Michael’s Comments (group member since Nov 18, 2008)

Michael’s comments from the Gig Harbor AP Language Reads The Great Gatsby group.

Yes on the Wilson thing. Yes on the theme thing, too. I personally consider the book a commentary on desire (as a philosophical subject), but the idea of going from "riches to rags," so to speak, seems to fit nicely within that concept.

Thanks for CPR-ing this delightful forum, by the way!

Whoa! You read it? Brilliant. I'd chat a bit more but I've gotta go do stuff with our Chinese buddies.

Oh, page one hundred and eighty-eight has some wonderful stuff.

1. "I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more."
2. "One night I did hear a material car there and saw its lights stop at his front steps."

I love how he uses "material" as an adjective. It's truly sublime, don't you agree?

(Oh, and need I invite you all to post your own, too?)

What is the theme of this book?

Whoa. You caught me. I think it should be "who."

Wow. Chapter 7 was really important. Help me figure it out; it's too much to take in all at once. Possible questions:

1. Who* deserves pity? Tom? Myrtle? Gatsby? Daisy? Wilson? Carraway?

2. What is the significance of Myrtle? Is she an innocent?

3. How have the events in this chapter altered the relationships between characters?

*Ack!

Fitzgerald's is unique enough that it deserves a thread.

(Pages ninety-seven through ninety-eight!)

Ack! You're right!! I'd better start archiving the Mango Street stuff before it's too late!

Hi, guys.

In honoring a request of Mrs. Gilbert's, I've locked this thread. She had requested that we not get into extensive discussions on color right now since we'll be doing some writing on the subject later, to be based on our own independent thinking instead of collaboration.

But the bits about Gatsby's and his character into which this thread has wandered can easily be continued in the "Gatsby" thread.

Thanks!

No kidding. That, my friend, is the stuff of which Philosophy Club ought be made.

Whoa. Hey, Josh. You're not reading The Great Gatsby in Perry sometime this year by chance? It's good.

link

Hmm... The film in Spanish!! Ack!! I think it was too much pathos for one dose.

And I also saw Valkyrie with my brother over break, the movie about the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany. I like German things, so that film was a particularly interesting one for me.

Wow. I had never thought of the "Nick = white" thing. I'll be following that one from now on...

Thank you, Haley! You're my new best friend!

As for colors, green intrigues me most. It's only appeared twice (as of chapter five), and both times only in association with Gatsby and his love for Daisy. It's the "Gatsby color," I rather think, a color whose rarity symbolizes Gatsby's uniqueness, which I believe is what Carraway describes as his "extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as {Carraway has} never found in any person and which it is not likely {he} shall ever find again" (6).

For as Carraway realizes, Gatsby is utterly unlike his upper-class cohorts such Buchanan, Myrtle, or Gatsby's partygoers insofar as he is not frivolous. Gatsby is passionate, a man who, possessed of a desire for Daisy that is not materialistic but truly, honestly, innocently ardent, will lose himself to the world staring at a vague dim green light across a bay in pursuit of the one he loves. He waits three years to buy his specific house not for want of its lavishness but so that he can be opposite his Daisy; and I would even argue that Gatsby's entire accumulation of wealth is a desperate articulation of his love for Daisy. Look what Carraway tells us:

As I went to say goodbye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart. (101)

Gatsby, the man with the "ghostly heart," so passionately longs for Daisy that it spills over. It's a very hard thing to psychologically pin down; but Gatsby's wealth, in my opinion, is an articulation of his desire. Yes, he knows that this sort of wealth shan't make him satisfied, but that's just the point. Materialism is addictive: the more things he acquires the more Gatsby will want; his desire--not desire for one particular thing but spiritual disquiet to which desire is akin--will increase. So Gatsby manically tries to augment the richness of his life times n. He makes materialism his form of emotional masturbation, if I might make so raunchy. Why? Because it's through wealth that Gatsby longs most, and when he longs most he is closest to Daisy. And I needn't explain to all of us--we teenagers who have had at least a crush or two and can think and feel with our own souls just fine, thank you very much--why we are closest to what we love when we don't have it.

Yes. Just today, in fact, I realized the book was positively brilliant. Took me a while.

But I'm getting off topic... let's put this thread back on track...

Hi, everybody! I'm doing a sociological experiment.

You see, I'm trying to find out if the relative silence on this forum is a result of people simply not being on it or a general disinterest in talking about the book. So I've created a thread where you can just post absolute non-book-related rubbish. That's right. You can post pure (school-appropriate!) spam until your fingers fall off.

If we get more posts here, I guess that means the latter hypothesis is sadly correct...

Spam away!

...sigh... another orphaned thread...

Anyway, Gatsby is positively intriguing? Yes? No? Maybe so?

I can't quite it express it: there something's so palpably tragic behind his character, a combination of his precious uniqueness and his childish idealism that the world is just absolutely going to mash. I think he's the innocent of the novel.

Right. I really hope someone joins this pathetic little group, or else I'm going to be up till midnight, replying to my own posts. That said, here's a first topic to get things a-rolling.

We're studying class, and surely if you've read the first few chapters, you'll notice that references to wealth are just about everywhere. What do we think? About class? About wealth? About Carraway's attitude toward these two aforesaid?

Problem:

Today is Tuesday, Mrs. Gilbert is gone Wednesday through Friday. So unless I start this thing now, I'm going to go out of my mind until next week. And since Mrs. Gilbert made no reference to having a Goodreads forum for this book and since we got... shall we say... so tangential in the last one, some feeling deep down inside myself tells me that we weren't going to have one at all...

Solution:

This forum!

Have fun, kids. I will if you don't.

(To Mrs. Gilbert: If we were going to have a Goodreads discussion after all, I shall firstly apologize for my over-eager Goodreads impetuosity (tarrah!) and secondly delete this group and/or transfer all moderator controls to you!)