. If I have it seems to me you are the same old sixpence you used to be, rather rusty,but a genuine piece."

Snip from a letter Ellery wrote Henry Thoreau, March 5, 1845.

Past, present or future, would you wish to be other than “A genuine piece?” Could we have a higher wish for the world than to wish for a world full of souls who are what they appear to be? The American Soul, if it is left to its honest ability to be valid, is the soul of a simple, hard scrabble, realistic sort who is mistrustful of smooth talk, flowery speeches and fantasy tales. This, of course, is an ideal.

America’s youthful literature prior to The Wizard of Oz, showed little inclination to dwell on the fantastic. Our history displays a pretty hard scrabble people. England is the land of Arthur, Nadia and Lord of the Rings. America is Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, the Bobbsey Twins and, most revealing of all, the Horatio Alger stories of a poor boy who makes good.

Main Street, The Old Man and the Sea, and the Great Gatsby are fantastic only in their desire to find men better than we might think they are and are coupled with the dream that if one does one's duty and lives a clean life, nothing is impossible. All are written as a desire to show men at their peak moments, which might end as a success or failure, but rather what counts is the effort put into the achievement.

Man, as in Ahab and his Whale (Moby Dick), is not always perfect in American literature, but he is dedicated, he is focused and he is a realist. He knows that going after the whale may kill him, and the task itself might make no sense to others, but sail he does, search he does and go to his final task ready and willing – he does.

Yes, we are a gristly sort, even though in past years we have somewhat covered our crusty attitudes with a veneer of continental charm. But let us admit, that when the fleet comes in, it’s all for one and one for all – with the understanding that it is important in that "all", a goodly number must remain "rusty, but genuine pieces." The only question is, can America remain 'rusty, but genuine' in a contemporary world steeped in nuance, deception and self-interest? Or, another question: Is there any other way for us to approach a modern world?