{"id":1986048,"date":"2023-07-30T05:25:03","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T09:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/overthinking-the-greatness-of-gatsby-which-is-still-great\/"},"modified":"2023-07-30T05:30:34","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T09:30:34","slug":"overthinking-the-greatness-of-gatsby-which-is-still-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/overthinking-the-greatness-of-gatsby-which-is-still-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatsby&#8217;s Greatness: Don&#8217;t Overthink It"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Foverthinking-the-greatness-of-gatsby-which-is-still-great%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1986048&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<h2>Unveiling\u2063 the Genius\u2062 of &#8220;The Great\u200d Gatsby&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p><span>It\u2019s third period English, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-administration-policy-will-threaten-fundamental-rights-for-women\/\" title=\"Biden Administration Policy Will Threaten Fundamental Rights For Women\">junior year<\/a>. \u2062You\u2019ve\u2064 just finished reading <\/span><i><span>The\u2064 Great\u200b Gatsby, <\/span><\/i><span>and your teacher is\u200c prodding the class to consider Fitzgerald\u2019s use of color.\u200d Daisy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-alleges-incoming-nyc-schools-chancellor-discriminated-against-white-administrators\/\" title=\"Lawsuit Alleges Incoming NYC Schools Chancellor Discriminated Against White Administrators\">white dress<\/a>, Gatsby\u2019s gold tie, the green light across the blue lawn\u2014what could it all mean?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>And then, from the back row, you see Matt\u2014or maybe it\u2019s Mike\u2014cock his head \u2062and raise his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Uh,&#8221;\u2064 he says with \u2063a snort. &#8220;Maybe the light was just\u2026 green.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In <\/span><i><span>Taking Things Hard: \u200bThe Trials of F. Scott Fitzgerald, <\/span><\/i><span>Robert Garnett \u2062doesn\u2019t take the side of the fledgling philistine in the \u200cback row of your\u200b AP Lit class.<\/span><span>  \u200d But Garnett, professor emeritus of English at Gettysburg College, is hardly\u200b sympathetic to Fitzgerald scholars whose Talmudic readings of <\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>often \u200cveer\u200d into the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/pub\/2\/article\/712258\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span>absurd<\/span><\/a><span>. Instead,\u200b he offers \u200ba refreshingly intuitive explanation for <\/span><i><span>Gatsby<\/span><\/i><span>\u2019s greatness and its author\u2019s precipitous decline.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A \u2063Fresh Perspective on Fitzgerald<\/h3>\n<p><span>Part biography, \u200cpart literary\u2062 criticism, <\/span><i><span>Taking \u2062Things \u200dHard <\/span><\/i><span>brings the reader through Fitzgerald\u2019s life and career but always comes back to the book at the center of both. Supplementing extant scholarship with a close-reading of the author\u2019s unduly neglected short stories, \u2063Garnett brushes away \u200ba century\u2019s worth of analysis\u200d to show it \u200cwas Fitzgerald\u2019s raw talent \u2062and emotional sensitivity that both helped him<\/span> <span>write\u2063 <\/span><i><span>The Great Gatsby<\/span><\/i><span>  and caused his tragic descent into alcoholism and hackery shortly after its publication. By looking past the accepted narrative and\u2063 focusing on what Fitzgerald actually wrote, Garnett offers a refreshingly\u200c intuitive case for what\u2062 makes <\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>great.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Challenging the Status Quo<\/h3>\n<p><span>Taking Things Hard <\/span><span>opens with an act of creative destruction. Garnett \u2064notes that during Fitzgerald\u2019s\u2064 lifetime, &#8220;<\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>was \u200cneither his best-known nor most \u2064popular&#8221; book. After an initial printing of 21,000 copies flew off the shelves in April\u200b 1925,\u2062 a smaller, second printing of just 3,000 units &#8220;failed to sell out&#8221; \u200buntil after Fitzgerald\u2019s\u200d death\u201415 years later. \u200dIt was around that time, in the wake of World War II, that\u200b <\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>first became\u200d popular &#8220;with\u200d ordinary readers.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The novel\u2019s rapid success puzzled the midcentury literati, who quickly set about searching for &#8220;weighty \u200dmeaning in a melodrama of mushroom millionaires.&#8221; Eventually, they &#8220;happily\u200c discovered&#8221; that <\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>&#8220;was about \u2018the American Dream,\u2019&#8221;\u200c a term coined six years after the\u200b novel\u2019s publication, and with which \u2063Fitzgerald would have been wholly unfamiliar. Once &#8220;the professors had what they needed,&#8221; the\u2062 book became &#8220;classroom \u2064fodder,&#8221; and, ever since,\u2064 the idea of the American dream in <\/span><i><span>The Great Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>&#8220;has been poured or knocked into the heads of \u200cgenerations of students.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Unveiling\u2064 Fitzgerald&#8217;s Essence<\/h3>\n<p><span>To Garnett, this is entirely the \u2062wrong approach. &#8220;Ransacking Fitzgerald\u2019s novels and stories for themes, ideas, and opinions misses\u200b the ardent,\u2062 vulnerable sensibility behind \u200dthem,&#8221; he writes, adding that \u200b&#8221;it does not diminish&#8221; Fitzgerald &#8220;to point out that he was neither philosopher, thinker, theologian, oracle,\u2064 nor sage \u2026 not even a garden-variety intellectual,&#8221; because &#8220;he gives us something richer than classroom discourse.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That &#8220;something&#8221; is actually two things:\u2064 beautiful\u200d prose and emotional honesty, both deployed in service of \u2062communicating &#8220;falling in love [and] romantic loss,&#8221; the \u2062two main themes of Fitzgerald\u2019s writings \u200dand sensations Fitzgerald\u2064 &#8220;understood well and suffered intensely.&#8221; In Garnett\u2019s telling, Fitzgerald seems in \u200bmany ways to be the &#8220;beautiful little fool&#8221; <\/span><i><span>Gatsby\u2019s \u2064 <\/span><\/i><span>Daisy Buchanan wishes her daughter to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Demystifying Fitzgerald&#8217;s Life<\/h3>\n<p><span>But \u2062if Fitzgerald\u2019s beautiful foolishness produced some of the greatest writing in American letters, it also fueled his alcoholism, moodiness, and notoriously tumultuous marriage to the equally drunk and mercurial Zelda Sayre.\u200c That <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/overthinking-the-greatness-of-gatsby-which-is-still-great\/\" title=\"Gatsby's Greatness: Don't Overthink It\">deadly trio ultimately led<\/a> to Fitzgerald\u2019s infamous\u2064 <em>The Crack-Up<\/em>, the name \u200che gave to a collection of three essays on his breakdown initially \u200dpublished in <\/span><i><span>Esquire<\/span><\/i><span>.<\/span> <span>Garnett dismantles the \u200chagiographic consensus surrounding \u200d <\/span><i><span>The Crack-Up <\/span><\/i><span>as deftly as he deflates <\/span><i><span>Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>scholars\u2019 American dream.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Readers with even a passing \u2064familiarity with Fitzgerald will find\u200b themselves shocked as\u200d Garnett highlights \u2063the\u2063 absurdity of scholars\u200d who hail these\u200b essays as evocative and honest, when in reality\u2064 they are &#8220;far from brilliantly written \u2026 littered with cliches&#8221; and often &#8220;simply falsified.&#8221; Thanks to Garnett,\u2062 it will\u200c be hard\u2063 to\u2062 ever again take seriously Fitzgerald\u2019s musings about the darkness of the soul at three \u2064o\u2019clock in the morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A New Perspective \u200con Fitzgerald&#8217;s Work<\/h3>\n<p><span>Garnett is at his best when he shines the light on conventional wisdom surrounding Fitzgerald\u2019s life and work. But\u200d while he\u2062 objects\u2064 to the standard \u2064ways\u200d of reading Fitzgerald, Garnett ultimately draws similar conclusions to the consensus he seems hellbent\u200b on busting.\u200b Having revealed the pitfalls \u200cof intellectualizing Fitzgerald, he instead takes him at face value, \u2063relying on his\u200b personal\u2064 writings, \u2064the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bombshell-study-confirms-this-daily-drink-lowers-iq\/\" title=\"Bombshell Study Confirms This Daily Drink Lowers IQ\">oft-neglected<\/a>\u200c but meticulously kept diary \u200dof his personal secretary, Laura Guthrie Hearne, and, most important, \u2062Fitzgerald\u2019s autobiographical short stories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Flitting from literary history to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/watch-teacher-bullies-student-for-taking-colorblind-approach-to-classroom-assignment\/\" title=\"Watch: Teacher Bullies Student For Taking Colorblind Approach To Classroom Assignment\">literary criticism<\/a>, Garnett shows how Fitzgerald habitually lifted dates, locations, and occasionally exact language from his diaries to use as the \u2063foundation for stories. While contemporaries like Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe pulled from personal experience in their fiction, Fitzgerald simply sold slightly embellished versions \u2062of his life\u2064 to the <\/span><i><span>Saturday Evening \u2063Post. <\/span><\/i><span>He admitted as much to Hearne toward the \u2062end of his life, telling her &#8220;all my characters are Scott Fitzgerald.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Rediscovering the Brilliance of &#8220;The Great Gatsby&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p><span>With\u2062 Fitzgerald, what \u200cyou see is\u2063 what you get. Garnett embraces \u2062this simplicity while doing the critical work of demonstrating why this is so. By concluding a\u200d rigorous literary and historical study with a\u200d rather intuitive diagnosis\u2014that is, \u200b <\/span><i><span>The Great Gatsby <\/span><\/i><span>is great because it is \u200cbeautifully written\u2014Garnett rescues the book from those who \u2064elevate it by reading\u2064 what isn\u2019t there,\u200d as well as \u2063those who dismiss it as \u2064just some overhyped book you read\u2063 in high school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Taking Things Hard: The Trials of F. \u2063Scott Fitzgerald<\/em><br \/>  by Robert R. Garnett<br \/> \u2063LSU Press, 352 pp., $39.95<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In English class, after reading The Great Gatsby, the teacher prompts us to analyze Fitzgerald&#8217;s color choices. The significance of Daisy&#8217;s white dress, Gatsby&#8217;s gold tie, and the green light on the blue lawn puzzles us. Suddenly, from the back row, Matt or Mike raises an intriguing point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":1986049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}