Re-read. Our February challenge book.

Dad comments that he always enjoys it when he’s reading it, but later he never remembers what it was about: a year from now he’ll think: “What was the plot of the Great Gatsby? I know it’s in the ’20s…” My friend Cathy loves this book…but she always teaches it to her high schoolers every year–the plot would definitely stay in your memory if you were doing that! 🙂

It’s well written, nice voice, really easy to pick up and read, has a nice conversational tone, Nick is really likable. But doesn’t necessarily take you somewhere. Similar to Austen it has that veneer of society being worthwhile. Very cool tone to it.

Easy to forget the hollowness in Gatsby–it’s so much all show. All the characters are so shallow, see, for example, Gatsby putting up a huge facade to chase this really childish illusion of the perfect romance, the kind of thing you believe when you’re 12. Everybody’s living a fake life, cruising along as if, if they keep moving, nothing’s going to catch with up them. Even Nick’s psuedo relationship with the tennis player. She’s a real slippery character.

Dad remembered the movie from 40 years ago – just a clunker. Robert Redford played Gatbsy, Sam Waterston played Nick – it was a huge flop.

A very Midwestern exchange:
Me: I found all the MN stuff really surprising. didn’t remember that at all.
Dad: The Great Gatsby is like War & Peace to Minnesotans. Once heard a professor at a conference in Minnesota being asked how wonderful it was and he gave a very careful answer: “Well, you know it’s one of those essential works of a period where, in America, you just can’t approach the ’20s without reading the Great Gatsby” i.e., worth reading for its picture of a time and place, but not putting it up with the great novels.

Verdict: Thumbs up for an enjoyable easy read, but would not appear on our Greatest Hits list.

Re-read. Our January challenge book.

Having both seen the movie and, while agreeing that it is a decent action flick, both agreeing that it really wasn’t our Sherlock Holmes, it seemed like a good time to go back for a re-read, this being the very first SH book (and ACD wasn’t even sure he was going to continue with Holmes–this could have been the only one!!).

Interesting to go back and read — we all come to it knowing the character already, whether through RDJ or Basil Rathbone, or memories of other stories… Fun watching Holmes and Watson bond on the page in front of you. Always think back on these as “Holmes stories” but in re-reading, really realize how much of the OTHER story you get here: the Westward expansion story, the spooky cult aspect of the Mormon setting, the hero who becomes an anti-hero–he becomes such a different person, an unstoppable avenger, and his heartbreak defines the rest of his life. You’re almost sad when Holmes catches him; the people he murdered deserved it!!

Full of dark sharp bitter elements, this is not a POP book. The hero goes down. In memory, you often soften Holmes a bit; you meet him here again as acerbic, rougher, dismissive (of Watson, among others), boxing. Watson always comes off a bit of a bumbler in the Rathbone films–really he’s “normal” right? He’s the “us” or “you” in these stories.

As with other Holmes’ stories, the everpresent suggestion of a ghost / pushed aside by Holmes who is always the one pointing out the physical evidence. Thought this was a weakness of the RDJ film as well–seemed like Holmes was falling for the mystical a bit too much.

According to an article in the Smithsonian (awhile back), Holmes was partly based on a doctor ACD knew and the bohemian / nonconformist aspect was based on Oscar Wilde (note that Dorian Gray and Study in Scarlet were put out by the same publisher). Holyroyd thinks the actor Henry Irving was one of influences for the illustrations of Holmes (haunted police courts, played lurid characters on stage).

Favorite new (to me) expression I had to ask Dad to define: “sere and yellow” = late autumn (here, of life).

Verdict: thumbs up from both Girl and Dad.

We have decided to do re-reads this year (or each book will be a re-read for at least one of us).

January: “A Study in Scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle

February: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

March: “Rebel Angels” by Robertson Davies

April: “Possession” by A.S. Byatt

May: “The Fool’s Progress” by Edward Abbey (new to me)

June: “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger (new to Dad)

July: “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville

August & September: “His Dark Materials” (the trilogy) by Philip Pullman

October: “Sabbath’s Theater” by Philip Roth

November: “The Old Devils” by Kingsley Amis (new to me)

December: “King Hereafter” by Dorothy Dunnett (new to Dad)

Our 2009 and 2008 lists.