The Great Gatsby

I picked up a tattered copy of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" from the bookshelf last night.  It had been abandoned been abandoned by one of my teenage children after the compulsory high-school study.  I am enjoying the book, perhaps more because someome wrote all over this copy. 

A high-school kid, no doubt, with an upcoming test, a goal, a teacher breathing down her neck.  The roundish handwriting. tells me it was a girl although it doesn't seem to be my daughter.   The mysterious scrawler has left dozens of questions, underlined paragraphs, brackets, question marks.   "Question: Why does Daisy stay with Tom?" on page23.   "Repetition for effect" on page 26.  "Nick doesn't believe anything" on page 70.  On and on.

 And then a long stretch without notes.  No sign of life for paragraphs on end until the trails picks up on page  148: "It was a form of betrayal that ends in death." followed by some furious underlining. There's a handy synopsis of Fitzgerald's techniques on the last page of the book: juxtaposition, symbolism, description.  There is a long list of examples, a description of color symbolism, and a second long list labeled "Abstract concepts".  

Hard work.

I attended a parent-teacher meeting at my son's school earlier in the fall and was struck by the list of required readings and the speed at which my son was supposed to read.  There was much talk about tests, college essays, homework and make-up exams.  Nothing at all about enjoying literature or learning to pick a good book.  No choice about what to read.  I left with a great sense of relief at bring done with high-school and college, and a lingering sadness at the thought  that my children have to plod through uninspired school garbage about literary techniques for several more years before being off the hook.

But why?  Why should a seventeen-year old care about Fitzgerald's symbolism?   Lord knows 99.99% of adults don't give a flea's hair about literary goobledy-gook and don't remember a darn thing about high-school English.

I hope that my fellow reader was able to go past the high-school requirements and enjoy Fitzgerald against all odds.  The long empty stretch in the middle of the book gives me hope .  Perhaps she got so caught up in the story that she stopped taking dutiful notes. 

If not, if it was just the flu or boredom that stopped her, I wish for her to rediscover the book on a shelf some thirty-something years from now.   Read it for kicks.