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The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

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Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#61

Post by incompatible »

KPGv2 wrote: post #46
tayo42 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game of thrones will be. No main character is safe since Ned Stark was killed on TV. No ending was going to be good. Sopranos had a controversial ending too. Silicon Valley captured the feel of the bay area and did a good job with satire. 2000s would be easier, I think 2010 is about the switch to super hero movies.

No one even talks about GOT anymore bc the ending was so bad. > No ending was going to be good Why do you say that? Plenty amazing shows have great endings. And GOT isn't some uniquely incredible story. Killing MCs is not new to GOT, either, and you give that show too much credit. Lost did it long before GOT. 24. Grey's Anatomy is SUPER famous for it. They killed off like half the original cast in a single helicopter…

Perhaps George R. R. Martin will finish the books some day, and we'll find out how he thinks it should end.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#62

Post by incompatible »

SirSavary wrote: post #11
kazinator wrote: post #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…

Crazy huh? If an author wrote something as a child and lived over a hundred, you could hit even two hundred :) F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author, died in December 1940. Given the rules around copyright I would have expected things to expire in 2010 (death of author, roll to next calendar year, +70 years) so I'm unsure what happened here.

The US only switched to the life + 70 system in recent decades, and it doesn't retroactively apply.

I think if you add a child as a coauthor, the copyright will last longer. Nobody seems to do that, probably because it now lasts long enough for just about anybody.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#63

Post by incompatible »

duskwuff wrote: post #15
SirSavary wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy huh? If an author wrote something as a child and lived over a hundred, you could hit even two hundred :) F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author, died in December 1940. Given the rules around copyright I would have expected things to expire in 2010 (death of author, roll to next calendar year, +70 years) so I'm unsure what happened here.

The rules were different at the time Gatsby was published. Its copyright expired 95 years after it was published - 1930 + 95 = 2025.

It was published in 1925 and expired in 2021.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#64

Post by stavros »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #37
SirSavary wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well aware, I had the opportunity to read it in high school, though that was because of my grade stream; students in a 'lower' stream didn't get the same material. Our prom theme the year I graduated was "The roaring 20s". The 2013 film had released months prior, and I remember discussing with friends how misleading it was--making the parties look incredible, while missing the book's subtler commentary. People wh…

Yeah, I remember reading it in highschool and all we talked about eas the love story and parties. I re-read it in my early thirties for some reason and quickly realized the story was about temporal and moral tragedy. Daisy and Gatsby aren't romantics; they are morally shallow and selfish. I felt like the book was more about how we created a world were we train ourselves to chase glamor, but are punished for it in the…

Maybe the Gatsby-themed party was meant to be one where nobody was having fun but kept taking posed photos to post on Instagram.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#65

Post by HelloImSteven »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #60
hutao wrote: post #6

Today, 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…

Breaking Bad , if we're lucky. More likely some superhero movie with a title like ThunderMan VI: Dawn of the Mayhem Battalion .

To be fair, it’s a fair assessment. Superhero movies like that are a defining feature of the last two decades, with titles and plots worsening at an exponential rate. Not that prior decades lacked superheroes. They just used to be less superficial.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#66

Post by jmyeet »

My interest in literature lies at the intersection with politics and society.

I resonate with the principle that art asks questions. In decades and centuries past, art was particularly important to the masses to question society at a time when that was often forbidden, forcing the use of metaphors. Literature, plays, opera and so on.

So a result of this is that as a general rule conservative political movements cannot produce art because they don't want people to ask questions. They want to give them answers that they take unquestionably in a similar way to how religious dogma is propagated.

So you see how fascist movements, most notably the Third Reich, have treated art and have sought "objective" beauty in an acceptable aesthetic and have denounced actual art as degenerate, even subversive, leading to such terms as "cultural Bolshevism".

So I see the Great Gatsby as questioning the very society of the Roaring Twenties where you might otherwise see it more superficially as simply depicting that era. It's historically noteworthy that it was released in 1925, well before the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that was (IMHO) the inevitable consequence of an era of great inequality where wealth was accumulated, even then, through financialization. Lest we forget Nick was a bond salesman.

And on top of this system we have Tom and Daisy who are essentially parasitic, who float through life with no regard for the consequences of their actions, who produce and give back nothing in spite of their wealth and status. Other, most notably Gatsby himself, pay the price for their reckless disregard.

I first read the Great Gatsby before the dot-com bust but it seems like you can draw many parallels with the post-GFC tech boom. This is why, for me at least, the Great Gatsby is inherently anti-capitalist.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#67

Post by yanhangyhy »

Personally, aside from Russian literature, I now prefer American literature, which I think is underestimated in China. I really like that film adaptation, but what the film expresses is something else, not the same as the novel’s core theme.

My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe(or other countries). One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land. Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle. The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life.

I think this kind of contradiction is expressed most clearly in American literature and is also most worth articulating within the American cultural context. This is because its commodity economy and social transformation have been too successful, and it lacks the kind of historical entanglements that Europe has to dilute these problems. As a result, this sense of emptiness stands out even more sharply and demands a more urgent response.

I don’t know if there are horror films like this, but I once saw something similar in the TV series WandaVision. She creates an illusion in which she and Vision are a standard middle-class couple, well-fed and well-clothed, with the visuals in black and white. This made it feel like a horror story to me. Why? Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension.

Of course, I don’t think that America’s secular success means it has no spiritual world; rather, the former has been so successful that the latter has been greatly neglected. The purpose of American literature should be to depict, under the success of this commodity economy, what people’s inner lives have actually become, and what they ought to pursue. This, to me, is its most distinctive quality.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#68

Post by auntienomen »

tayo42 wrote: post #29
hutao wrote: post #6

Today, 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…

Game of thrones will be. No main character is safe since Ned Stark was killed on TV. No ending was going to be good. Sopranos had a controversial ending too. Silicon Valley captured the feel of the bay area and did a good job with satire. 2000s would be easier, I think 2010 is about the switch to super hero movies.

There is a good ending to Game of Thrones: evil wins, everyone dies. All the fools who pursued their own interests rather than face an annihilating threat get annihilated. It's right there in the show's motto. "Winter is coming."

The writers just lacked the courage to do it. They tried to tack a Disney ending onto a tragedy.

Re: The Great Gatsby is the most misunderstood novel (2021)

#70

Post by roenxi »

rayiner wrote: post #5

I love the Great Gatsby, but I don’t understand how anyone could misunderstand the book. It’s quite a straightforward story.

When has straightforwardness ever been a defence against misunderstanding? It is common for people to just not get something the first time they encounter it, understanding is usually a process that involves time and a bit of repetition.

I remember some questions Stallman once fielded after a talk he gave on Free Software that made me rethink the principle of "no stupid questions" - some people just don't get things. Doesn't matter how clearly it was laid out. Being beings made of meat does not promote comprehension.

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