The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
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Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#2(2021) At the time (64 points, 72 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26085219
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#3> The thought crossed my mind that it would be really interesting if someone were to write Nick's story," he says. In 2014, by then a published author in his 40s, he sat down to do just that, telling neither his agent nor his editor. It was only when he delivered the manuscript 10 months later that he learned copyright law meant he'd have to wait until 2021 to publish it.
WTf? Can't write an original spin off on some nearly hundred year old thing, without brushing with copyright law?
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#4(2021) At the time (64 points, 72 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26085219
That's odd. The date on the article is now April 10, 2025. In the text it refers to the publication date of The Great Gatsby as being 100 years ago. That is correct; the novel was evidently published on April 10, 1925.
I see in the Internet Archive that they revised the text. Originally the article was published Feb 9, 2021, and the wording was:
"Almost a century after he was written into being, F Scott Fitzgerald's doomed romantic has become shorthand for decadent flappers, champagne fountains and never-ending parties. "
The article was clearly occasioned by Nick by Michael Farris Smith being published later that same month, delayed until 2021 due to copyright issues.
Someone at the BBC simply made a note (or dug it up) to republish the article on the centennial of The Great Gatsby publication date, with some minor wording adjustment.
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#5I love the Great Gatsby, but I don’t understand how anyone could misunderstand the book. It’s quite a straightforward story.
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#6Today, we tend to see The Great Gatsby as a work of historical literature, as it gives a window into the Roaring Twenties. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald did not set out to depict the past; he was depicting his own present. Similarly, Proust's literature is seen as a window into the French high-society of the Belle Epoque, a society in which Proust lived.
Which works today do you think future generations will see as the classics of the 2010s and 2020s? Such may not even necessarily be works of literature; they could be other storytelling mediums, such as film.
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#7This article ends up seeming like an ad for some dubious derivations of the original novel.
- "Take, for instance, Michael Farris Smith's new novel, Nick. The title refers, of course, to Nick Carraway, the narrator of Gatsby, who here gets his own fully formed backstory."
- "Jane Crowther's newly published novel, Gatsby, updates the plot to the 21st Century, and flips the genders to feature a female Jay Gatsby and a male Danny Buchanan."
- "And Claire Anderson-Wheeler's The Gatsby Gambit is a murder mystery which invents a younger sister for Fitzgerald's eponymous anti-hero: Greta Gatsby – get it?"
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#8[deleted]
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#9I love the Great Gatsby, but I don’t understand how anyone could misunderstand the book. It’s quite a straightforward story.
Very likely a result of said anyone not having read the book in the first place.
Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)
#10Today, we tend to see The Great Gatsby as a work of historical literature, as it gives a window into the Roaring Twenties. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald did not set out to depict the past; he was depicting his own present. Similarly, Proust's literature is seen as a window into the French high-society of the Belle Epoque, a society in which Proust lived. Which works today do you think future generations will see as th…
Unironically dril's tweets[1].
Part of the problem of our time is that shared culture has significantly receded. There's little capacity to maintain "classics" as we understand them today. Take any massive artistic output (film, book, TV show) and it's nowadays either not seen/read/heard by more than 20% of the population or it's a flash in the pan hit which will be forgotten in another year or so (e.g. Barbenheimer).
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/dril/comments/cqde0e/pound_for_poun...