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Petergiaquinta wrote: "Lolololo...

Curiouser and curiouser, I'd say, and as far as kettles go, you (Monty J) are guilty of the same online behavior in response to Cosmic's kooky single-minded interpretations of Catcher ..."

I would like to read a more detailed explanation of this. So how is the light green car that Michaelis sees striking Myrtle akin to that of the green light beckoning Jay? I don´t get it. Your explanation is a stretch. If indeed this was unconscious on SF´s part, it be but another example of his overreaching literary ambitions.

It's not a stretch at all...it's Fitzgerald linking the dreams of these two doomed foolish dreamers, neither with a chance of success but both striving with a single-minded determination. Go back and reread Gatsby at the dock, Myrtle on the road, and the last page of the book.

And why would it be "unconscious" on the part of Fitzgerald? This is what great writers do quite consciously.

Here, now that I have my book, is a little textual support. Study the pages for yourself, but notice the way FSF uses subtle (and conscious) references to the arms of the dreamer reaching toward the light to help strengthen those connections/parallels between the green light/the light green. My book is Scribner, 2003.

Gatsby looking across the bay to the green light at the end of Daisy's dock (25-26):

"he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way";

Myrtle running toward the "light green" car (144):

"a moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands";

The end of the novel, "the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us" (189):

"tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther";

This is Fitzgerald's craft, and Maxwell Perkins' editorial advice, coming together to create a great novel, a brilliant work of art, a satisfying unified whole, telling us something about the human condition, about America, about dreams and dreamers. It's all there and much more.

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Plymouth is a bit north of Manhattan, but those pilgrims also saw "the fresh green breast of the new world," heard the whispers pandering to them "the last and greatest of all human dreams":

"for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder" (189).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Time to go peel some potatoes...

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Plymouth is a bit north of Manhattan, but those pilgrims also saw "the fresh green breast of the new world," heard the whispers pandering to them "the last and greatest of all human dreams"

Whoa, Nick wasn't talking about Pilgrims. He was referring to the Dutch who came much later, for economic reasons. (To get rich, just as James Gatz wanted to get rich.) New York, formerly "New Amsterdam," was founded by the Dutch East India Company, one the earliest multi-national corporations:

The Brits came later and renamed it:

Here's the fuller quote: "I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world."

Pilgrims came for religious freedom. The Dutch came to make money. Green is the color of money, as in the "greenback." As in "green light" at the end of Daisy's dock.

To James Gatz, Daisy had a "voice full of money," suggesting money colored his romantic interest in her, assigning a deeper meaning to her dock's green light.

Given it was Fitzgerald's mother and grandmother who financed his expensive education, not his father, the feminine allusions "green breast" and "pap of life" perhaps inform Gatsby's fascination for a woman of means over someone not from a wealthy family.


Happy Turkey Day. I'm going to church and help feed a thousand poor people.

Monty, read my post...Plymouth is north of Manhattan??? Try it again. Of course Nick is talking about the Dutch...I'm talking about the pilgrims.

Your problem is you don't read closely, Fitzgerald or me.

Happy Thanksgiving anyway.

And the dream there is a lot more than just money; Gatsby's dream isn't about money, except as the means to win Daisy...and the color green in the book is more than just money also, to Gatsby, to Fitzgerald and to all of us. That dream represented by the continent spoke to the pilgrims, to Jamestown, to the Dutch. It's not limited to filthy lucre...again, that's the problem with your narrow reading/understanding of the book.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Your problem is you don't read closely"

I didn't say it was JUST money. You're reading that into my post. (Now, tell me again who's reading narrowly?)

You can't seriously deny that the pursuit of wealth wasn't a prime motivator of both Gatsby and the Dutch. We don't know what the "dream" is, exactly. It's never defined, for Gatsby, beyond "the promises of life" and reclaiming Daisy. Wealth is clearly a big part of it and and so is Daisy. But Gatsby was pursuing wealth long before he met Daisy.

There's no proof anywhere in the book that Daisy was the reason behind Gatsby's ambitions. It's romantic to think so, but that's another one of Harold Bloom's misreadings, conflating Fitzgerald's biography with Gatsby. Gatsby is not Fitzgerald.

And as for Gatsby's "heightened sensitivities to the promises of life," that's Nick talking, Nick's imagination at work, and his judgment is hardly reliable regarding Jay Gatsby. This will all be covered in my comprehensive addendum to my review in response to your comments. (You're sure making me work hard.)

Monty J wrote: "Petergiaquinta wrote: "Your problem is you don't read closely"

I didn't say it was JUST money. You're reading that into my post. (Now, tell me again who's reading narrowly?)

You can't seriously d..."

Jay was a social climber from the day one. He sucks up to the millionaire yachtsman and is disappointed when the family jettisons his $25,000 inheritance. Tsk, tsk, we can't allow Daddy's bitch have that money now, what will our social stratus think....Exactly, Monty.

And the question is to how enterprising is Jay anyway? He is not a man with many talents or he would have made his fortune stripping the valuables off the German dead like any enterprising American serviceman did. He comes back from the war with only his uniform, according to Wolfsheim. He lucks out be connecting to Wolfie and his future is set and now he can refurbish that sweet romance with his honey poo, but, oh no, she got and married some jerk, but we'll see about that, she really loved me.

Well, you did say the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is money, and I'd say that's at least the third meaning FSF has in mind here, after hope and rebirth/renewal. Gatsby is a climber from way back, as his childhood plan for self-improvement attests, but once he meets Daisy his reason for making that money changes. This is why Nick finds him so compelling...he's just about the only character in the book whose reason to be isn't dedicated to chasing money.

Geoffrey wrote: "Karen wrote: """Fitzgerald is pulling it all together in another brilliant stroke of the pen by transforming the car to "light green."

Monty wrote; "You sound a bit like Cosmic yourself here."
In ..."

You got the posts all mixed up, I didn't write that. :)

And I am at a lost at what you are referring to Karen. There´s too much he said, she said, we said, you said, they said, God said, SF said for me to straighten it all out.

Monty J wrote: "Petergiaquinta wrote: "Your problem is you don't read closely"

I didn't say it was JUST money. You're reading that into my post. (Now, tell me again who's reading narrowly?)

You can't seriously d..."

As for the ¨heightened sensitivities to the promise of life¨ I take this to mean that Jay is an eternal optimist with a manic proportion to him as to the prospect of his future financial and amorous successes. It´s the power of positive thinking that goes beyond the realistic. I note that in Main Street, Lewis Sinclair´s novel, the protagonist likewise has this giddy, positive approach to life and wonder whether this was a stock literary character in the 20´s.

No one ever has commented in literary criticism to my knowledge of the fads of character types from generation to generation. Whereas in the early 40´s in American cinema, we have the glib, quick witted hero
or heroine whose cleverness is clearly discerned, fast thinking as in Frederick MacMurray in Double Indemnity, Carole Lombard in Front Page or the the leader in the Bowery Boys gang and so many others. This character type has somewhat recessed in today´s fiction and cinema with only Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

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