Great Gatsby, American Gods

It's been too long since I last blogged. Not because books piled up, sadly, but because it's a sign that I've read almost nothing. Luckily, audio books came to my rescue; they're an agonizingly slow way to read, but I'm guaranteed my commuting time every day.

I "read" both American Gods and The Great Gatsby in this format. The former was pretty good, but there really isn't much to say about it. Gaiman proposes that the gods exist inasmuch as people believe in them, and the gods are struggling to remain "alive" in this day and age of non-belief. I kept thinking, though, about the difficulties with the premise -- different groups of people can have radically different ideas of the same deity (look at modern monotheism -- is God vengeful or merciful? Depends on whom you ask). But, having said that, Gaiman works it into an exciting story by the end, although it felt like some plot threads were very tacked-on.

On the other hand, there's too much to say about Gatsby. I somehow never read the whole thing in high school (long story), and I'd forgotten that; I actually just wanted to go back and read the book again, see I liked it better now. I think that it's a novel that's wasted on high schoolers; one of the major themes is the desire to turn back the clock, to go back to the old days when the future was bright. And, of course, high schoolers don't really have this desire, so it doesn't speak to them as strongly. Gatsby himself embodies this desire -- he wants to go back to when he first met Daisy Buchanan, but as a wealthy man, and has devoted 5 years to the project.

Every analysis of the book will talk about that. But I haven't seen any that talk about how Nick Carraway does the same thing. At the end of the novel, he returns to the mid-West, and there's a long flashback to his prep school days, when everyone used to come in on the train. But now he's 30, and he can't go back there. Tom never wants to go back, but he's so loutish that I think it's supposed to be a defect in him -- he hit his high point in college, but he doesn't even really know it. Daisy is torn between Gatsby (her past) and Tom (her present), but ends up choosing the present. But it's clear that neither alternative would be very good for her -- neither past nor present has the answers.