Note: This is my take on “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald. If you haven’t read the book yet, here is the link.

There is no wonder like the wonder of first.
First and Fresh.
The idea of purity and naivety from the first and fresh.

A force and a beacon of hope that The Great Gatsby thrived upon.
His shine is a chase of past incapable of getting repeated,
Chase of his discovered escape from the shady life he fell prey into.

If you have read ‘The Great Gatsby’, there is a chance that you could have googled the hidden implication of the story and it would go something like how Gatsby represents America and its relentless effort towards a dream that had been dreamt and done. How dazzling and fast-paced parties became the norm and way of life.

Here is an excerpt from the book to describe the dazzle and fast-paced parties I talked about.

Pg no: 53

“The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and colour under the constantly changing light.”

The story of Gatsby also represents how America thrives on seeking the wonder that once struck the hearts that dared to build a life on the land discovered.

And how that wonder of first witness and freshness seems to elude as it gets closer.

Because after all, who can make the recipe to turn the clock back?

Pg no: 200

“I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood not desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”

And the correlation makes sense. But as a reader from a non-Western country, the story of Gatsby is more because I could see the entirety of humankind trying to hold on to an idea and lose the touch of raw truth that, at some point, everything is bound to feel futile and there’s never a better time than the present, and you don’t have the ability to repeat the first of anything.

Because as the saying goes:

‘The more you chase,
The farther it gets’

Here is an excerpt from the book that distils the madness of chasing the past.

Pg no: 126 

“You can’t repeat the past.”

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… He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…”

The idea of Daisy spelled Gatsby because she was a breath of freshness for him and his entire life, just like America and humankind, failed to acknowledge what Nick Carraway realised.

Pg no: 122

“But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now.”

Above are the reasons I think ‘The Great Gatsby’ is the truth behind the misery of the most. Until I had read this text, I had always thought of “only if it were” and that made me sick, vulnerable and painful to be with, always resenting the way things are and romanticising the way things were.

This book is one of its kind that helped me face myself truly for what I am and I can only imagine the truths I would discover when I read it for the hundredth time.

And I would like to end with some excerpts from this book that I think we humans are experts at — fantasising about unrealistic expectations.

Pg no: 111

“… 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… No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

Pg no: 114

“For a while, these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.”

Another reason I love this book is that Nick Carraway and his narration that doesn’t reek of judgment anywhere. And you can see why at the beginning of this book itself.

Pg no: 11

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”