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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  The greatness of The Great Gatsby
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The greatness of The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, The Great Gatsby, is a Greek tragedy that is better than any tragedy written in Greek

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Ever since I read it as a teenager (and I have read it many times since), I have believed that if there is only one novel in English that one reads in life, it should be The Great Gatsby. I was thoroughly impressed with my daughter’s literary taste when, as a one-and-a-half-year-old, she decided, out of all the novels within her reach, to chew up the cover of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic.

It is a slim book—the hardcover version that I now possess (a belated thank you, Sundeep Dougal) is only 115 pages long. But in those 115 pages, Fitzgerald packs in unparalleled delights. The plot is compelling; the climax is unexpected; the characters—even the minor ones—are etched out beautifully; the social commentary subtle yet razor-sharp; and the language immeasurably beautiful.

There is not a single sentence that is not perfect, that one does not want to reread (so, Gatsby could take a bit more time to finish than its short length suggests).

It is the one work of fiction where I have underlined whole paragraphs, so that whenever I go back to it, I can enjoy the best bits quickly.

Gatsby is a Greek tragedy that is better than any tragedy written in Greek.

Many readers may know the story because they have seen Baz Luhrmann’s masterfully crafted 2013 film, if for nothing other than because Amitabh Bachchan does a mesmeric 10-minute turn as a New York gangster. But the book has pleasures that only great literature can provide.

The story, then, for those who came in late. Gatsby, set in the hedonistic 1920s, now referred to as the Jazz Age, is, on the face of it, a simple tale. Jay Gatsby is a man of enormous wealth but a mysterious past, who has settled at a super-posh seaside colony near New York City. He throws the most lavish parties unimaginable where hundreds of rich fun-seekers and freeloaders land up, but he himself remains strangely detached.

As it is slowly revealed, he has come here in pursuit of the love of his life, Daisy, married to a rich cad, Tom Buchanan. They live across the bay from him, and he hopes that by throwing his parties, he would one day be able to meet her again.

They meet, but Daisy, though in an utterly loveless marriage, is now an aristocrat, and Gatsby, in spite of his affluence, is still a commoner. She had loved him before he went off to fight in World War I, but now her feelings are far more ambiguous.

Meanwhile, Buchanan is carrying on an affair with a commoner, the wife of the owner of a nearby motor repair shop. Everyone seems to know about it, except for Gatsby and the woman’s husband.

The story is narrated by Nick Carraway, who is a distant cousin of Daisy and has taken a cottage in the certainly-not-super-posh part of the locality.

I should not give away more of the story, but I can certainly assert that in terms of social observation, of examination of the intricacies of love and human nature, of asking some rather unanswerable questions about the meaning of hope, justice and the absurdity of existence, Gatsby is quite unmatched.

And I can quote from the book:

“‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’

“‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’

“He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand."

And:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

Finally, the most beautiful description that I have ever read of a man accepting his destiny as he falls in love:

“One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete."

Only men of a certain type will possibly appreciate that passage fully. When I was a young man, before I fell in love, I had it by heart.

Sandipan Deb is the editorial director of swarajyamag.com

The Bookmark is a series on ‘interesting’ books—intelligent and thought-provoking, but also enjoyable.

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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Published: 20 Aug 2016, 11:39 PM IST
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