I was asking my mum for so long to find her copy of this book, saves me buying it. Finally a month or so ago she found it and I finished it last night.
Not only was I in absolute floods when i finished this (baring in mind I am a massive girl anyway) but when I closed it I felt almost so sad that it was over, and missed Gatsby.
Throughout the book, I didn't like Gatsby, I don't know if this was Fitzgerald's intention, which I thought was weird as he is the main character, but you just never warm to him, well I personally didn't. You get to know everything about his life, how he came to be so rich, his war stories, how he hoped he had died, his undying love for Daisy, yet you still arn't clear of his intentions because he is so mysterious, and elusive. The way in which he treats people, especially Nick is rude and dismissive. He never wants to know about Nick's life, the only interest he has is in Nick's job, and that's only because he wants nick to join him in whatever Gatsby does, as far as I'm aware you never find out.
So to me, Gatsby comes across as someone who is very arrogant, shows off and thinks he can buy everything, including people.
He throws these extravagant, glamorous and expensive parties, and the majority of the time he doesn't even attend them, all in hope that Daisy will be there. He bought this massive house across the bay from daisy, reads the paper everyday just to maybe see her name. It is very sad how much he loves her and how he cant quite live his life without her, yet to me she is a very selfish, immature woman. Up until the end I did actually like daisy, I wasnt massively fond of her, but I thought she was a harmless fool in love, that married the wrong man. Wrong. We see her at the beginning, married to Tom, and then we later find out, she was once and apparently still is in love with Gatsby, but he was too poor, so she chose Tom, Gatsby comes back into her life and she is very much up for leaving Tom and running away with Gatsby, because it appears she is still madly in love with him, as he is her. However after all the drama of the car crash, Tom offers to take her away and then she goes back to Tom, ultimately resulting in Gatsby's death!
This is where all my feelings change for Gatsby, after he has died. I don't know weather it is because the narrator Nick, changes his mind. Nick doesn't seem to be too fond of Gatsby, I think he finds him quite annoying and a nuisance. However the day of Gatsby death, nick says how he doesn't want to leave him, and i feel he gets quite attached to him, because with all the money Gatsby has he doesn't actually have a friend, so i think Nick feels he needs to almost look after him. We see as Nick leaves his house he says he has disapproved of him from beginning to end. I don't know if Fitzgerald has planned for the readers feelings to change with the narrators.
Evidently daisy is the cause of Gatsby's death, which makes this one of the saddest love stories ever. He loves her unconditionally, until death, and I don't think she really loves him at all, I think she loves the idea of money and being someone. She doesn't even attend Gatsby's funeral, actually only 3 people do, Mr Gatz, Nick and a old man we see in Gatsby's library at the first party. So sad how Gatsby has all the money anyone could ever dream of, but he didn't have love or friends, and as a result of this he literally died alone.
I could really go on, because i haven't even touched on the fashion in this novel, but I must stop now as I'm super tired and have work tomorrow. Conclusively this is a story of melancholy and loneliness.This is all made me even more excited about the Baz Lurhman remake coming this december, and I could see no one better to play the great gatsby than Leonado Dicaprio.
