So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures

by Maureen Corrigan

The "Fresh Air" book critic investigates the enduring power of The Great Gatsby -- "The Great American Novel we all think we've read, but really haven't." Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power. Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great -- and utterly unusual -- So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby 's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic," and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender. With rigor, wit, and infectious enthusiasm, Corrigan inspires us to re-experience the greatness of Gatsby and cuts to the heart of why we are, as a culture, "borne back ceaselessly" into its thrall. Along the way, she spins a new and fascinating story of her own.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Literary Criticism, Biography, Audiobook, Classics

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 9, 2014

About the author

Maureen Corrigan (Born July 30, 1955) is an American journalist, author and literary critic. She writes for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post, and is a book critic on the NPR radio program Fresh Air. In 2005, she published a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books.

Corrigan holds a B.A. from Fordham University as well as an M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania and is Critic in Residence and a lecturer in English at Georgetown University. Her specialist subjects include 19th-century British literature, women's literature (with a special focus on autobiographies), popular culture, detective fiction, contemporary American literature, and Anglo-Irish literature. Corrigan is a member of the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary and an Advisor to the National Endowment of the Arts "Big Read" project.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Glenn Sumi · Rating 5 out of 5]

NPR book critic and Georgetown University instructor Maureen Corrigan’s So We Read On is a thoughtful, entertaining and highly accessible book about The Great Gatsby, which she proudly calls the greatest American novel ever. After finishing it, if you ever doubted, you’ll agree with her.



F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece wasn’t always so admired, however. Reviews – by both professional critics and some of the author’s closest friends – were mixed, and sales were modest. Much of its second printing was still in the Scribner’s warehouse when Fitzgerald died, prematurely, at 44 in 1940, fifteen years after Gatsby’s publication!

One of the most fascinating chapters concerns the book’s revival, attributable to many factors, including something called Armed Services Editions (ASEs), cheap paperbacks distributed to soldiers during the second world war. In an amusing bit of detective work, Corrigan scours academic journals from the 40s and 50s, trying to locate mentions of the book to track its ascent to its current popularity. (Oddly, though, neither the book nor Fitzgerald are very popular on contemporary college courses.)

Corrigan presents a persuasive argument for Gatsby as an example of literary noir; in fact, her favourite film adaptation was a 1949 gangster picture starring Alan Ladd (see poster above). She also runs through the book’s symbols and themes, not just the obvious ones we all studied in high school – the green light, those all-seeing eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg – but water imagery, class distinctions and the depictions of race and immigrants.

(Don't frown. Reading Corrigan on these subjects does not feel like you’re going over lecture notes.)

The book is part Fitzgerald biography, part literary appreciation and part memoir about Corrigan's own history with the book. She makes a genial and ingenious guide, taking us to archives and special collections, where, for instance, we get a peek at Sylvia Plath’s marked-up copy of Gatsby, and a letter written by Fitzgerald shortly after he finished the book in which one illegible word (form? force? farce?) might shed light on his intentions.

We also meet Scott Shepherd, an actor who, as the star of the off-Broadway company Elevator Repair Service’s seven-hour production of Gatz, memorized and performed every word of the book more than half a dozen times a week. Corrigan's interview with him – a man who’s intimately familiar with the rhythms and structure of the book in a way few scholars are – is illuminating.

The book abounds with fascinating details. Did you know it was almost called Trimalchio, after a character from the first-century Roman work Satyricon? Another working title was Gold-Hatted Gatsby. The book contains the words “holocaust” and “swastika,” years before the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

I had no idea about the history of the famous first edition’s cover art by Francis Cugat (brother of bandleader Xavier). Cugat seemed to have intuitively grasped what the book was about, and his painting, called "Celestial Eyes," captured all that. Fitzgerald even says he included a detail from one of Cugat’s early sketches in the book! (What was it? Alas, I'm not sure we'll never know.) Interestingly, Gatsby was the only book jacket cover Cugat ever made. And his original painting, which contains fine details generally lost in reproduction, was almost tossed in Scribner’s trash can!

And then there's the scandalous story about Fitzgerald’s alma mater, Princeton University, lowballing an offer to buy Fitzgerald’s papers. Here’s Corrigan on that literary gaffe:

Julian Boyd, then Princeton’s University librarian, refused to raise the bid and, according to Randall, said something along the lines of “Princeton was not a charitable institution, nor was its library established to support indigent widows of, and I quote, ‘second rate, Midwest hacks,’ just because they happen to have been lucky enough to have attended Princeton – unfortunately for Princeton.”

Corrigan also tells us how Gatsby was received in other cultures. One example: many Chinese scholars see it as a critique of capitalism. She takes us to public discussions of the book across the country and, in a wonderfully personal turn, returns to her old high school in Queens to discuss the novel with a new generation of teenagers, who have a fresh take on it.

So, dear reader, I loved this book. I literally laughed out loud, exclaimed when I came across a passage or bit of information I didn’t know (the extra long dash in the closing page’s “And one fine morning––” could be a dock? Wow!), and even wept a few times at Corrigan’s poignant depiction of Fitzgerald’s tumultuous personal and professional life and his eager need to please, nurtured from childhood.

Like all fine books about great books, So We Read On makes you want to return to the source material, energized, refreshed and seeing everything – even those lyrical, poetic final paragraphs – with new eyes.

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 brightly lit green stars .

This is a beautiful love song to my favorite novel , an analysis of the story , its characters and its themes and the author's tribute not just to the novel but to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Corrigan , a professor at Georgetown and NPR book critic , reminded me of everything that I love about this book - the perfect language that never gets old even though I've read this book multiple times , Gatsby's dreams and desires , the time and place .

This brought me back to my college days because that is when I fell in love with this book . However, Corrigan never comes across as lecturing . It felt to me more like a conversation , but yet I learned things about Fitzgerald that I didn't know or had long forgotten and definitely some things about the novel .

I'm not sure I would recommend this to anyone who is not a fan of The Great Gatsby, but you may just be swayed by Corrigan's enthusiasm . If you already love The Great Gatsby , you really have to read this book. Corrigan talks about how she doesn't understand everything about the novel, especially the last six and a half pages . Of course, I had to reread them and I know for sure I don't know all Fitzgerald meant but omg - such beautiful writing!

The Great Gatsby was not a commercial success at first and to me it's so sad that Fitzgerald didn't live to know how beloved his novel is by so many readers. Of course, I will be rereading it several more times in my lifetime.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a moment in this book where I actually shouted "Yes!" out loud.

The year I turned 13, I became the owner of a scruffy paperback copy of The Great Gatsby. I fell in love the first time I read through it, then proceeded to read it another thirty times. Read every Fitzgerald novel I could find, every biography, every short story. I carried Gatsby around with me all that year, balanced on top of my pile of school books as I went from class to class. Though we studied it for Honors English, it was obvious that I knew more about the story and its meaning than the teacher did.

Decades went by. And then, one summer a few years ago, the New York Times printed the book, in its entirety, one perfect chapter at a time, over the course of a week.

And oh, my friends. It is quite a thing to read Gatsby as an adult.

Thank you, Maureen Corrigan, for writing this magnificent book. You explained to me all the reasons I loved it as a kid, and continue to love it today.

Chatty, entertaining, intelligent, and compassionate, So We Read On discusses the meaning of Gatsby, the writing of Gatsby, the history of Gatsby, the significance of Gatsby, and why the book still speaks to us today when many other classics have lost their shine. She also writes about F. Scott Fitzgerald as if she knew him, describing his painful childhood, his personality, his gifts, his meteoric rise, and the tragedy of his fall, with anecdotes that read as if she was present for all of it.

Her first, all-important point is this; that high-school students may be too young to appreciate the book. With its themes of aspiration, class differences, disappointment, loss and regret, it may not be the best fit for kids. But in your forties, you know what it feels like to have your dreams dashed. You know what it feels like to be an outsider, striving desperately to fit in. You've learned all about the differences between people who have lots of money and people who don't. You know what it's like to be scoured out by loss. If you have lived through these experiences, Gatsby breaks your heart.

Like a detective, Corrigan investigates the way a failed, out-of-print novel became a classroom staple; she collects F. Scott Fitzgerald family stories; she takes Gatsby-themed trips to New York; she does Gatsby-themed research in the National Archives; she tours through F. Scott Fitzgerald memorabilia collections like a fangirl.

Go ahead. Reread The Great Gatsby. Then read this book.

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures was a remarkable tribute, not only to the Great American Novel and to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but to New York City and the Jazz Age. I devoured this book and all of the research, analysis, and love that was poured into this beautiful book by NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan. The Great Gatsby has consumed much of her professional life as she has taught this class for over thirty years but it has also become much of her personal life. As Corrigan admits, she went to two showings of Gatz, a live performance at the New York Public Theater where the cast has memorized the entire book of The Great Gatsby as they enthrall theater-goers for seven and one-half hours as they recite the text of the book.

This is a book that I could not put down as I read about all of the many meanings and nuances of what made this the elusive Great American Novel and how it speaks to all of our heritage and to what America stands for. What Maureen Corrigan plots so interestingly in this well-researched book is why so many of us love it and must go back to it again and again. This stunning passage speaks volumes:

"That's why Nick Carraway, like generations of the book's readers, is so haunted by Gatsby: Gatsby reached out, strained the farthest, ran the fastest trying to grasp something while everyone else in the novel was anesthetized by liquor or greedy self-regard."

Maureen Corrigan at the conclusion of her book sums why we have fallen in love with this work in these powerful words:

"After you read "The Great Gatsby the first time, you read it forevermore with the awareness that those last six and a half pages--and, especially, those final two paragraphs--are waiting for you. It's like what happens when you hear Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or "Hey, Jude" for the second time: you know that something extraordinary lies at the end of the piece. I've quoted those lines throughout this book, but they deserve to be quoted in full one more time:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther. . . . And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past."

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this wise and wistful book -- in part because I revere THE GREAT GATSBY, but also because it is such an astute and luminescent memoir of why we are drawn to literature. If you have savored THE GREAT GATSBY one time or ten, you will find stories and histories and connections that will leave you fascinated and, yes, moved.

[Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great American Novel: Belief in The Green Light and Orgastic Future*

NPR book critic/Georgetown professor Maureen Corrigan loves The Great Gatsby, as do I, so much so that she wrote this delightful, didactic book: So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures . With great élan, she argues Gatsby is the Great American Novel because, among other things, Gatsby splendidly captured:

Americans' quotidian desire for achieving the American dream of fortune, fame and happy family;

Americans' yen for desire itself ("there are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired"); and

Our quixotic beliefs, or romantic notions, that we can somehow relive the past, especially to recapture lost love or to win love long unrequited (Gatsby to Nick, "Can't repeat the past? ... Why of course you can!").

Ms. Corrigan also provides an intriguing examination of the author's tragic life and death and analyzes why, like many supremely talented artists before him, F. Scott Fitzgerald died in the depths of depression and perceived by himself and many others as a mediocre has-been, with his masterpiece largely unrecognized until several years thereafter. And yet, it endures as the most studied piece of literature in U.S. secondary education.

This book is an elegant exploration of The Great Gatsby's mark in literature and moreso as the paradigm of most of our nation's romantic zeitgeist over the past century.

I highly recommend this book if you loved The Great Gatsby or you're fascinated with the "Gilded Age" of America in the early 1920s.


*"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning--

[Connie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maureen Corrigan, a book critic for NPR and a Professor of Literature at Georgetown University, has been teaching a class about "The Great Gatsby" for decades. She also gives lectures about the magic of her favorite novel for the Big Read program sponsored by the NEA. The author loves the excitement of New York, and grew up a short drive away from the setting of "The Great Gatsby." At the time of F. Scott Fitzgerald's death at age 44, "The Great Gatsby" was no longer on bookstore shelves. Today, it is taught in most American secondary schools, and is often considered the Great American Novel.

Corrigan includes information about Fitzgerald's life, his family, his literary friends, and his wonderful editor, Max Perkins. Although "The Great Gatsby" is a short novel, it has beautiful quotable sentences about class, women, race, and the desire for someone or something out of reach.

The book also tells about the hard-boiled elements in the book. Gatsby, in his quest for success to impress Daisy, probably is involved in bootlegging. Meyer Wolfshiem, with human molars fashioned into cuff links, is a moneylender to take seriously. Tom, Gatsby, and Nick are all veterans of the trench warfare of World War I, and are now looking for financial success. Prohibition and a shady bond market give opportunities for profitable illegal activity.

The military issued small pocket-sized books to the servicemen for entertainment during World War II. An Armed Service Edition of "The Great Gatsby" was printed at the end of the war, and the exposure revived the popularity of the book.

"The Great Gatsby" has also been filmed multiple times with various directors emphasizing different elements of the book--the glitz, the romance, the underworld, the longing for something one cannot reach, and the American Dream.

"So We Read On" was well-researched, had interesting personal commentary, and entertained as it informed. I enjoyed the author's lively, conversational style. I'm excited now to reread "The Great Gatsby" and seek out other books from the Jazz Age.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been totally immersed in the enthusiasm and the symbolism of all things Fitzgerald and Gatsby. Not sure I would have appreciated this as much years ago but I sure did now. So many things, new ways of looking at old things, and just a wonderful foray into the past.

I have been remiss. or did I never know how prolific a writer he was in his short years. Have since bought a book of his short stories, he wrote over 200. His relationships, where he wrote, his reverence of other authors, his love for Cather and his favorite Dickens story. "Bleak House and his favorite Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Never knew he was such a big reader. Where he wrote, the houses he and Zelda rented, their relationship and their child, Scotty.

So much is contained in this book, a wonderful book to have and to read alongside some of his novels or stories. I have a greater understanding, not only into the Great Gatsby itself, but into the time period, his writing process and his character. This is a book I want to own, so even though this is an ARC from the publisherI am going to go out a buy myself a copy. I enjoyed this very much and can see much re-reading in my future.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out my review on Booktube!

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paradise for Great Gatsby geeks. There is also a lot of biographical info about Fitzgerald in this book, which I was not expecting but greatly appreciated. I have read two biographies of Zelda, but none of Scott, so I really enjoyed learning more about his life while overdosing on Gatsby-ana.

The audio book is read by the author, who gets the prize for best enunciator on the planet!

Editing to add: This book is loaded with spoilers about The Great Gatsby, so if you've not yet read the novel, wait until you have done so before reading this book.

[Tarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sooooo..... not to be a crazy asshole, but I'd be really interested in what other Fitzgerald scholars think about this book because I am unable to shed my lens while reading (which is weird, because when reading trashy books [which I am not saying this is] I shed the "I'm a scholar" lens ALL the time-- because it is both useless and boring in these cases). I am ALL for books that speak about literature for non-specialist audiences. So I SWEAR I'm not being a smug, superior asshole about this book. Actually, I'm really interested in what everyone else thinks about this book- because it has high ratings, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

My issue was not that this is "bad" criticism, or "not academic" enough in any way. My issue here is mainly to do with tone--which is that it feels like the author herself is overly-present in the book. I've never loved Corrigan's tone on NPR, come to think of it. In the book, I felt like I was reading a lot more about why *Corrigan* loved Gatsby rather than why Gatsby itself was lovable (or great, or epic, or a classic, or the Great American Novel, etc.). It felt almost more like a Corrigan travel narrative (/ memoir) in which we journey with Corrigan:

-through the archives (what luck we got there in time, Maureen--they're boxing up these archives next week!)
-across the freeway to the Fitzgerald graves (how wonderful you live so close and spend many lunches here thinking deep thoughts, Muareen!)
-rehashing our credentials (oh! Are you a professor at "an elite University" and an NPR book critic, Maureen? I would have never known!")

Okay... now I kind of am being an asshole. But my point remains: what makes Gatsby interesting is not Maureen Corrigan's journey finding out what makes it interesting.

Also, Corrigan makes some grand epic pronouncements about the novel, which are lovely to read and are so lyrical you can read right over them nodding your head in agreement, until you stop mid-next-sentence and think "wait a tic... what's the rationale for this? What's the evidence? What makes this true?". I find myself sometimes doing this in my non-elite university classrooms, when I'll make some grand pronouncement and think "whew-- good thing students just write this shit down, because if they pressed, it'd be a hard road to hoe." I try NOT to do this, obviously, because 1) it's terrible teaching and 2) it's lazy criticism.

I love Gatsby, and Fitzgerald (they collectively represent about 1/2 my dissertation; I re-read the novels for pleasure; I recently saw a ballet of Gatsby and endured what I knew would be terrible singing in it just to see how they interpreted it). And, like everyone, certainly, I love Gatsby and Fitzgerald for my own, complicated reasons. Not because I have some weird fascination with "broken" or sad people (fictional or otherwise), but because there is just SO much to talk about -- so much weird, crazy shit happening in the novel (and Fitzgerald's life) about race, gender, nation, identity-- all issues I like to talk about. And Fitzgerald is entirely a product of his time in interesting and complicated ways (e.g. he is both aware and skeptical of nationalized prejudices and fully participating in them; critical of author hero-worship, yet craving it) and, happily, ways that connect back to our present moments-- and I do think the many contradictions in his life and work make the stories more compelling (though The Beautiful and the Damned is a snooze-fest if you ask me).

These questions, inevitably dripping with loss and anxiety, make them excellent fodder for revisiting (in ballet; movie; book discussions; national policy). Consider Tom Buchanan's outburst about race: ---"Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “[...] Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ [...] Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”---I'm pretty sure I've had this exact Facebook conversation with relatives about Ferguson, "illegal" immigration, and our black president.

Or Daisy's heartbreaking proto-feminist moment (yeah, I just called Daisy proto-feminist... let's debate that!):--- "I asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘all right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”-- is the quote every feminist knows to be horrifyingly, dishearteningly true when being trolled by anti-feminists on the internet--which is, seemingly, the entirety of the internet. (except, of course, it's not true: WE RAGE ON, FEMINISTS! I believe that we will win!)

And this isn't even to mention, of course, themes of loss, regret, love, sacrifice, moral compromise-- I mean, this is the shit we live whether or not we wear flapper gear, so yeah: I'd argue it's a crazy relevant novel worth reading, talking about, thinking about...

But I also love Gatsby because of the prose themselves. The writing can be lyrical and beautiful-- heavily symbolic but never impossible; accessible to multiple levels of readers but offering new insights with further reads -- this is why you had to read it in high school, btw: it's accessible. And it's why the novel is in many dissertations, articles, critical books: there is a LOT to say about it. And the symbolism can, at times, feel a bit heavy-handed (reaching toward the green light anyone?), but then will retreat back to a character with real emotions and whose interior monologue is often at odds with a more poetic version of itself. If you don't think that's wonderful and interesting, than you won't like Gatsby, that's for sure. But it's why I ENJOY Gatsby-- even in its (many) racist or sexist moments, it's beautiful written, complicated and flawed in its claims, but so earnest in its poetic pursuit.

All this to say, in a book about why we read Gatsby, I thought there'd be more talk about, well, what the reasons are we read Gatsby. This would not have to be just a conversation about style and prose (which is, admittedly, very difficult to do without getting boring/technical/or both), but more on national narratives that made this book popular-- she hints at this when she mentions that she suspects the cultural moment of the cold war and the need to be "more American" may be at work in the Gatsby revival-- which is BEYOND interesting... but that's the end of that thought: back to how Maureen used acid-free gloves to be in the archive. Sigh.

Also, and I need to say this, she takes a jab at Zelda devotees that was petty and unnecessary. I'm not a Zelda scholar or defender, but comparing them to "Rush Limbaugh [arguing about] Obamacare" is cheap-- and frankly, unprofessional and bitchy (obviously you have to agree with me, the dyed-in-the-wool democrat, that Limbaugh is the devil for this to be offensive in any way).

All this to say: a serious let-down. Bummer.

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

So here's the thing. If you have not re-read The Great Gatsby since you possibly (probably) read it in high school, or you have never read it, you need to read or re-read it. This book really confirms that The Great Gatsby is being wasted on high school students. I felt that way when I re-read Gatsby before seeing the Baz Luhrmann version. I sat there gobsmacked staring at the last line, "so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" and thought about all the longing and nostalgia and basically the entire human condition was being contained in that line. And how in one sentence Fitzgerald sums up everything we know about the American Dream. As Elizabeth Bastos at Book Riot put it, to really get that last line you need to read it when you are older: "You have to be old enough to have a past, and to have tried to do things that did not pan out. You have to know in your bones from experience that uncontrollable shit happens."

Corrigan gets at all of that, talking beautifully about how Gatsby is about all of these things and more, it's a modern novel, it's breathtakingly short, it's a novel about New York, about the American Dream, about longing, about friendship and about water. She does a good job balancing analysis of the book, with talk about Fitzgerald and the era. I immediately finished this book and checked out the short stories of Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby because I think I need to read it again.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote what is arguably the Great American Novel, but died believing himself to be a failure. In So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures, Maureen Corrigan shares her deep love and understanding of this complex, intricately-structured novel. She also provides insights into Fitzgerald’s life as he wrote, and obsessively re-wrote, his most celebrated work. Here’s Maureen poring over Fitzgerald’s personal copy of the first edition of Gatsby in the Fitzgerald Papers at Princeton University:

“A tireless re-reader of his own novel, Fitzgerald has marked up in pencil almost every thick, soft page of this Gatsby... there are the changes; lots of little changes. Precisely because almost every one of these changes is so incidental, I find them touching. Fitzgerald is such a perfectionist, he just can’t let go. These changes were picked up in subsequent editions so that Gatsby got closer and closer to Fitzgerald’s Platonic ideal of the novel.”

Maureen Corrigan also outlines many aspects of Gatsby which may escape the casual reader, such as the motif of water and drowning; the many references to time; the subtle markers of class; and the parallels with the real New York of the 1920s. The wealth of fascinating details and fresh insights will encourage Gatsby fans to re-read the novel again and again — and in fact, Maureen says she is still discovering new aspects of the book, even after lecturing about it for several decades.

In a feat of literary detective work, she traces the resurgence of interest in The Great Gatsby, in part, to its inclusion in the special Armed Services Edition paperbacks which were issued to American services personnel during World War II. It’s a sad irony that the first print-run of Gatsby sold only 23,000 copies and much of the second printing remained in the publisher’s warehouse at the time of Fitzgerald’s death in 1940, but five years later, 155,000 paperback editions — each designed to be read about seven times — were distributed to servicemen. As Maureen Corrigan remarks:

“Even if some of those [Armed Services Edition] estimated readings are inflated, one of the things some of those World War II servicemen carried with them back home was an awakened interest in F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story behind The Great Gatsby, the detailed analysis of the novel, and the insights into Fitzgerald’s life and times. But what prevents me from giving So We Read On a five-star rating is the sense that Maureen Corrigan didn’t benefit from the kind of high-calibre editor who worked with her literary idol.

For example, she mars an anecdote about a Great Gatsby Boat Tour with a mean-spirited criticism of the tour guide:

“a cheery middle-aged woman who tells us that... she took Baz Luhrmann and his wife, costume designer Catherine Martin, out on Manhasset Bay to tour the Eggs in 2008 in preparation for Luhrmann’s Gatsby film. Despite these credentials, she’s relying on notecards to give the bare bones of Fitzgerald’s biography.”

Chapter 3, “Rhapsody in Noir”, makes a convincing argument for Gatsby as a “near relation of the hard-boiled novel”, which:

“derives from the very same urban American sources that inspired the gals-guts-and-guns school of fiction that evolved into the pulp magazines of the early to mid-1920s”.

While this is an interesting analysis, Corrigan uses the term “hard-boiled” so many times in this chapter — even twice in one sentence! — that I found myself reaching for the editorial red pen.

As well, there’s more than a whiff of condescension as Corrigan refers to the “plebeian” readers and reviewers of Fitzgerald’s work. It’s a shame that the intrusion of her own biases spoil such a valuable and absorbing guide to The Great Gatsby and its enduring power over generations of readers.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the last Gatsby movie version came out I reread the novel, along with Tender is the Night and Flapper short stories by Fitzgerald that had appeared in magazines. Yet even before I had finished her book Corrigan had me reading Gatsby once again.

How many times have I read Gatsby? I read it in high school several times, first in the paperback used by high school English classes. It was not required reading for my classes, but in my teen years I was reading Modern fiction and spent my much of my precious allowance at the bookstore. Then I joined The Literary Guild and obtained cheaply bound sets of Hemingway, Steinbeck, Joyce, and of course Fitzgerald.

In those days Fitzgerald was not my favorite of the great Max Perkins discoveries, nor was Hemingway. I adored Thomas Wolfe – his language, his snippets of lovely insight. But Wolfe's writing was self-absorbed and emotional and I was a self-absorbed emotional teen, and neither of us had much control but spilled out like a roaring deluge. Some years later I found him unreadable. A year or so back I reread Look Homeward, Angel and appreciated Wolfe again. But I remembered Fitzgerald as a writer about romances and excesses, and his books had left my library many moves ago.

Corrigan maintains that we read Gatsby too young, that it is appropriated as a high school text based on it's diminutive length, before we understand regret and the powerful urge to revive the dead past. As a girl I did understand regret and nostalgia; moving at age 10 having set it's “deforming” foot on my soul. I was too young to appreciate the fine, honing work Fitzgerald accomplished in this beautifully faceted gem, and too young to truly 'get' Gatsby. My reading of a few years ago I was surprised by the mystery of Gatsby and the violence I had forgotten.

This reading I noticed the beauty of the language, how every scene is crystalline and sharp, how we are told just what we need to be told. How did I miss that before? I was labeled a “naive” reader in college, and I suppose even after all those critical classes I am still a naive reader. I am a speed reader, too, and too often forget to slow down and read words and sentences, not paragraphs. Somehow this reading I took my time.

Corrigan knows her subject. Fresh Air book critic and a professor who teaches Gatsby, she has read the novel fifty times. She writes about going to her New York City high school to discuss Gatsby, and like all teachers finds student's fresh perspectives bring up insights and readings she had not thought of. That is the mark of good literature: an ever freshening spring that revives each drinker whose thirst is slacked according to the needs they bring to it. How many readings can a book take? As many readings as we have years since we are never the same person each reading. Life jostles us around, marks it's losses like hash-tags, and we come at things with new wisdom even when looking at familiar scenery.

Never for a second is Corrigan boring. It's like having a great day at the amusement park while teacher surreptitiously pours knowledge into our ear. We venture into the nether regions of the Library of Congress on a last minute mission. We learn how the Armed Services Editions paperbacks spread literature through the ranks and helped revive Gatsby. We hear about Fitzgerald and Zelda's excesses which led them from the beautiful to the damned.

Corrigan reminds us that this is a Post-War novel. Nick goes East because he no longer feels at home in the Mid-West after service abroad. Gatsby and Tom were also in the service. The relationship between “buddies” Nick and Gatsby, Gatsby and his mentor Dan Cody, the rivalry between Tom and Gatsby and Tom and Wilson—this novel is about men. Fitzgerald bemoaned that sales were slow because the novel did not attract female readers. I get that: I don't get The Lord of the Rings mostly because it is about a war story about a bunch of guys. But I don't buy that excuse. Fitzgerald was typecast as the chronicler of the 1920s and people were so over the 20s.

From the perspective of fifty years reading Gatsby I resonate to lines I hardly took in as a girl. Such as Jordan's comment about liking large parties: “They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy.” I recall life in Philadelphia, its teeming streets, where I could sit in a park and not have one person notice I existed. There is a privacy in crowds. Brilliant.

Gatsby is a love song to the city. Midwesterner Nick talks about New York City, watching people live their glamorous lives. “At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.” And later Nick writes, “I see now that this had been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern Life.” It is a failed love affair in the end, and Nick returns to his roots, still stunned, perhaps more affected by his sojourn East than by the War.

Nick tells us the story of Gatsby from two year's perspective. He is compelled to tell the story, trying I suppose to put some form and meaning to the tragedy. Nick had a history of passively accepting the confidence man role. Near the end he tells Gatsby that he is “worth the whole damn bunch of them put together.” Later he tells us, “I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.”

“You can't repeat the past.”
“Can't repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

“I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly.

Nick is possessed by Gatsby and it is only by telling the story that he can begin to shrug off his burdon. Or is Nick trying to recreate the past, knowing it is futile? Either way, like Gatsby he is tangled in the web of memory and can't get free. Corrigan states that Nick loved Gatsby, no dispute. I wonder. Some things seen can't be unseen, and an eternal altercation arises as we endeavor to shake it off. We bury it, put out our eyes, stop our ears, but can't rid the ghost, so we try naming it.

So many questions are raised by Gatsby. About the role of class and money in America. About idol worship and dreams and cold reality. We weigh Gatsby's relation to bootleggers and larceny against Tom and Daisy's carelessness and selfishness. Nick's casual relationships to Gatsby's holding onto a youth's lovely imaginings. We each have to decide, after all, what was so “great” about Gatsby.

Corrigan's book is a pleasure and a revelation.

I thank NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for access to the e-book for review

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

120116: i have not read critical work on The Great Gatsby for many years (decades...). this is an example of when the created art is in exactly the right medium, genre, voice, and all crit can do is bring out what is already perfect there. over the decades since i first read, then once every three or so years- might give the idea that too much information deadens the magic, but not in this case...

this is sort of a summary of how the book was conceived, received, reviewed, reappraised, with some details about f scott and zelda that might already be familiar: social insecurity, dramatic early success, embodiment of the Jazz age, serious artistic intent, difficult lives, alcoholism, something like radical bi-polar disorder for z. there is an argument that gatsby is a book for the mature, for memories, but the truth is how young he was when wrote it, how it is poetic in the way his young heroes were- in the book and in romantic poets...

this has inspired me to read it again. i have read work inspired by him, by ross macdonald for example Black Money, i have seen the movies from 1974, 2013, and even 1949, because even when seen before reading the book, seen when too young to appreciate, gatsby will forever be redford to me, daisy will be any of the women i have loved, but reading it this time, after reading of it, i have a greater sense of history. i have never and now probably will never read too many of his stories, though i have read Tender Is the Night, read The Love of the Last Tycoon, but if there is only one work to be remembered by, gatsby is the one. not too surprised i could remember passages because this is poetry. what is said always means more than what is written. i will always have this in my life, in my reading of other work, in my reading of life situations...

so, of this critical work, it is pleasant to be with someone who knows of the entirety of fitzgerald's life, knows or imagines sympathetically, his work, his ambitions, his past, his present reputation. this work even makes me more appreciate luhrmann's recent movie version, even if it is so obvious, so loud, because he is writing about, writing in, his popular culture and era- and we can incorporate our present popular culture. his work will never get old. this book spurs me to reconsider it. this book is so apparently simple that only by rereading does one discover how precise and well-wrought and concise it is. perfect book. i am always sad when someone (like my dad) does not see critical, romantic, even political critique, beyond this brief but endless work...

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gatsby fans, do yourself a favor and download the audio version of this book, which will play like one long episode of Maureen Corrigan reviewing "The Great Gatsby" on Fresh Air. I admire the work that Corrigan (whose family name is one of the guests from the famous party list that opens chapter 4) has put into this book, which culminates in a return to her Astoria high school (not far from the Valley of Ashes, it turns out) to observe what kids today think of this novel. Despite being out of print at Fitzgerald's death, "The Great Gatsby" persists as an American classic, a phenomenon that Corrigan also examines with equal enthusiasm.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was completely swept up in Maureen Corrigan's love letter to The Great Gatsby. This book is true to it's tagline - How TGG Came to Be and Why It Endures.

To that end, So We Read On doesn't limit itself to focusing on TGG. Corrigan also gives us a picture of Fitgerald's early life in St Paul, Minnesota, his life with Zelda, his experience in NYC and Long Island that contributed directly to scenes in TGG, how he was viewed by critics, other authors and the public, what he wrote before and after TGG and what happened to him and his family after publication. I read The Great Gatsby in print while listening to Maureen read her book on audio, making her points even more vivid.

Corrigan is NPR Fresh Air's book critic and teaches literature at Georgetown University where she has taught courses over the years focusing on Fitzgerald and Gatsby. Her course on New York literature is the most popular in the literature department - I want to take it! She grew up in Long Island City, a locale that figures prominently in TGG, so her love of both Gatsby and of New York must be part of her DNA.

Hearing Corrigan read her own book was a great way to experience her vast knowledge of and insight. I never felt like I was in one of her lectures primarily because she is a lifelong student of Gatsby and Fitgerald. So, while she was telling us about what she knows, she was also sharing what she continues to learn with each reading and with each conversation she has with people young and old about their reactions and insights to TGG. One of the most delightful parts of the book is when she goes back to her old high school in Astoria, Queens, NY and is hosted by the woman who taught TGG to her in 1970! Her encounters with the high schoolers and her former teacher continued to challenge her assumptions and make her think about the book in new ways, deepening her enthusiasm for the brilliance of The Great Gatsby.

Enthusiastically recommended!

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Had never heard of it until it was mentioned in our BYT discussion of Careless People. Once I heard about it, I had to read it and I'm very glad I did. Maureen Corrigan made many points about Gatsby that had not occurred to me---Gatsby as a noirish book, as a commentary on class, the omnipresence of water throughout the book (death in the pool, drowning in liquor, Gatsby arriving soaking wet at his reunion with Daisy, etc.) She also made much of the structure of the book and the place of Fitzgerald in the literary canon. A wonderful companion to The Great Gatsby itself and to Careless People.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big chunk of this book is Fitzgerald biography, which is not why I picked it up and wanted to read it.

Another big chunk of this book is simply Corrigan's exploration of Fitzgerald archives and her own past. Also not why I picked it up.

So I'm rather disappointed with this one overall. I expected something better written, and more... Engaging? Serious? Organized? Corrigan uses so many adjectives, it's over-written; if I had to read the word "hard boiled" one more time, to describe anything, I wanted to scream.

[Micah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second reading: A brilliant reflection worthy of Gatsby and Fitzgerald

[Sydelle Keisler · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read The Great Gatsby in high school, it didn’t make much of an impression on me, so I was a little nervous to teach it to my IB seniors this year. However, re-reading TGG in combination with “So We Read On” was an entirely different experience. Maureen Corrigan’s passion and pure adoration for TGG helped me fall in love with it this time around. Her work inspired many of my lessons and helped me communicate to students what is timeless and breathtaking about Fitzgerald’s most famous novel.

I appreciated her wit and humor, literary insights, humility, and vast knowledge of Fitzgerald’s life and writing process. Though I read this for work, her personality and writing style made this an absolute pleasure.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A miscellany of Gatsby-related stuff: biography, trivia (some of it very trivial indeed), literary tourism, personal response and what it's like to be a college professor, some of which is interesting, if that sort of thing interests you. Gatsby obsessives, like the writer herself, will like it most of course, and dipping aurally in and out, as I'm reconsidering my approach to teaching it to another and this time to particularly disinclined class, was not a waste of time at all. How Gatsby went (quickly, but after Fitzgerald's death, sadly for him) from forgotten to the most read and best loved of American novels is worth knowing.

However, I'm even less convinced that Gatsby is a great novel, and certainly not that Fitzgerald is a great writer. The fact that first editions are now worth $100k and up, and similar details, is a peculiar(ly American?) measure of literary success. Corrigan is perhaps a little dismissive of what I'm sure are obvious reasons that Gatsby has become the most and best. Forcing virtually every American (and Canadian and other) student to read it.... of course it's the most read. It's short, it's straightforward but without being sledgehammerly obvious, it's beautifully structured, it has a mountain of symbols that can be explored to a greater or lesser extent, its language is indeed 'gorgeous' (at times), it's pretty exciting, it reflects an important historical moment that students should also be learning about, it's Jazz Age, it has 'discussion topics' and there's no swearing in it, and the sex is off-stage and the homoerotic aspect (if there) can be safely ignored.... and now everyone's read it and there's an ocean of criticism and SparkNotesism on it and it is thoroughly embedded in popular culture. It's an obvious choice for any school syllabus (and frankly I'm not surprised that she finds it less frequently on university syllabi... I'm sure it wasn't on mine, and if it had been, we'd have spent at most minutes on it). I do like Gatsby and teaching it to Year 10, and I am not trying to pitch it off our list. But I don't think it's the greatest American novel. And if I had any idea what the greatest American novel was, I doubt I'd want that on a high-school syllabus anyway as it would inevitably be much too rich.

The second part of her title (and god but I hate these two part titles) is accurate - How the GG came to be and why it endures. She covers that, fairly engagingly, though I might quibble here and there over her interpretation. The real mission seems to be to convince us that it's really great, and her evidence boils down to 1) it's 'gorgeous'and 2) a lot of people have read it (and want to visit Fitzgerald's houses and buy his first editions). I suppose greatness is an impossible thing to prove, or even define, but I feel it would have been more interesting to explore how a probably-not-great book has become so pervasive - which I suppose she does, but while maintaining that those who didn't like it (at the beginning of its life or in high school) are just kind of missing how great it is.

For all that I'd had enough of this by the end, there were aspects that could have been explored further: Gatsby-in-popular-imagination (given that most of the population has read about him, usually under duress) and whether he is waxing or waning and whether that has anything to do with economics; and also the international perception. She mentions 'Cutter' (Qatar - took me a while to figure that out on audio) and China, but very briefly. Surprisingly sniffy about the Baz Luhrmann film too, and no analysis of that.

Wolfsheim as a Mr Potatohead of Jewishness was a nice idea - there are some good moments like this. But on balance this slice of fandom makes me want to read a bit of Northrup Frye, know what I mean. Step back, old sport.

EDIT: Reading this prompted me to read Manhattan Transfer, also from 1925, which I much preferred to Gatsby, though it's not so smooth - maybe because it's not so smooth, in fact it's gritty and harsh and rather shocking, and also captures the hollow dream of NYC and presages the Crash, and all in a tremendously avant-garde expressionism.

[Stephanie Fujii · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a gift from one of my students this year. So very, very thoughtful of him, as he (and pretty much everyone) knows how I adore Gatsby. It is for these reasons (gift, love of Gatsby) that I wish this book was better :( It's really a 2.5 stars for me.

The biggest problem I had was that I feel it never really answered the title. "How Gatsby came to be and why it endures" She definitely OVER did the "how [it] came to be", but I don't feel that she clearly and cohesively addressed why it endures. At times it was like reading a schizophrenic biography of Fitzgerald - hard to follow, jumping around, etc. And while I understand that his background informed the text, I didn't sign on for a biography of Fitz.

Another annoyance was her personal experience writing this book, intermixing with her writing. I mean, she goes back to her high school to sit in on and gain perspective from the group that reads Gatsby the most (high schoolers), and she talks about her own high school experience, teachers, locker and cigarette smoke. Uhm...okay? Again, this just clouded the book itself (and could have cut out like 50 pages)

I was bothered by her lack of faith in the intelligence and deep reading capability of high school students. I think they are definitely more than capable of digging into this text, appreciating the language, and finding meaning/connection. She would disagree with me on all of these points.

One of the final buggers for me came mostly at the end, and it was when I realized that she was one of "those" English teachers (or, professors, in her case...). One of those who believes that hers is the only right reading. Her understanding of the big idea, is THE big idea. She recounts conversations with her former English teacher, class discussions the high school kids and their teachers are having, and she pretty much disagrees with all of them, and her language is just a touch condescending about their perceived misreading of the text. I am reminded of a profound quote from the film "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." "Do you KNOW [Scott Fitzgerald]? Does he call you at HOME?" I mean, how do you know, definitively, that you are right? I despise teachers who are this way. A good teacher nurtures interpretations out of students and encourages them to substantiate claims. I hear claims from students all of the time that I disagree with. But I'm excited that they have their own opinion, and reading of a text. Because that's what it's about. But, hey. That's me.

Some of the late appearing nuggets that I love are one high school students' interpretation of the scene where Daisy cries over Tom's shirts. She reads the scene as Daisy crying over the fact that Gatsby has changed, and become hollow and materialistic, like Tom. He's "becoming" Tom, and it devastates her. That is such a weird and confusing/ambiguous scene, and I really like/love this idea. She did too, for a minute, before she slyly undercut it.

Anyway, it was cool to read about some of the early history of the book, and how early WWII contributed to Fitzgerald's comeback - but overall, I was disappointed :(

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corrigan's book was a delight. Though I'm a sucker for anything about writers and books. She does an excellent job of looking beneath the surface of the author and the novel.

This book is a gift for anyone that loves what the weight and flow of just the right words can do and then is brave enough to give it a try. I'm starting to work on a novel I've been thinking about for decades. This rendering of an iconic novel and its author is both raw and charming. It's a reminder to trust my own instincts and muse.

Corrigan hits on the magic of Gatsby - Fitzgerald's way with words. That he was able to pack such a punch in such a short novel shows his mastery over words. Words we use everyday, he arranged into poetry. And by that, I don't just mean pretty sounding prose - I mean potent prose.

I've always separated writers into two camps: those for which being published and applauded is the thing and those for which being published or applauded is anticlimactic because the creative process is the thing. Fitzgerald is more in the latter camp. Don't get me wrong, one hopes that readers will read what one writes, but it's more important to be authentic than have a best seller. Though both are nice, I suppose.

As Corrigan got into the weeds of structure and theme, I was delighted to read some of her insights.

But no matter the nuts and bolts of Gatsby, it always comes back to the poetry albeit poetry with a dark underbelly.

I loved her comparisons with detective novels and film noir. I had never thought of that before in reference to Gatsby, but now that Corrigan has clued me in, it's hard not to see it now.

Corrrigan's highlighting specific scenes in Gatsby made me want to read the novel again. I want to see what I see reading it as an adult. I will likely muse how Fitzgerald would write about the 2020s if he were here. What prophetic gems would he drop in to be discovered decades from now?

The parts where Corrigan talks about race and class and immigration as it is in Gatsby made me pause. It seems we've come a long way, but eerily we haven't in so many ways. Tom Buchanan is alive and well today.

When Corrigan reminded me of the scene when Gatsby is watching over Daisy outside her house and pointed to the cold steely realization that he's been discarded - it stung because things like that always sting. It makes you wish Gatsby had held onto the memory of Daisy instead of trying to hold her again. His longing for Daisy was beautiful until he tried to make it not his alone.

Fitzgerald died so young and so broken. It's hard not to see the parallels in his life and that of his famous character. He yearned to be one of the greats. On some level, he knew he did his best but perhaps in the end felt unseen. But maybe part of him knew he might be rediscovered after he was gone if something he wrote stood the test of time.

Corrigan convinced me that I should read Gatsby again. Learning more about Fitzgerald made me feel it's my duty as a writer to pay my respects by seeing the craft of Gatsby.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books, I enjoyed this light analysis of the book and biographical look at F. Scott Fitzgerald. I do wish it would have followed Fitzgerald's life a bit more chronologically instead of jumping around so much. I share her enthusiasm for The Great Gatsby, and she piqued my interest in reading some of Fitzgerald's short stories now. Special thanks to Deb for alerting me to this book's existence.

[JoAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit - an entertaining combination of literary discussion, Fitzgerald biography, and the author's personal experience. Now I need to reread The Great Gatsby. It's been well over a decade.

[Azita Rassi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Every Gatsby lover should definitely read this book. The author reads the audiobook herself, and she does it beautifully.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Very enjoyable. Great gift idea!

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this more but I found it difficult to engage, though Corrigan had some great interviews and experiences.

[Joanne Gass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! it's analysis, appreciation, history, anecdote, and so much more! It's my kind of analysis. I, too, think that The Great Gatsby is the great American novel, as I've told many people. Its the perfect mirror of early 20th century America, and it's beautifully written. Reading about it is almost as much fun as reading it again and again.