Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Gatsby's criminal activities have been downplayed if not largely ignored by literary critics, while, led by esteemed Yale Professor Harold Bloom, they have exaggerated his romantic side, doing a disservice to readers and students of literature. Fitzgerald complained "that of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about," a condition that apparently has not changed.

A close reading shows that Jay Gatsby was a bootlegger and then kingpin of a scam to sell worthless bonds in small towns and to gullible victims at his lavish parties. Indeed, the parties were for this purpose, NOT, as Bloom and his minions assert, "solely to attract Daisy," a preposterous assertion for which there is virtually no support in the text (see item 7, below.) It is no wonder Fitzgerald was shaking his head.

The evidence on the page is as follows:

A. Nick sells bonds for a living and Gatsby tries repeatedly to recruit him to join his team to peddle bonds that are apparently counterfeit or stolen.
B. Nick notices "well-dressed" Englishmen at the party whom Nick concludes are probably selling bonds.
C. The owl-eyed man reveals that most of the patrons at the parties were brought there, suggesting they were solicited.
D. Repeated references are made to "Chicago," a city notorious during the 1920s as a center for organized crime, Al Capone in particular. Gatsby is repeatedly interrupted to take or make telephone calls, some from/to Chicago, ostensibly to coordinate bond scam activities.
E. Nick intercepts a telephone call from Chicago intended for Gatsby about someone named Parke getting apprehended. (Ch. IX, p. 166) Nick, narrating:

...Long Distance said Chicago was calling...the connection came through as a man's voice, very thin and far away.
"This is Slagle speaking..."
"Yes?" The name was unfamiliar.
"Hell of a note, isn't it? Get my wire?"
"There haven't been any wires."
"Young Parke's in trouble," he said rapidly. "They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They got a circular from New York giving 'em the numbers just five minutes before. What d'you know about that, hey? You never can tell in these hick towns---"
"Hello?!" I interrupted breathlessly. "Look here--this isn't Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Gatsby's dead."

The proof that Gatsby is a kingpin in a scam to sell stolen or counterfeit bonds is right here.

Slagel is apparently Gatsby's underling, reporting that a member of their sales team, Parke, has been captured by authorities while attempting to deliver illicit bonds in a small Midwestern town, like the town Gatsby came from. "The numbers" refers to the list of serial numbers that would have been reported to authorities as stolen or counterfeit.

Here in chronological order are the key events leading up to this climactic condemning telephone conversation.

1. Ch. I, p.3 (Nick, narrating): ...so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man.

2. Ch. III, p.42 (Nick notices the sales team at the party, strongly suggesting that purpose of the parties was to attract the affluent targets for fleecing) Nick, narrating:

I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something, bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key."

3. Ch. III, p.44 (The same scene, Nick and Jordan are in conversation with twins, one named Lucille.) Lucille speaks:

"Gatsby. Somebody told me---"
The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.
"Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once."

This is the first of several hints of a sinister side to Jay Gatsby.

4. Ch. III, p.46 (At the same party, in Gatsby's library, the observant owl-eyed man shows that the books haven't been read and reveals that most people have been solicited to come to the parties.) The owl-eyed man, addressing Nick and Jordan:

"Who brought you?" he demanded. "Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought."

Why pay to have people brought to a lavish party if you don't expect some benefit, such as the purchase of bonds by a liquored-up patron or two?

5. Ch. III, p.48 (Just after Gatsby introduces himself to Nick, he excuses himself to take a call from Chicago.) Nick, narrating: ...a butler hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the wire. The mention of Chicago foreshadows a connection between Gatsby and organized crime.

6. Ch. IV, p.71 (After introducing Nick to Wolfsheim, Gatsby excuses himself to make a phone call.) Nick, narrating:

Suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room, leaving me with Mr. Wolfsheim at the table.
"He has to telephone," said Mr. Wolfsheim. following him with his eyes. "Fine fellow, isn't he?"

Why portray Gatsby as someone prone to telephone interruptions unless it's relevant to characterization or plot? He's not married, has no girlfriend of whom we're aware nor has he any children, whereas coordinating a field sales force would require frequent telephone contact.

7. Ch. IV, p.79 (The only reference in the entire book as to a purpose for the parties is an offhand speculation by Jordan on the last page of Chapter IV after her private conference with Gatsby.) Jordan:

"I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night," went on Jordan, "but she never did."

"I think" is a surmise, at best, and "half-expected" is anything but "solely" and a far cry from "hoped." This statement eliminates any romantic justification for the parties. If not for Daisy, what were they for? Taking into account the hints Fitzgerald has provided, bond peddling is the most likely reason.

8. Ch. V, pp.82-83 (Gatsby's first attempt to recruit Nick to sell bonds) Gatsby:

"--why, look here, old sport, you don't make much money, do you?"
"Not very much."
This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.
...And I thought that if you don't make very much--You're selling bonds, aren't you, old sport?"
"Trying to."
"Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time... It happens to be a confidential sort of thing. ...You wouldn't have to do any business with Wolfsheim."

Gatsby's attempt to recruit Nick to sell bonds for him fails.

9. Ch. 5, p.90 (While waiting for Daisy, Gatsby has been filling in some of his background and renews his recruitment offer to Nick.) Nick, narrating:

When I asked him what business he was in he answered: "That's my affair," before he realized that it wasn't an appropriate reply.
"Oh, I've been in several things," he corrected himself."I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either one now." He looked at me with more attention. "Do you mean you've been thinking over what I proposed the other night?"

Gatsby's second attempt to recruit Nick also fails.

10. Ch. V, p. 93 (Gatsby has been showing Daisy and Nick around his mansion.) Nick, narrating:

...I was going to ask to see the rubies when the phone rang, and Gatsby took up the receiver.
"Yes... Well, I can't talk now... . I can't talk now, old sport. ... I said a small town... He must know what a small town is. ...Well, he's no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town... ."

Here Gatsby appears to be coordinating the activities of someone targeting a small town, like the "hick town" Parke gets nabbed in in Chapter IX. it is significant that Gatsby/Gatz is from a small town, as is his father.

By targeting small towns for his bond scam Gatsby compounds the betrayal of his working-class roots, and thereby his own sense of self, becoming spiritually bankrupt, and empty shell of a man.

11. Ch. VII, pp.133-134 (Nick, Jordan, Gatsby, Daisy and Tom are at the hotel, where Tom unmasks Gatsby as a criminal.) Tom (the ellipses are mine):

"Who are you, anyhow? ...You're one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem. ...I've made a little investigation into your affairs....
...He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side street drug-stores ...and sold grain alcohol over the counter. ...That drug-store business was just small change," continued Tom slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about."

Tom could only be referring to the sale of illicit bonds as revealed in the Chapter IX phone conversation with Slagel about Parke getting picked up.

12. Ch. VII, p. 134 (The same scene, just after Tom's comment above.) Nick, narrating:

Then I turned back to Gatsby--and was startled at his expression. He looked--and this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden--as if he had "killed a man." For a moment the set of his face could be described in just that fantastic way.

As foreshadowed by one of his party-goers, now in the face of Tom's righteous condemnation Gatsby's criminal soul briefly shows through his glitzy social veneer. This spontaneous unmasking of his dark side, by Gatsby himself, is just what Daisy needs to make her decision to reject him.

13. Ch. IX, p.170 (When Nick visits Woflsheim at "the Swastika Holding Company" to get him to attend Gatsby's funeral, four more rapid references are made to Chicago, again hinting at a link with organized crime.) Secretary (the ellipses are mine):

"Nobody's in," she said. "Mr. Wolfsheim's gone to Chicago. ...I can't get him back from Chicago, can I? ...When I say he's in Chicago, he's in Chicago."

Like clanging a bell, Chicago is used throughout the novel, 20 times to be exact, as a symbol to awaken in readers a sense of criminal presence.


In summary, Nick's observation of the sales team at Gatsby's party and the owl-eyed man's revelation that people were solicited strongly suggest the parties were for selling bonds. If not, what was their purpose? (And don't tell me to attract Daisy because we've already skewered that manufactured myth and identified its source, Professor Bloom.)

Nick sells bonds for a living, and Gatsby tries to recruit him. Gatsby takes frequent telephones calls as if coordinating sales activities, two of which are from Chicago, a center for organized crime, and one climactic phone call (cited above) announces the sale of illicit bonds in small towns.

Tom's investigation has uncovered some "new business" Gatsby's involved in that's much bigger than bootlegging, ostensibly the sale of illicit bonds.

Wolfsheim, whose name appears 32 times, is linked to Chicago by the unnamed secretary's comments. Wolfsheim can't attend the funeral. He keeps a low profile, ostensibly because the FBI was known during the 1920s to attend funerals to link mobsters with their cohorts.

Slagel's phone call is from Chicago.

Fitzgerald provides the dots. It's up to the reader to connect them. This is far more than a glorified romance novel.

The parties were for Gatsby's criminal activity, they were also to attract Daisy. So there.

I've begun a search for articles about Gatsby's dark side. Here's one from the Wall Street Journal:

And a quote: "A rougher version of Gatsby actually fits with Fitzgerald's original conception of the character, says Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III, who was an adviser on the film."

But I'm for sticking with what's on the page.

I though the film was an accurate portrayal of Gatsby- for those who closely read the book. I liked it.

Interesting, Monty! I do not disagree, as I suspected Gatsby was involved in organized crime -- and noticed the Chicago connection right away.

Funny though, his desperate longing for Daisy is what people (myself included) notice most about the book. Whatever F Scott was trying to portray, he managed to get across Gatsby's obsession for Daisy. The kingpin mobster stuff seems almost like a sideline.

Christine wrote: "Funny though, his desperate longing for Daisy is what people (myself included) notice most about the book. Whatever F Scott was trying to portray, he managed to get across Gatsby's obsession for Daisy."


Thanks. Glad somebody gets it.

I think Fitzgerald tuned into a lightening rod of universal truth by telegraphing Gatsby's desire/obsession for Daisy. There's something primal about wanting to be wanted/needed/desired and feeling the want/need/desire, and perhaps the more the reader's needs have gone unmet, the greater they sense it in Gatsby, as a form of projection. (I'm no fan of romance novels, but this may be why the genre is so robust. A gold mine for someone like Danielle steel.)

Through Nick's hyperbolic vision and Fitzgerald's third-person intervention we tune in to Gatsby's zeal but get very little from Daisy. We see only one side, yet both men and women readers are drawn in.

That romantic notion is so compelling that most readers care little about Gatsby's dark side. Including a certain university professor.

What is puzzling is that people are so drawn in by this aspect of him, despite the fact that we know that no human is all good or all bad. We don't want to know the bad. We seem to not want our happiness spoiled with a peek behind the magician's cape.

EVERYone has a shadow side, and by refusing to accept Gatsby's, we are in effect saying happiness is having a fantasy hero. A Superman. Spiderman. The Lone Ranger. Instinctively we know that all good is unrealistic, and showing the bad spoils it, and heros in film have been more complex, coming with flaws.

Where does our penchant for idealistic perfection some from? Religion, (e.g. Jesus being sinless and Mary a virgin?)

Jay Gatsby represents people like Wall Street gremlins Bernard Madoff and Ivan Boesky, junk bond king Michael Milken, Enron's Kenneth Lay, the S&L crisis' Charles Keating, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Regan, etc., etc., leaders who were built up to have such a mesmerizing aura about them consisting of a package of things true and good they supposedly represented and we were so enraptured by that we didn't want anyone near our fantasy balloon with a sharp object. It's collective denial.

Ohhhh, not me! I find the dark side infinitely interesting! Maybe that is why I have been long fascinated with Gatsby.

America loves a good romance, and America loves a super hero. However, I am noticing more and more in our post modern world, people are drawn to the morally ambiguous. I notice this mostly in popular television shows. It is kind of like, people are realizing that no one is perfect, and icon breaking is being explored, at least for the open minded.

Also, thanks, Monty, for the detailed analysis of Gatsby's junk bond spree. Although reading the book more than once, I did not put all of that together. I gathered Gatsby as a bootlegger, Meyer Wolfscheim as a shady numbers fixer, and they were on Nick's back for personal gain. Your details really pieced it out! As a native Chicagoan, aware of our crime town history, I have been drawn to the Chicago references.

Monty J wrote:
"Thanks. Glad somebody gets it."

Hmmm... I think more than two or three of us get it Monty, even if we don't agree with everything you posted about the book. We know Gatsby was a criminal, Wolfscheim too, and we caught the Slagel character on the phone at the end too! :)

Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote:
"Thanks. Glad somebody gets it."

Hmmm... I think more than two or three of us get it Monty, even if we don't agree with everything you posted about the book. We know Gatsby was a c..."


You're among the few. In discussing the novel with lay peers, I've yet to come across anyone who understood Gatsby played a key role in a bond scam. Even a retired high school English teacher who taught it for over five years wasn't aware of it.

And after reading three books of literary analysis and finding a similar pattern, it seemed worth calling attention to. Some of the authors/contributors knew he was involved in something shady other than bootlegging, but not one mentioned bonds. One even said he was involved in illicit gambling, which isn't even in the book.

I suspected that, of all places, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ would be where to find a few people who would connect the dots.

But do those peers agree that Gatsby was involved in criminal activity with Wolfscheim? And that the phone call at the end was related to this criminal activity, and that Gatsby associated with these shady characters- because that's really all we need to know. Criminal schemes. If the people you talk to DON'T know that, then they are not reading the novel closely. I can't and don't discuss novels with anyone but people here on GR and my husband, for the reasons you mention. That's just the way it is- no serious reading book clubs of great novels exist where I live.

Karen wrote: "And that the phone call at the end was related to this criminal activity,"

Nope. That Slagle phone call went right over everyone's heads, including the lit crit books I've been combing through. It wasn't even in the Baz Luhrmann film. Instead Luhrmann has somebody crash one of his parties and get beaten up by his staff, sweeping the bond scam right off the table, as if Gatsby's criminality were some vague background issue.

I was discussing it with a 94-year-old woman today, and she thought of him as just a partying type of guy, not a criminal.

No wonder crooks get away with what they do so often for so long. Maybe people who are honest, as most people are, assume everyone's honest until something happens to make them suspicious.

Monty, I think your perspective is particularly unique in that you were raised in an orphanage and that makes you, fortunately, more aware of the foible and frailties of the human spirit. I spent the last six years in a small town with a small group of, yes, Americans, (I live in Mexico as an ex-patriot as I have attested several times on this website) and have been made acutely aware of their naivete. As a visual artist I´ve had friends over the course of my lifetime, with other artists, and have found them to be much more savvy than the general bourgeoisie. But having now lived in a community in which none were fellow artists, a first for me since my salad days, I am made painfully aware how pervasive the blinders are placed on those whose lives are well ensconced in the pleasant comfort of middle class living. They are further removed from the chicanery of the underclass or criminal class, and so that tingling awareness of matters awry is largely absent. They don´t recognize the deviousness of the sociopath or psychopath unless the behaviour is erratic, but more intelligent deviants are able to hoodwink them.
They are living in a bubble, a self-induced romantic haze of bea(u)titudes.

Geoffrey wrote: "Monty, I think your perspective is particularly unique in that you were raised in an orphanage and that makes you, fortunately, more aware of the foible and frailties of the human spirit."

Very observant. I agree. Having been immersed in sociopathy at an early age, I am hyper-aware of human foibles and weakness, seemingly to the point of paranoia sometimes. I survived a near-lethal auto accident high in the Sierras because I was practically daring the other drivers to make a dangerous move. When one did, I was able to react.

I suspect this is why I am so drawn to Salinger's work. He experienced the effects of Nazi sociopathy first-hand during three back-to-back years of combat during WWII, and it shows up in his work. Can't wait for his first posthumous publication.

Monty wrote;
"Nope. That Slagle phone call went right over everyone's heads, including the lit crit books I've been combing through. It wasn't even in the Baz Luhrmann film. Instead Luhrmann has somebody crash one of his parties and get beaten up by his staff, sweeping the bond scam right off the table, as if Gatsby's criminality were some vague background issue."

I think there was a phone call at the end of the movie, but very briefly. That Slagle call in the book should make the reader aware that Gatsby definitely had shady dealings. Fitzgerald is subtle and that's one reason I like him- there were subtle suggestions all throughout the novel and the phone call just ties it all together. For me it took the second reading- I was in my 20's when I read it the first time and was overtaken by Gatsby's "mysterious charm", as I like to call it. But lit critics should know better. Are there any essays you have read by critics that you have read or just books?

Karen wrote: " and the phone call just ties it all togethe"

Exactly.


"Are there any essays you have read by critics that you have read or just books?"

Two of the books were compilations of essays. The third, Bloom's Guides..., is edited by and with an introduction by Bloom. After the Intro comes a biographical sketch of Fitzgerald, then a "Story Behind the Story" linking Fitzgerald's life with Gatsby's. Then comes a pitiful list of only the six main characters, a Summary and Analysis containing a synopsis of each chapter and very little analysis and finally a series of short essays on different aspects of the novel and Fitzgerald, some of which appear in the other two books.

Overall, Blooms Guides:The Great Gatsby does a poor job of literary analysis, and contains statements that are insupportable. There's even a misspelled word. The "Summary and Analysis" could have been written for the most part by freshman English students. The quality is that poor. I can't believe Bloom edited this. He probably had some grad student do the editing.

Here's how Slagle's (Ch. 9) condemnatory telephone call is brushed aside in the "Summary and Analysis":

At Gatsby's home, a Chicago call comes through, from a man named "Slagle," about "business" going bad, and when Nick says he is not Gatsby, he ends the call.

Nothing more is said about the call or its significance. Either the criminality of this scene flies right over the critic's head or he/she's deliberately avoiding it. The word "business" isn't even in the novel. (And criminy, how many commas do you need to write a simple sentence?)

A lot of the material in all three books is puffery, literature professors and critics trying to outdo each other with how widely they've read and how some other writer's work relates to Fitzgerald/Gatsby. For example, instead of actually analyzing what's on the page for meaning, Bloom himself drones on about how different passages reflect the influence of Yeats. Bloom's head is so far up in the clouds you can hardly tell he's read the bleeping novella. It is abundantly clear that he has conflated Fitzgerald's biography with Gatsby's.

After I read the Cliff's Notes treatment of Gatsby for comparison, I'm going to send my critique to the publisher. I suspect that Cliffs Notes does a better job of addressing what's actually in Fitzgerald's text.

Maybe I'll put it on my reading list.

Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: " and the phone call just ties it all togethe"

Exactly.


"Are there any essays you have read by critics that you have read or just books?"

Two of the books were compilations of essa..."

You bring up an interesting point that has been largely ignored by the press, public, and academia. You mention the possibility that "he probably had some graduate student do the editing".

Perhaps it was more than just that. Perhaps the grad student wrote those passages. I raise that point as I distinctly recall a close friend telling me exactly that happened with a professor who "borrowed" freely from his grad students for a book he was publishing, when at grad school.As my friend was an abysmally poor writer, he was never included among the contributors. I sensed that not only was he miffed at the unscrupulous behavior of his mentor, but chagrined that he was never considered.

I wonder how often this has occurred.

Having taught in Mexico for 10 years now, I have been bombarded with dozens of examples of students cheating in class. As a university professor in the USA, I likewise encountered plagiarism, but somewhat to a lesser extent.

I am surprised that considering how pervasive academic cheating exists that there is no academic vigilant organization. Politics has its share of fact finding watch groups. Why doesn´t academia have the same? Why are there no guidelines to students using Cliff notes for their papers? Why is there no uniform punishment for copying? Looking at another´s exam sheet? Medical students trashing their peer´s biopsies?

On the other hand, it occurs to me that it may actually be a really positive thing that the general public has not been obsessed with the exact nature of Gatsby's crimes.

Christine wrote: "On the other hand, it occurs to me that it may actually be a really positive thing that the general public has not been obsessed with the exact nature of Gatsby's crimes."

They don't need to be obsessed as much as informed.

The reason I think it's important not to gloss over Gatsby's criminality is the relevance it holds in today's society. Ignorance of Gatsby-like duplicity enables people like Bernard Madoff, Michael Milken and Charles Keating to exploit peoples' naivete and trust.

Films like The Wolf of Wall Street have helped to open people's eyes to what goes on. We need more like them.


Securities fraud, counterfeit bonds in particular, played a major role in the Crash of 1929 that triggered The Great Depression. The Financial Crisis of 2007 was also caused by a form of securities fraud that employed complicated instruments like Credit Default Swaps. Sure, huge fines were aid, but no-one's gone to jail. Enormous profits were made by Goldman Sachs and others, like the ratings company Standard and Poors, who were in on it.

By downplaying Gatsby's criminality academia has not only distorted Fitzgerald's novel, they have passed over a golden opportunity to warn the public about the abuses inherent in unbridled capitalism, which feeds into the Right-Wing philosophy of deregulation.

The dismantalling of controls such as the Glass-Steagal Act and Greenspan's refusal to regulate derivatives were at the root of a worldwide financial meltdown.

One cannot help but wonder about Harold Bloom's motive for distorting the meaning of The Great Gatsby, given that he gets paychecks from both a private investment firm and Yale, home of the Skull and Bones faternity whose membership is packed with Right-Wingers like the Bush family.

Monty I don't think that it is the responsibility of a novel or literary critics to warn the public about anything. It wasn't Fitzgerald's intent to write a political novel, and The Great Gatsby isn't one. It's a social commentary, difference.
And we're not all liberals here either.

Karen wrote: "Monty I don't think that it is the responsibility of a novel or literary critics to warn the public about anything. It wasn't Fitzgerald's intent to write a political novel, and The Great Gatsby isn't one."


Agreed, but if Bloom's interpretation was politically motivated, that makes his analysis, or lack thereof, a political issue. In Gatsby, Fitzgerald forged a link between corruption and capitalistic ambition. Bloom effectively severed that link.

D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, originally published as part of Women in Love, and Joyce's Ulysses were banned and the subject of obscenity trials. Neither of these were political novels, but they became political issues because of their content.

I don't know if that was Bloom's intent though.

Karen wrote: "I don't know if that was Bloom's intent though."

Agreed. Only Bloom knows. Maybe it was unconscious. I "reserve all judgement."
:)

Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "I don't know if that was Bloom's intent though."

Agreed. Only Bloom knows. Maybe it was unconscious. I "reserve all judgement."
:)"
Now I'm really curious to read what he wrote. Someday soon.

Monty J wrote: "Fitzgerald complained "that of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about," a condition that apparently has not changed."

Unconvinced. Nimble footwork, but no knockout punch. A pleasure too see someone assemble all this research, but it kinda reminds me of the egghead decades ago who methodically counted up all the 'negative words, terms, and phrases' in Melville's 'Moby Dick' in order to bolster his claim that the novel was 'discouraging to readers'.

Monty, you provide this item as a way to kick off your assertions: "Fitzgerald complained "that of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about,"

...but unless you dig up FSF, revive him like Frankenstein, and get him to confirm *your* premise, its no more vindicated or supported than anyone else's theory which has ever come down the pike. You're occupying a space created by omission: if FSF never revealed his private thoughts about TGG, you can't step into his shoes and speak for him.

For example, the gay community swears the novel is 'secretly a manifesto' for gay romance; (using the same boast about 'close reading' techniques). Could it be this perspective which FSF impishly insinuates everyone 'missed' identifying? Who knows?

Another example: even *you yourself* have argued that the book can be read entirely as an indictment of Ayn Rand's economic philosophies.

Finally, we have guys like 'Buz Luhrman' who interpret the Gatsby story as championing the cause of modern music (jazz, and by extension, hip-hop).

So which is it? Which primrose path should everyone go traipsing down?

Really, why search for such dead-ends at all? Does it make the novel any better to read it as a work of criminology? If so, then where is the "obligatory shoot-out with the coppers", which crime-fans might demand as a denoument? No. The novel simply doesn't work as a crime story. It just doesn't matter whether Gatsby is a crook or a goody-two-shoes; either a sinner or saint. It's immaterial. He's a man in love. Period.

FSF's flippant remark you quoted can (I think) be taken with a grain of salt. The man habitually tossed off confused, witless, balderdash comments to the press (and whoever else happened to be around). In person he was a bit of a fumbler that way. A flibberty-gibbet. Scatter-brained. Insecure.

Little wonder, thanks to drink and all his personal problems. But his quip is nothing to build a case on. And what's the context for his jab, anyway? Perhaps the fact that the novel bombed until it was issued to American troops as reading material in their foxholes? Did that provoke him?

Let's get back to some common sense here. Clearly, the classically-educated, Princeton-alumni F Scott Fitzgerald did not set out to write a simplistic, cheap, potboiler about bond-swindling. If you want to talk about preposterous notions, this gets my vote.

No one writes a book which is routinely nominated 'greatest American novel' ...by accident. It just doesn't happen. Furthermore: no one writes an obvious Greek-myth-based romance (Orpheus/Eurydice) by happenstance, either.

How exactly would that happen, pray tell? You attend an ivy-league university but its a complete random fluke that powerful allusions to one of the biggest classical tropes in western literature, winds up in your work? Without the author trying? Without the author realizing it? Come on.

FSF's previous books and subsequent books, all demonstrate that this is his style and technique. Romantic myths updated for modern times. Allegory and allusion. Or is this just accidents of mis-reading on everyone's part, too? Did the public, critics, and reviewers all gravely 'mistake' those books as well? 'The Beautiful & Damned' ...had nothing to do with Adam&Eve? (Even though practically everyone in the book is named Adam?) What kind of writer was Scott Fitzgerald then...a pulp noir author? This is all completely insensible.

Ask yourself this: why did FSF's next novel build on everything he did in 'Gatsby'? If he thought 'Gatsby' so mis-construed, why did he stick to the exact same model--the self-same novelistic techniques--in his very next work? Do you see the folly of this 'Moby-Dick' method you've adopted?

Look. Jay Gatsby purchases his mansion where: New York. So he can be a neighbor to who: Daisy Buchanan. Whom did Gatsby have a romance with as a young man before he went off to war to serve his country? Whom does he want with all his soul to reunite with?

Actually, let me take a moment to remind you he's a veteran of the United States Armed forces and that he served in a foreign war. Why not 'close-read' the novel from that angle? Hey, yeah--that must be it--it's not a romance at all, but a war story. Gatsby doesn't have a shred of longing or regret for losing Daisy to Tom. He really longs for cavalry life. Let us all go hunt down all the hidden references to artillery, bully-beef, and Gatling-guns.

Or--wait--doesn't Gatsby make some remark to Nick about 'repeating the past'? Well that could make it a time-travel story then, not a crime yarn. Gatsby is really a pioneering work of science fiction. Oh brudda!

I'm hitting your idea hard (1) because it galls me and (2) because I know you're tough enough to take my sharp criticism. Top man Monty--keep on truckin'--but I wish you'd stop hating on Jay Gatz.

Generations of intelligent, sensitive readers who put this book down--stirred to their depths by gorgeous, opulent prose--are not 'morons' for noticing the obvious romantic story drenching every page of this work. No 'shell game with words' (3-card Monty? ha) will alter that!

Lol! Good one Felix, and welcome to the thread.

Feliks wrote: "...no one writes an obviously Greek-myth romance based (Orpheus/Eurydice) by happenstance, either."

Scott Fitzgerald didn't write Orpheus and Euridice. He wrote The Great Gatsby. Too many people are interpreting this great novel based on works that are external to it. All I am doing is focusing attention on what is actually between the covers of the novel.

Feliks wrote: "Whom does he want with all his soul to reunite with?"
Show us where this conclusion is supported in the novel. Not some other book or Fitzgerald's biography; the novel. The books you've read and your word gymnastics are impressive, but it's all fluff unless you can support your conclusions from within The Great Gatsby.

Fitzgerald himself said he wanted this novel to be unlike anything that had ever been written.

It is not just a crime novel any more than it just a romance novel. It is a work of many layers. I'm not sure how to classify it, or that can be assigned an academic pigeon hole. But I'm getting closer by the day.

There's not but maybe one other individual I've seen on the entire Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ site who presents his ideas as strongly and as lucidly as do you, Monty. Bravo to you as always. Not just your research (anyone else can easily be fired on for lack of research alone) but the way you format your posts for easy-reading. Its stepping into the big league, to discuss matters with ya at all. You know I value the exchange. :p

Oh Felix, don't give in.

He´s giving credit where credit is due, Karen. And so do I. Even though I have disagreed quite vehemently with Monty on several issues, I am glad he is plumbing deeper than the rest of us. That is the mark of an expert reader.

I'm always glad to see Feliks pop onto a thread and call bushwa as only he can.

You guys make me blush. There's plenty of good commentary on these hallowed threads. I've learned a lot here, and hope to continue.

By challenging each other we push one another and strain ourselves to go higher and deeper.

Geoffrey wrote;
"He´s giving credit where credit is due, Karen. And so do I. Even though I have disagreed quite vehemently with Monty on several issues, I am glad he is plumbing deeper than the rest of us. That is the mark of an expert reader."

He is not plumbing deeper than the rest of us at all, and I will say what I like.

Monty is a class act; Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ doesn't have nearly enough readers as devoted as he is to the sphere of ideas and literature. Like I said, I've only ever seen one other individual as painstaking as he is with his arguments. On the whole site!

I'm actually surprised he is so taken with Scott Fitzgerald lately, I always thought his passion was Steinbeck. He's got particular expertise when it comes to Steinbeck. I pity the foo' who challenges him in that area.

Karen wrote: "Oh Felix, don't give in."

I'm not giving in, but I'm always worried that my remarks can come off as 'overly-harsh' --or even, condescending--when I'm merely being firm. Its a demerit of this medium--I always sound like a Savaronola shaking my fist in the air. But I really don't want anyone to mistake my tone. I wouldn't go the lengths I just did to try to refute a premise unless it was a serious, formidable chain-of-logic as Monty provided. Anyone else I would cuff aside with quip or two. Monty put a lot of work into his presentation and it deserves a respectful reply. That's all...

Monty J wrote: " Show us where this conclusion is supported in the novel. Not some other book or Fitzgerald's biography; the novel. ...it's all fluff unless you can support your conclusions from within The Great Gatsby...."

I'm pretty sure that's always able to be done. There's one Goodreader around here--some woman--who regularly teaches 'Gatsby' at some university English dept. She's never at a loss for this kind of thing.

Now, I myself am not about to go back and re-read the novel just to hash minuscule Gatsby-matters out with you. But I will point out that the plot alone is much more about romance than it is about crime. Key turning-points in the narrative structure are iconic in terms of romance, nothing else but. This plot is about a man striving to reunite with a woman from his past. When he finds her, he attempts to make her abandon her husband to return to him. Its romantic storytelling, from any angle.

Questions like these [below] are stout obstacles for any 'sweeping re-interpretation of Fitzgerald's intent' behind the writing of this novel:

~Why does Gatsby stare out over the harbor every night towards the Buchanan dock? (Is he thinking about rum-running?)
~Why does Gatsby maneuver --at such great lengths--to get Nick to arrange a date between him and Daisy?
~Why does Gatsby express such a confident attitude that he can change past events?
~Why does he advance himself as a rival for Daisy's esteem, over her husband Tom?
~Why is Gatsby so elated that Daisy finds him intriguing after their date?
~Why does Jay plead with Daisy to cancel --with a word--her whole history with Tom, (in favor of their history)?
~Why does he mope when she doesn't comply? Why does he extemporize about it, excuse her, rationalize for her--and ultimately make plans to entreat her again?

Can any of this be interpreted with an eye for themes of crime, or morality? I don't see how. These are the key plot points in the tale; and they are the most salient because they reflect the innersprings of Gatsby-the-man. 'Business' is just not on his mind throughout this entire saga, but love--ardent love--certainly is. He's a man nearly in transport. He shuffles around practically in a daze. Worldly concerns--sordid, trifling commerce--are of no moment to him.

If he is a swindler--well, what of it? Its just a minor aspect of this complex figure. You make your case for his bond-manipulation quite ably but where you go too far is in the conclusion you draw from your research. Gatsby is just not a story in which we are asked to evaluate 'social wrong-doing'. We're not asked to 'judge' Gatsby. Its not a moral story at all--the jazz age itself was rampant with chicanery.

Really--if it was a simple crime story--there would not be any such emphasis on 'idealistically repeating the past' which as I've just pointed out, is placed there at numerous junctures by the author himself. If Jay was a simple class-climber, pretender, chiseler, & cheat--trying to establish himself in society via unsavory means--FSF wouldn't waste such inordinate time with issues of unrequited-love. In that alternate scenario, Jay'd be focused on the future. He'd be surpassingly ambitious. He'd have been content just to have a big mansion and throw parties and bed down with random flappers. To imbue any of this with any deep meaning, FSF would have had to introduce some other goal--really some other whole Gatsby personality--for the story to attain any depth.

But mere social-climbing is not JG's desire, is it? Gatsby is always--at all times--restless and dissatisfied. He is in a state of near-pining. He is beside himself. He is in New York for one reason: Daisy. ('His' Daisy). Sure, he's a businessman, and to some extent probably a shady one. But business is only to support his personal mission: meeting her again.

In terms of mere American jurisprudence, Gatsby is a bounder. But in terms of human destiny, dreams, ideals, the human heart..he is a hero. He's Leander, Orpheus, Paris, Theseus, Lot. Yet you ask us to believe that FSF wrote this grandness "by accident" --while he was really trying to pen a tawdry crime romp? And that no one has ever understood the story?

Monty J wrote: " All I am doing is focusing attention on what is actually between the covers of the novel....."

I empathize with this noble aim of yours--its a fine goal--but consider this: if you put your eye less-than-an-inch away from a Raphael painting, what do you see? A blur. If you stand 100 feet away from a Raphael painting, what do you see? A blur. Acquiring the deserved sense from a work of art requires standing away from it at the proper focal length. Microscopes or telescopes are both equally improper.

Monty J wrote: "Show us where this conclusion is supported in the novel. Not some other book or Fitzgerald's biography; the novel...but it's all fluff unless you can support your conclusions from within The Great Gatsby...."

I'm not sure this very 'strict, stringent' inventorying-approach truly helps your aims. There are myriad works of art, literature, music, and architecture in which the meaning is conveyed without connecting-the-dots in a 'pea-by-pea' or 'bean-counting' fashion. Limiting yourself to a finite, concrete reading of just the words or just the dialog in Gatsby means you are blinkering yourself rather severely. Authors of the caliber of Fitzgerald (or say, poets such as Dante, TS Eliot) conduct & transmute their meanings to us, on several levels at once. Within their works, chords resonate and ideas bounce back-n-forth like reflections from prismatic surfaces.

Its the kind of thing where if you stare directly at a word, you won't necessarily grasp its weight. You have to view their concepts from the angles and the sides, not just head-on. Truths are 'woven' together to form patterns. 'Inference', 'implication', 'correspondence' and 'deduction' are just as solid in their way, as the case-by-case exhibits you offered above. Does Gatsby ever come straight out and state *bluntly* to Daisy that he wants to her to leave Tom and move in with him? Probably not. Never in so many words. Yet, that is the essence of the story.


And the other type of thing you might miss (by dismissing all biographical context as 'fluff') is this:

It is unimaginable to think that one of the novels considered as The Great American Novels, 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was originally titled 'Trimalchio in West Egg'. (Trimalchio � a wealthy, but very vulgar freedman � is a character from the famous satirical novel, Satyricon, by Petronius written in 1 A.D.) Thankfully Zelda, Fitzgerald’s wife, and legendary editor, Maxwell Perkins, convinced him to select 'The Great Gatsby' as the final title, inspired by Alain-Fournier’s haunting 'Le Grand Meaulnes' (Augustin Meaulnes, the protagonist, searches for his lost love, Yvonne de Galais).

How can you not include a footnote such as this, if you really want to make an ironclad case? Why wouldn't it 'count'? Can't we trust such anecdotal evidence? Is 'close-reading' the only methodology?

Feliks wrote: " In terms of mere American jurisprudence, Gatsby is a bounder. But in terms of human destiny, dreams, ideals, the human heart..he is a hero. He's Leander, Orpheus, Paris, Theseus, Lot. Yet you ask us to believe that FSF wrote this grandness "by accident" --while he was really trying to pen a tawdry crime romp? And that no one has ever understood the story?..."

Thanks Feliks! You nailed it right there. You have said it much better than I could. THAT is the reason it does not work as a crime story but does work as a romance.

I'd also like to note that TGG does not in any way fit into our current meaning of what a 'romance novel' is supposed to be... it is much more than that. You are right, Feliks, with referencing Greek tragedy.

Solidarity with me, romance fans! heh heh. Thanks.

I was actually just re-reading Monty's first 5 points (the bolstering for which--in his second section--he adds the superb, precise page citations).

I was adding the items all up again, plus the bit about Harold Bloom (of whom I am not a fan). It still doesn't reckon into anything, for me. I'm honestly trying to see what Monty makes of it all.

I mean, obviously Gatsby --a mysterious, enigmatic, and practically Gothic figure discovered living in West Egg--obviously he has to have pursued some ugly line-of-business to get to that position at all, right? Owner of an estate and mansion? Cars? He was once just white-trash 'Jay Gatz'. Clearly, he worked his way up some slippery ladder.

Understandably he presides over some sort of 'lucrative' business. But to label him a 'kingpin of crime' as Monty does? If being CEO of an underhanded coast-to-coast finance venture makes one a 'kingpin', then Gatsby would have had a lot of company.

Monty knows just how much national swindling was going on at the time, so I'm bewildered why this facet of Gatsby should be singled out and why he should be branded by it.

And anyway--if we *don't* accept that he did it all to retrieve Daisy--then what kind of novel are we left with? Why would anyone care to read the unsatisfying and pointless tale of a bootlegger killed by accident in a mistaken domestic tiff? What contribution would that make?

D'ye follow me? If Gatsby isn't primarily motivated by love--if he is primarily motivated only by dreams-of-empire ((the trite ambition of all crooks)) then the story falls apart. It would yield no emotional build-up and no emotional release. Even WR Burnett's "Little Caesar" would beat it out for a competent 'kingpin' yarn.

If Gatsby wasn't *driven* (Atreus-like) to Daisy ..in true allegorical fashion..okay so then what? We meet Gatsby the idler, an unconcerned swindler living in New York with no overweening dream? Dull, right? Then..well, he has his choice of women but he singles out old flame Daisy Buchanan on some kind of ..whim? And she turns out to be the instrument of his doom..via the wildest chain of unforeseen circumstance? A complete series of flukes from first to last. But that is not how Greek tragedy functions. Cornell Woolrich might write a story like that, but not Fitzgerald.

Jay Gatz had no choice but to become Jay Gatsby. If he had not become a shady swindler--if he had remained a 'good citizen'--he wouldn't have obtained her, not ever. He was low-class and she was high-class. He had to become a plutocrat to find her again. 'Having no choice' --that is tragedy, and if anyone recognized good tragedy, Fitzgerald could.

Just musing aloud...

I'm enjoying your musing, Feliks...

But in terms of human destiny, dreams, ideals, the human heart..he is a hero. He's Leander, Orpheus, Paris, Theseus, Lot. Yet you ask us to believe that FSF wrote this grandness "by accident" --while he was really trying to pen a tawdry crime romp? And that no one has ever understood the story?

To your Greek allusions (Orpheus, et al), I'd add two other traditions that Fitzgerald is also heavily borrowing from to establish the doomed figure of Gatsby: Gatsby as both grail knight and flawed, ironic Christ figure.

I can go along with both of those. Sure. Maybe also Dante & Beatrice, Apollo..any story dealing with purity and defilement..Daisy has elements of Persephone, Daphne..there's also Echo & Narcissus allusions

Feliks wrote: "...you are blinkering yourself rather severely."

An odd conclusion. Blinkered by the facts on the page. I'm glad our judicial system isn't structured this way. Imagine: "But you honor, I shot 'dose guys jus' like Odysseus did Penelope's suitors. I did a good 'ting."

Next you'l be quoting from "Aunt Wonkam Strong Najork's Jam Powered Frog."

I'm surrounded by acrobats doing back flips to avoid facing what Fitzgerald actually put on the page.

If you can't support your argument from the text you have a weak argument.

The facts of this case are within the covers of The Great Gatsby. If you can't face them, you're off in the weeds.

Feiks: "But to label him a 'kingpin of crime' as Monty does? If being CEO of an underhanded coast-to-coast finance venture makes one a 'kingpin', then Gatsby would have had a lot of company."

We've covered this a half-dozen times. Gatsby has people reporting to him. That makes him a kingpin, boss of the sales team. Gatsby reports to Wolfshiem, the overall kingpin.

I'm surrounded by acrobats doing back flips to avoid facing what actually put on the page.

It's all on the page, Monty...the Greek allusions, the grail, Christ bearing his hollow cross to Calvary to die for the undeserving Daisy.

Not sure how much more we can go on and on over the same ground...you're right; we have covered this a half dozen times. Gatsby is no "kingpin" by any stretch of that word, no more than Tessio or Clemenza or Frankie Five Angels would be called "kingpins" by Puzo. Vito Corleone is a kingpin; Michael becomes one. Hyman Roth is a kingpin, and I'm pretty sure Hyman Roth and Meyer Wolfsheim both grow out of the same historical figure who was a Jewish organized crime kingpin. Call Gatsby what you like, but any common usage of that word, especially in the crime fiction genre you would like to reduce TGG to here in your reading of it, would not use that term for the role Gatbsy is playing with Wolfsheim in the book.

I'm too old to do backflips, but I'm still a pretty good reader, and I've been re-reading Gatsby again in the evening. It's a brilliant book; I'm almost tempted to give it five stars now. You might try enjoying it for the rich, rich complexities and allusions that Fitzgerald has woven into its narrative.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "You might try enjoying it for the rich, rich complexities and allusions that Fitzgerald has woven into its narrative."

I will do that, definitely. )And perhaps you'll appreciate the social critique.)

Petergiaquinta wrote: "..would not use that term for the role Gatbsy is playing with Wolfsheim in the book."

Okay, fine, I'll look for a better word. "Boss of the sales force" takes too many. "Executive" is too impotent. Maybe "demi-kingpin."

You see nothing wrong with a 'too literal' reading? Anything else is a 'weak' argument?

Surely you can see where that kind of thing leads. Just ask the survivors of the Waco compound (if there were any). 2,000 years of western civilization (genocides, invasions, pogroms, persecutions) have been the result of reading the Bible as 'God's literal word'. Its a largely discredited method in just about every sphere of literature. Who practices this anymore? Are there still structuralists lurking about? I think the burden is on your shoulders to substantiate to us why this is the only way to read --or derive any meaning from--Gatsby.

Monty J wrote: "Blinkered by the facts on the page. I'm glad our judicial system isn't structured this way...."

It is, though. 'Facts' do not always equate to meaning; facts must always be interpreted for their meaning by judges and juries in order to be correctly applied to every fresh circumstances. The law is a living thing, not static or rigid. The letter-of-the-law is nothing, without the spirit of the law.

Monty J wrote: "We've covered this a half-dozen times. Gatsby has people reporting to him. ..."

I'm sorry but I wasn't around for that phase of the discussion. He's simply a businessman, I think that's as far as you can go. A captain of industry, perhaps a magnate. All businesses with personnel feature systems of underlings reporting to superiors. A 'crime kingpin' connotes a figure 'hiding out in an underground lair'. Someone the police would seek to question. But Gatsby is entirely clean and above-board. He's a homeowner. Legitimate businessman.

Feliks wrote: "...the burden is on your shoulders to substantiate to us why this is the only way to read Gatsby."

Whoa, I never said it was the "only" way. Quite the contrary; I have always maintained there are many ways a novel can be read. It is up to each to defend his/her own, which is all I am doing--exploring what is on the page to make sense of it.

I have acknowledged, using as an example Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," the necessity and power of allusion and symbolism. This is how Nick's bisexuality is revealed. But symbolism and allusion can be a minefield that must be tread with care. This is what makes literary analysis so fascinating. It requires both inductive reasoning as well as deductive.


Feliks: "You see nothing wrong with a 'too literal' reading? Anything else is a 'weak' argument?"

It isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. The words on the page have the most weight because they're what the author wrote. Allusions to what someone else did or wrote may inform a piece, but they can't define it.


Feliks: "But Gatsby is entirely clean and above-board. He's a homeowner. Legitimate businessman."

WHAT?? Did you even read what I wrote in the OP? Maybe you read a sanitized Disney version of the novel, which might exclude the Slagel phone call, like Baz Lurhmann's film did.

Have we become so conditioned, de-sensitized, to corruption in America that it's become that invisible? Do people not see it because they just don't want to, and look away?

It's no wonder the Ivan Boesky's and Bernie Madoff's of the world continue to proliferate 90+ years after Fitzgerald warned us with Gatsby.

Feliks wrote: "I can go along with both of those. Sure. Maybe also Dante & Beatrice, Apollo..any story dealing with purity and defilement..Daisy has elements of Persephone, Daphne..there's also Echo & Narcissus a..."

Jeeze, don't make me re-read "The Inferno."

But come to think of it, it was about corruption.