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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)

#121

Post by bell-cot »

aebtebeten wrote: post #99
elemdos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s probably counterproductive. It’s like religion - there’s arguably a lot to be gained from it, but people form negative early experiences and associate them with the thing itself. I’d love to re-read The Great Gatsby but dont want to relive middle school.

I think it's intentional. Going back and rereading both 1984 and Brave New World as an adult made me realize how awful my english teachers' interpretations ("fantastic dystopias" instead of "mirrors of then-current society") had been. Give them to kids who don't have the life experience to interpret them for themselves, and you can make people believe they know what Orwell and Huxley were writing about...

> Going back an rereading ... made me realize how awful my english teachers' interpretations ...

Consider that a final lesson. Both about how much you've changed since high school, and about the career-ending downside to teaching kids that current society already is pretty damn dystopian.

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

#122

Post by kbrkbr »

thundergolfer wrote: post #7

This 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…

I had the same impression. Whatever it is about, it is not about

> Why The Great Gatsby is the world's most misunderstood novel

The first thought I had when reading the headline was: by what measure?

I wanted to give the benefit of doubt, but there is not even an attempt to answer the question set out at the beginning.

Instead, like you say, somewhat of an advertisment for later derivations with no clear idea of where to go.

For me underwhelming.

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

#123

Post by brightball »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #86
Exoristos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ancestral Americans really do not have a "spiritual world," in my opinion, as acquisitiveness and power games suffuse even our churches, spiritual movements, and fraternal societies. The emptiness you delineate is very integral to the long-term American experience. As a reaction, addictive and manic personalities are endemic.

You reminded me of that experiment a social media influencer did earlier. American Christian churches refused to provide her with help, but other religions did.

Those churches referred her to food pantries that were funded and operated by donations and volunteers from multiple churches.

They help people so often that there are entire subsets of organizations dedicated to different areas of need. Food, housing, disaster relief, clothing, rehab, women’s shelters.

One church in North Carolina that wasn’t involved with a local food pantry did just help her directly.

In order to ignore all that you’d almost have to think that the social media influencer was just trying to get attention…

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

#124

Post by sometimes_all »

elemdos wrote: post #96
sometimes_all wrote: post #72

While I'm not an American, I read a bit of American literature, and sometimes I feel that many American children/teenagers are exposed to the classics slightly early, before they can accurately pick up nuances, understand the social structure of the setting, and are able to grasp the different strengths and foibles of human beings, both real and fictional. This tends to make them either misunderstand the text, read i…

I think it’s probably counterproductive. It’s like religion - there’s arguably a lot to be gained from it, but people form negative early experiences and associate them with the thing itself. I’d love to re-read The Great Gatsby but dont want to relive middle school.

> but dont want to relive middle school

I did not think it'd be this horrifying!

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

#125

Post by corimaith »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #67

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 desola…

From the perspective of an otaku, that's an ironic conclusion. The confusion regarding the neglected interiority was a conscious decision by the mainstream in the beginning was it not?

That's perhaps not to say that the otaku lifestyle as is today is preferable, but it always more about the transcendent experiences they were reaching for, an activity labelled childish by their peers. Meaning was never an issue, just actualization.

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

#126

Post by Fnoord »

lostlogin wrote: post #91
yanhangyhy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You reminded me of that experiment a social media influencer did earlier. American Christian churches refused to provide her with help, but other religions did.

It almost makes you wonder who religion is for. https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-m...

> It almost makes you wonder who religion is for.

Roleplayers. People who want to LARP they're Christians, while in practice they don't behave like them when the situation arises.

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

#127

Post by ceejayoz »

stevenwoo wrote: post #73
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.

Based on the photos I’ve seen of the Epstein sexual trafficking case - he and everyone in his circle saw Lolita’s protagonist Humbert Humbert as a role model for behavior - they openly call the female kids they abused variations of terms of endearment used for Dolly, the twelve to thirteen year old victim in Lolita and use quotes from the book in captions and notes. It’s a very short book and possibly because it is e…

See also: Musk’s naming things after Culture ships, Trump’s music picks like “Fortunate Son”, or complaints that Star Trek recently went “woke”.

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

#128

Post by ceejayoz »

incompatible wrote: post #61
KPGv2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m starting to think he was honest that this was his intended ending, and he’s given up as a result.

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

#129

Post by spragl »

aebtebeten wrote: post #99
elemdos wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s probably counterproductive. It’s like religion - there’s arguably a lot to be gained from it, but people form negative early experiences and associate them with the thing itself. I’d love to re-read The Great Gatsby but dont want to relive middle school.

I think it's intentional. Going back and rereading both 1984 and Brave New World as an adult made me realize how awful my english teachers' interpretations ("fantastic dystopias" instead of "mirrors of then-current society") had been. Give them to kids who don't have the life experience to interpret them for themselves, and you can make people believe they know what Orwell and Huxley were writing about...

Its different for different children. Some of them understand more than you think, most of them dont.

I think that reading the classics can be beneficial to the first type. But some of the classics can be very bleak. Its not fair to the children to make them read those. 1984 is probably in this category. Read Animal Farm instead. It is also better for the second type of children.

If done properly, and in moderation, I think reading classics is beneficial.

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

#130

Post by zorked »

lostlogin wrote: post #93
yanhangyhy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently read an American novel that gave me a deeper insight into what you were saying. I don’t know its English title, but roughly translating the Chinese title back, it’s California Gold. It’s about the son of a miner who dreams of striking it rich; step by step he becomes a wealthy man in California. The story has some moral sense, too. It was probably a very popular novel in the U.S. at one point. But I felt t…

> But I felt the ending was rather unsatisfying, because it simply stops after he succeeds—lacking the kind of depth we usually expect from a great novel. I find this a lot with American TV and movies (not so much with books as I tend to read non-fiction). Tying up all ends, sequentially and perfectly. It makes it all very unsatisfying.

German filmmaker Christian Petzold often gets some flak for his ambiguous endings, but it's amusing that he actually follows European cinema tradition. It's his audience (even in Europe) that got more used to neat, fully wrapped endings from American media.
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