I was totally wrong about 'The Great Gatsby' being a shallow party story

Our group read it last month, and I went in rolling my eyes. Then my friend's dad, who's a high school English teacher in Toledo, overheard us talking. He said, 'You're all focusing on the champagne. The book is about the ice. It's about the cold, impossible reach for something that's already melted.' That one sentence flipped a switch for me. I re-read the last page and finally got it. Has anyone else had a single comment from an outsider completely rewire how you saw a classic?

3 comments

3 Comments

claireg8925d ago

My old college professor said something like that about Moby Dick. He called the white whale a blank screen that every character projects their own private madness onto. It made me see the whole book as a study in obsession, not just a weird sea story. That kind of key idea really does unlock the text. I keep a little notebook of lines like that from smarter readers than me.

tara7001d ago

My high school English teacher had us read Heart of Darkness and said the river was a slow slide into the human subconscious. That one line made the whole confusing book click for me. It's like those key ideas give you a lens to look through, and suddenly all the weird parts have a point. I should start a notebook like that, because I always forget the good insights by the next year.

caseys3025d ago

That's a great way to put it. I had a similar thing happen with a different book. My advice is to write that line down somewhere you'll see it. Next time you're stuck on a classic, try to find one of those key ideas from a teacher or a good online lecture. It gives you a hook to hang everything else on, and the whole book just makes more sense after that. It turns a chore into something you actually get.