So, like I said in the prequel to this post, I have been reading
The Great Gatsby. I've recently finished and, well, I still think Gatsby is pretty crazy, but now that I've finished I can understand him slightly better. Jay Gatsby, or James Gatz as he was born, came from a somewhat poor family and ended up running away from home and enlisting in the army for World War I. He met Daisy and almost immediately fell in love with her because of how extraordinary she was. He left for New York and they never spoke again, but he still loved her and she loved him.
Now, here's my thing with Gatsby. He can't deal with not having Daisy. He'd do pretty much anything for her (including taking the blame for a hit and run/manslaughter) and while people may find this romantic, it's extremely unhealthy. I already talked about how he dedicated a greater part of his life to finding her, but that's not all. Honestly, I don't think Gatsby ever really loved Daisy. It's possible that he liked her or was infatuated with her, but he didn't love her. When he moved the New York, he was pretty much alone, his only company the people who came to his parties (majority of whom didn't even
know Gatsby). It's possible that he missed having her around because she was his company, because she 'understood" him. But Gatsby is irrational. He's so hung up on getting back to this old life and better version of himself that just so happened to include Daisy, that he nearly tears her family apart. And, while it's partially Daisy's fault too, he should have known that his reappearing wasn't going to make Daisy leave her husband, even if she "never really loved him." And Gatsby's forceful. He refused to leave the hotel room everyone was in until Daisy said she didn't love her husband and, even after she said it, he wouldn't leave without
her. His obsession with Daisy may actually be part of the reason he was alone and no one attended his funeral. He almost never left home and was never very social. All he cared about was Daisy.
I feel like Daisy knew that Gatsby was a little off because, even though she says she loved him, she still stays with her husband. I assume it's because she knows Gatsby is unstable. And I don't like that people call Daisy stupid because she's not. She understands the world in many ways and that's why she's always so sad or anxious or whatever you want to call it. When she said she wanted her daughter to be a "beautiful little fool", it was because she didn't want her daughter to know how ugly the world really is, she doesn't want her daughter to hurt the way she did. And, I feel bad for Daisy. She was making a life for herself, she was somewhat happy with friends and a family, a child, but Gatsby comes back into town and that entire life is shifted in a matter of days.
This is the last thing I'm going to say about this book. I did not like the narrator. Nick Carraway was extremely indecisive and entirely too attached to Gatsby, even though they'd only known each other for a few months. He made impressing and being around Gatsby a large part of his life, and honestly, I just didn't like his character. I felt like he had no real grounding. The only definite parts of his life were Jordan
barely, Gatsby and Daisy.
It was a good book and I'll probably end up reading it again in the next few months. I need time to recuperate. One can only handle so much of James Gatz (who wasn't actually and Oxford man, big surprise there).
