Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about the classical world books and today the great Gatsby My name is Thomas Magby. I'm joined as always by mr. Graham Donaldson.
Hello and mr. AJ Hanenberg That is me now AJ came into this episode with a lot of strong confidence. He feels really good about this episode What was your exact phrase of how you feel this is? I don't know what's gonna go.
Let's see how this goes now what percent of episodes do you think between the three of us like that's the 85% 85% yeah, that's exactly right. So that's how we feel going into it. So let's tell us how you feel about 85% of our podcasts Sometimes I go in feeling fairly confident like I've read and researched a book and then we get comments about how I have no idea what I'm talking about That's exactly right. Allah the master of Margaret.
Yeah, you do is really fun. It's just really great to have It's great to know so we remind the listeners that we're generalists. We're coming to these things with new eyes Some of them we've studied that length for 16 years some of them, you know some of them not we haven't and so yeah So we hear from educators who haven't teaching them for 16 years and they let us know that we're doing this Yeah, post your podcast in the show notes. Yeah, show us how much better you are.
Yeah, anyway, anyway I had the same experience because I just read you know reread I think the last time I read it was in college some time I read the great Gatsby and I was like, okay feeling okay And I went and talked to one of the teachers here in our school Catherine Ball and she says what are you feeling? I said it's about money Okay, and then told me all of the things in the book that I was missing and I said wow, okay I'm a doofus anyway That's kind of why I feel I don't know how this is gonna go because I just feel inadequate as I do too much of the literature We tackle but at least I talked to an expert you look great. Thanks Graham, which is so useful on a podcast That's the best possible thing I can be this one of the way I posted to YouTube here's from now But at some point it will be people stood to YouTube. That's true.
We're a little behind on that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wearing a short sleeve Button up which I'm still not used to I was used to hate these but I'm getting used to it. Good.
Well, you look great. Thanks Listening audience believe that say it looks great. Yeah, I think in my head I am 20, okay, but I'm almost 40 and then I'm trying to like shift that self-respect anyway I was like the short sleeve button up was like a Mormon look. Oh really?
Maybe no I feel better about it. I guess like why I guess Graham why is that the thing you say right now? At home I suppose Awesome, don't worry about that as get the guys, okay? Okay, it's a 1925 novel by American matter f Scott Fitzgerald Set during the jazz age which as far as I know it was a term that he coined so I if you are a young student coming here because You've just been assigned to great cats me or a listener who likes to hear a little bit about the book before diving in But don't like spoilers This is not the episode for you sure you need to wait until you've read the book and then come back or just be cool with me spoiling some things because I'm gonna read sections from the book including the very last page of the book and if that is something that Drives you crazy don't hang out.
Yeah, just be cool. Yeah, be cool. Good advice Most of these things I feel cool spoiling them because you know 2,000 years old and that's on you this one It's not been about a hundred years old and it's it's more of a novel that has twists and turns that it is something like the Republic anyway So spoilers are coming just a heads up. All right It's like one that's pretty common to be assigned in high school right a lot of people have read this book Yeah, a lot of read it But we also have high school listeners right so I just don't want them to come and then get mad because I spoil all the things because I'm definitely going to spoil all the things incredible okay, so at some point I'm gonna ask you two gents to read you have a script in front of you Well my posture is way too high right now.
I gotta read my okay. There we go. Right. I'm gonna be reading from my book on occasion So it might take me small seconds to find the exact quote because I just know the page numbers But I'm gonna give you kind of a long overview of the plot and what happens in it and then kind of highlight some of the things that a Gentle a gentle and charitable Catherine Ball was willing to tell me about this book that now I'm going to claim our idea Okay, so the narrator of this book is a fellow named Nick Caraway He is a guy trying to get into the bond business and his family has been well off for three generations and who legend has it are Descended from some dukes But he has money and that's gonna come out into the way that he interacts with women in the way that he interacts with Gatsby and other characters of the novel Because there will be occasionally temptations to get into sort of dark dealings I'm not gonna go over this much in my summary But he'll be he'll be asked to do things that are shady and he's gonna maa because he doesn't need to he doesn't need to he doesn't need the cash He'll pass judgment on people he'll treat women kind of off-handedly and discard them Nick is not necessarily a great person Girl the place tennis you mean golf no they tend to scroll golfers Yeah, yeah, he likes her he likes her but then he just kind of off-hand dismisses or over a phone call I mean it's after a tragedy, but he said I just can't talk to you today It doesn't seem to have concerned much for her feelings.
This kind of thing happens with Nick. He's not a terrible guy He's not a great guy. He's just sort of right down the middle not worry about anything because he has cash He rents a house for the summer and it's in a place. It's there's East egg and West egg I forget which he's on I think West egg, but he is kind of across the way from Daisy's house and Daisy is his second cousin And so he gets invited one evening to go and hang out.
This is Long Island Long Island. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're all it's yeah Long Island so he he's in this kind of nice house and he goes to visit Daisy his second cousin She is married to a guy named Tom who used to be you know imagine the successful college quarterback. This is this guy He's large. He's physically imposing.
What's his last name Tom? Don't tell me I can't remember With Shannon you can't it's right. Okay, so of Tom Nick says he would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some Irrecoverable football game. So he is kind of just always Looking for maybe just the turmoil right that's what he was the man he was the quarterback in college Dramatic turbulence is I think kind of what he goes for he just hasn't accomplished anything since since then married the girl and rich girl Mary and he like they both have lots of money.
No, that's not right exactly So kid remember correctly Daisy has a child she doesn't talk about well. She yeah, she doesn't really much talk about her kid She doesn't occasion it but she usually just trots him out to meet a guest and then he runs back off with the housekeeper I think we see actually see her kid twice in the novel. He sort of comes out She's like isn't he pretty okay off you go and then he runs back and disappears again Just kind of tragic the first in this first chapter Nick goes over to have sort of tea with them He meets this woman Jordan who is a beautiful. Yeah a beautiful golfer.
She's professional She's pretty well known. She's sort of no nonsense and also a terrible driver And while they're there we can tell that there are some tensions going on on the house and eventually Nick and Daisy go out on the veranda And we find out that Tom has this other woman and Daisy knows about it. It's just sort of common knowledge She sort of gives this kind of sad little sob story. It's not long It's it's weird.
It's she just sort of says this is the thing that's happening Talk a little bit about their kid says some other things like I hope she'll be a beautiful fool That's what's I said I hope she'd be a beautiful fool That's kind of what the best thing in the world for a girl to be Tom comes out and he says you guys have a talk on the veranda And he goes yeah, he goes don't believe everything you hear and then kind of wanders off So we know their marital tensions there. They're still married. It's it's weird. They all kind of drink and there's just this turbulence running under the surface Yeah, it's rich people marriage Okay, and I want to read a small section about her voice I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low thrilling voice It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth But there was an excitement in her voice that men who cared for her found difficult to forget a singing compulsion a whispered Listen, I promise that she had done gay exciting things just a while since and that there were gay exciting things hovering in the next hour Okay, hear anything in that little passage that was striking Like that made you think symbolism.
Oh, I mean One thing I thought it was a sirens. Ah, there you go So she has a voice that gives a singing compulsion So there is this pull that she has got and it is hard to define So it's kind of in that like 1920s like, you know, like dying of a candle world, you know like that kind of that kind of flimsy girl like that's that that's the Fitzgerald girl to like that's the Zilda That's the that kind of girl that you know, you know, she would also be in like a Hemingway novel that kind of yeah Yeah, but yeah, I never thought about the siren before but that's cool Yeah, so we have this little sort of siren thing keep that in your mind And where's my dissius? Yeah, yeah, so key just sort of keep that in your head I'm gonna try to kind of touch on little pieces of the symbolism that we're gonna pull on later when we get when we get to it I'm searching for a quote here. Okay, so there's that singing compulsion.
They have this sort of lunch and then they they're sort of done Nick decides to go hang out with Tom and they drive and I'm gonna read you another small section of the page 31 quote Okay, another quote about the voice the instant her voice broke off ceasing to compel my attention again compulsion my belief I felt the basic insincereity of what she had said it made me uneasy as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a Contributary emotion from me I waited and sure enough in a moment She looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership and a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged so he sees through it kind of a little bit at one point and It's just weird. It's this like the voices who were her allure okay? They decided to go on a motor car ride Tom Nick They sort of head out and there's a small description about a place in the city that I can highlight about halfway between West Egg and New York The motor road hastily Jones the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile So as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land This is a valley of ashes a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the form of houses and Chimneys and rising smoke and finally with a transcendent effort of men who moved dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible visible track gives out a ghastly creek and comes to rest Immediately the ash gray men swarm up with lead and spades and stir up an impenetrable crowd which screens their obscure operations from your site But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it you perceive after a moment The eyes of dr. TJ Eckleberg the eyes of dr.
TJ Eckleberg are blue and gigantic their retinas are one-yard high They look out of no face But instead from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose evidently some wild wag of an occultist set them there to Fat in his practice on the barrow of queens and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away But his eyes dimmed a little by many paint paintless days under sun and rain and brewed on over the solemn dumping ground I'll come back to those spectacles. I just wanted to give you a first. I know people know what they are It's an advertisement. It's a big ad for dr.
TJ Eckleberg. I don't know where we are. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you've read this before I've read Gatsby before.
Okay. Yeah, so anyway, there's this sort of ash heap and that that will come in Occasionally as they sort of blast from one party to another part of town where they're going for these dramatic wonderful things And it's just a reminder of sort of the refuse that comes from this kind of excess that they are living in that There is an ash heap and that all comes out of the same city and somewhere there are the poor who are doing poor people things and there There's yes, these giant eyes of God sort of looking down Okay In on that little trip with Nick and Tom they meet a woman named Myrtle Wilson at a gas station He says hi to her husband He's like how he has it going on and then he walks up to her and says I have to see you get on the next train So she hops on the train they get go out together. No, no sorry Tom does. Yes Tom says this This is his lover lady, right?
He's doing and this shows how easy he is with this kind of thing Nick is in tow He has a friend there and he goes up to this woman says I have to see you and they join the party It's like I have an affair and then I go out with my wife's second cousin It's almost like Nick is not even like it's like does knowledge as a like like a solid person by these people Yeah, he doesn't really count. I maybe it's because he doesn't have a great pole in the I don't know in the same. He's never in the store knows that Nick doesn't like Nick. He's really is not gonna cast us when doesn't care Yeah, or he just he's one of those guys who just doesn't chat So she's you know, she's not a great beauty this woman But she does have sort of an undeniable vitality about her so kind of hanging out she decides that she wants a dog so they stop And they stop she dark hair to see she kind of like Italian sounding like Then I heard footsteps on a stairs in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door She was in the middle 30s and faintly stout But she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can her face above a spot of dark blue crepe d'chine contain no facet or gleam of beauty But there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost she cans with Tom looking him flush in the eye Then she got her lips and without turning around spoke to her sus but his husband in a soft course voice get some chairs Why don't you so somebody can say I'm her name is Wilson?
I don't think she's maybe not but maybe I don't know why I have this in my mind But she's you know, she's always described as this sort of like smoldering sex goddess And then you've kind of got like wealthy beautiful, but kind of pouty daisy and And Daisy daisy sort of described as wispish. Yes, like she's never really very clearly defined beautiful She's small she's a little bit faint. She's delicate. It's her voice and she's just she seems to be a little girl playing all the Good.
Yeah, that's great. And then whereas this woman she's you know, she's she has a little more like he even said that she sort of What was the word that she carries a little more weight? She doesn't weigh that is like yes sensuous, but it's sensuous and so you know, yeah, yeah, you can imagine daisy is sort of a forest sprite, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, so they go and they fight over these friends So Tom this woman Myrtle and they decide to go to her I think sister's apartment and drink and so they're sitting around maybe it's her apartment And here's a little quote from that it was nine o'clock almost immediately afterwards I looked at my watch and found it was ten.
Mr. McKee, I fell at the party, was a sleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap like a photograph of a Man of action taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that was had been wearing me all afternoon the little dog which they purchased that day Was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke and from time to time groaning faintly people disappeared reappeared made plans to go somewhere and Then lost each other searched for each other found each other a few feet away Sometime toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Miss Wilson stood face to face discussing and impassioned tones whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name Daisy Daisy Daisy Daisy Shout out Mrs. Wilson.
I'll say it whenever I want to Daisy Daisy Daisy making a short-duff movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand so Tom not a post of violence Yeah, but weirdly enough even though this is the woman he's sleeping with he still holds a place for Daisy that is above these other women Kind of sure right she's not allowed to talk about his wife and if she does and she won't shut up I mean they're all drunk and that doesn't excuse the behavior But he won't he's not afraid of result, you know resorting to little bouts of violence So obviously this kind of thing seems to end for Tom right? I don't think they maintain a relationship after that or at least not much of one okay, so that's kind of chapter two a Little while later this fellow named Gatsby moves in next door to To Nick husband doesn't know about the affair between Myrtle or whatever her name is in Tom right her husband doesn't know about it No, her husband has no idea This is happening the guy that works at the garage. He loves his wife Dutifully has no idea she's been running around on him. Gotcha.
Yeah, he he's described as not having very many friends And he only has energy enough for her and that's about it the rest of the day He sort of sits on a chair and watches the street go by so she has this massive vitality He doesn't have much vitality and I think she spends it with who she can especially Tom who appears to have lots and lots of cash Well, she doesn't really right? She's sort of and he's just like hot blooded former athlete and yeah, yeah So this is where we sort of get introduced to great to J Gatsby J Gatsby lives next to Nick and he starts throwing parties all summer these big lavish crazy extravagant parties He shows up at them like a benevolent God, but he doesn't seem to mix in them very much It says the people show up and then give exhibit the behavior as if they were at an amusement park, right? They just sort of go crazy They're swimming in the ocean there in his library though all over the place But he has goes to extra care to take care of the people there There's a girl who falls and rips her dress a couple days later She gets a dress in the mail from Gatsby That's like a $3,000 dress in our money back then it was like 80 bucks right right but it's wildly expensive and There are all these rumors about J because he doesn't really mingle as much as with everybody else and so Nick has been invited He tries to go find Gatsby and knows who he is like yeah He's just sort of showed up bought the house and started throwing parties Where's like you meet Nick and like you realize oh you're you're one of those families these new these wealthy East Coast families That goes back all the way to the Mayflower or whatever right and but Gatsby no one knows who gets me Yeah, no one knows who Gatsby is he throws these summers kind of Kind of you know, he's got these parties kind of all summer long and the people don't really get invited to them They just sort of show up at them, right? And so there's a big long thing sort of explaining all these parties and then J eventually asks Nick to go on a drive And so they're on the drive on a regional conversation seems to be hilarious So he's sitting there and they're just sort of driving in silence and finally Gatsby says look here old sport He broke out surprisingly what's your opinion of me anyhow a little overwhelmed?
I began the general general evasions which that question deserves well I'm going to tell you something about my life he interrupted I don't want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear So he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavored conversation in his halls I'll tell you God's truth his right hand suddenly ordered divine retribution to stand by I'm the son of some wealthy people in the middle west all dead now I was brought up in America but educated Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years It's a family tradition He looked at me sideways and I knew why Jordan Baker his golfing girlfriend had believed he was lying He hurried the phrase educated Oxford or swallowed it or choked on it as though it bothered him before and with this doubt his whole statement Felt a pieces and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him after all what part of the middle west I inquired casually San Francisco, which is not it is in the middle of the West Coast, but no one would ever say it's the Midwest right? He goes I see my family all died and I came into a good deal of money Anyway, he gives this this background of becoming a like a young Raja in the capitals of Europe in Venice Paris and Rome collecting jewels and rubies and all Of this stuff and it's all very clearly not true at all right We find out on this drive that he's got some weird shady business connections We need a guy named mr. Wolfshime I think it's my your wolfshime who talks about business connections and doesn't really say much and they kind of seem like they want Nick in on it But Nick doesn't go for it and the whole the whole reason for this whole thing is Gatsby says look tonight You're gonna talk with Jordan your golfing girlfriend and she is going to make a request of you He can't even request it himself that has to come from her now. Wait a second this wolfime guy Wolfshime wolfshine.
Yeah, this is first name Meyer Meyer So is Gatsby I know we later on the book we find out what his first name was before he changed it Meyer Wolfshine no J gasps. Yes is Gatsby. I just put this thing that's Gatsby Jewish. I don't think so I thought I was he because my it sounds like this guy's Jewish Meyer Wolf time Yeah, anyway, whatever, but there's like this undertone that Gatsby out somehow involves James Gats James Gats GATZ Yeah, I mean there there somehow there's some how there's under turn like Gatsby is somehow involved in other organized crime or like He made a bunch of money selling weapons right during the war.
Oh, well sure. Well, she's got all kinds of stuff He fixed the world series. He's a sketchy dude, but there's yeah, I should jump ahead I don't say where the money comes from. I don't know they say where wolfshines money comes from He just sort of vaguely hints at it Gatsby we find out his money is from sketchy.
Mm-hmm. We'll find that out later I'm gonna tell you guys. Okay, so we find out that there's it's this whole thing and there's a request that's gonna come from his girlfriend that night For some reason it's weird. So Nick eventually talks with Jordan He's half distracted because she's cute and she kind of reveals that there was this young soldier that Daisy was with for a little while And he very clearly loved her and she very clearly loved him and then he went off to war She wanted her life to be fixed in some sort of solid way as quickly as possible and hadn't heard from him And then on the day of her wedding she had gotten a letter from this young soldier J Gatsby and decided to call it off She got wicked drunk I was like tell him Daisy's change your mind and they can they take the letter they convince her to go through with it And then you know a couple hours later She's solid as ever and goes through with this marriage.
It's married to Tom Yeah, so she loved Gatsby at some point five five-ish years ago And he went off to war and then I think she maybe thought he was dead or had lost connection But she got that letter went through with the marriage anyway And so it's clear that mr. Gatsby wants to get to know Daisy again and he asks for a meeting He says hey Nick can you set up a chance run in between me and Daisy? We find out he's been throwing these parties all these really lavish party just hoping that Daisy would sort of flop her Way into the party and he would get to make some sort of chance connection or see her or something But it's not working so he says Nick you've got to invite her over and you got invite me over and it's gotta happen right There's another quote about her voice on page 52 Says the exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain I had to follow the sound of it for a moment up and down with my earlone before any words came through So her voice is sort of this thing that comes back and back and back all the way through okay So she sets up the thing that's from the beginning of the meeting and It's it's great cuz Gatsby's super nervous and she shows up and then Nick takes Daisy into the meeting room And he's expecting that Gatsby will be there waiting for her but he's he's not and it says with his hands still in his coat pockets He's talked about us so she turned her head is there was a light dignified knocking at the front door I went out and opened it Gatsby pale his death with his hands pledged like weights with his coat pockets was standing a puddle of water Glaring tragically into my eyes so she had showed up Gatsby was already in the house But he decided he also needed to show up at the same time So we ran out and all the way around the house in the rain soaked himself and then walked back in and then with his hand Stoned his coat pockets He stalked by me into the hall turned sharply as if you were on a wire and disappeared into the living room It wasn't a bit funny. It certainly sounds funny.
It was aware of a loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain for half a minute there wasn't a sound then from the living room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh followed by Daisy's voice on a clear alifish artificial note I certainly am awfully glad to see you again a pause it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall So I went into the room Gatsby his hands still in his pockets was reclining against the mantle piece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease even Of boredom his head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantle piece clock and from this position His distraught eyes stared down at Daisy who's sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a chair We've met before but her Gatsby his eyes glen's momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh luckily The clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head where upon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place Then he sat down rigidly his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand I'm sorry about the clock. He said my own face now seemed a deep tropical burn I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of a thousand in my head. It's an old clock I told him idiotically I think we all believe for a moment that it smashed a piece is on the floor So it's this like was so awkward if you watch the great Gatsby movie this scene is absolute gold because it's Leonardo DiCaprio and he knocks the clock down and it kind of does break and it tries to jam a piece back in and breaks it further It's so good So there's this wicked awkward meeting and Nick steps out for a minute as the two get better acquainted and she sort of admits her love for him Or at least we kind of surmise that he comes back in there both smiling and feeling lovely and they get a tour of his house I know I'm kind of going through this But the weird thing is there's not a whole lot of plot like not much actually happens There's a lot of talking about feelings and emotions and sort of setting the scene in the tone But as far as like real solid world events, there's not a lot so So they get a tour of the house J Gatsby takes Daisy to show her his just shocking wealth And he is wildly wealthy Right?
He's got so much money and he takes her into his his place and ends up to hear the closet and starts taking shirts out of his closet And throwing them on the couch like she's going through the house He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them one by one before us So he is displaying his lovely nice shirts Suddenly with the strange sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry There's such beautiful shirts. She sobbed her voice muffled in thick folds It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful shirts before It's really cute and this is a part that people talk about maybe most from the great Gatsby is this green light You guys know what the green light I'm talking about this is where it's first introduced If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay said Gatsby You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock Daisy put her arm through his abruptly But he seemed absorbed in what he had just said possibly had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy It had seemed very near to her almost touching her and it seemed as close as a star to the moon now It was again a green light on a dock his count of enchanted objects had diminished by one So he couldn't get close to her but the light was so he'd stare at it all night and now that he actually had her The light was meaningless. It was just a light again Okay, Nick decides to leave because he wants to leave these two lovers, you know to chat things over As I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of a wilderness had come back into Gatsby's face as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness Almost five years. There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams not through her own fault But because of the colossal vitality of his illusion it had gone beyond her beyond everything He'd thrown himself into it with a creative passion adding to it all the time Ducking it out with every bright feather that drifts his way No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart as I watched him He adjusted himself a little visibly his hand to cold of hers And he said something low and she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating feverish warmth because it couldn't be over dreamed that voice was a defless song They've forgotten me, but Daisy looked glanced up and held out her hand Gatsby didn't know me now at all I looked once more at them and they look back at me remotely possessed by intense life Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain leading them there together So at this moment we sort of see that Gatsby has built up this thing in his head that's perhaps even beyond the Daisy of real life Right, he's got the actual Daisy and he gets in trance by this light again feeling the enchanted objects That's diminished by one when really he's got the real flesh and blood person right there with him Right, so just because that ends sounding hopeful or like he's got the thing he wanted but right before that It sounds like disillusionment, right?
Yeah, I don't know if there's just this conflict of he's feeling both at the same time Yeah, and we get weird hints that he's doing this like weird stalkers behavior, but he asks for a meeting But not even through like he can't even ask for it. He's throwing these parties while they're there He shows all these newspaper clippings he's kept of her for years and years which might feel romantic when you're young We know that older Gays is she it's the it's she's the golden haired woman right the part that he he's put all of his like hearts ambition and desire and wanting to be make something of himself into this person and now he's got this person and it's this mixture of Static joy that she's on his arm and also like really she's just like a real. She's like a regular person crying his shirt Yeah, it's a and obviously that's not what she's crying about right there's sort of this over rush of emotion And she just can't hold it and finally there's there's just she's just also this like old money new money thing going on like Like Gatsby was the poor soldier and now he's coming with this new money But then he's never you know you're never really gonna be accepted into the old money world when you're this new money person But and she is she's the establishment and he's the sub start and anyway, but but all that that uh, it's Set poor Daisy right like having to shoulder like all of that desire all of that like my medic Desire of somebody else is like built up in you as a person I mean she gets completely overshout as a person. She's not a real person to Gatsby.
She's the object Yeah, and right after this is when they reveal who James Gatsby really is his real name is James Gats He does have family we find out later. He is not alone in this one. He's from I think South Dakota. Yeah, let's see It's one of the Dakotas Anyway, he's from North Dakota James Gatsby Blooded place in America, right?
Yeah, he really is from like the Midwest but not Certainly not and we find out he was a young poor kid and absolutely enamored of wonderful beautiful things, right? There's a quote on page sorry doesn't page that says for a while he would just dream of these crazy things fantastic conceits Universes of ineffable godiness spun itself out his brain with a clock ticked on the washstand of the moon So so he's just laying in bed dreaming of these wonderful things while he works menial jobs And it says for a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination They were satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality I promise that the rock of this world was founded securely on a fairies wing he wants these wonderful things doesn't know how to go Luckily he meets a guy named Dan Cody and Dan Cody drives you up He is he's got crazy money from some efforts mining silver and gold and he has he's so rich that he just sort of sails around the continent on this Fancy boat that he's got by chance He drops anchor in J Gatsby Bay James Gatsby was and as soon as James Gats climbed on the deck He introduced himself as J Gatsby He already had this person in his mind that he could run with the name sounds nicer. It sounds fancier It sounds more old money than James Gats. So he gives this name Dan Cody recognizes that he's quick He's smart.
He's good looking and he's ambitious So he keeps him around and after Dan Cody dies he tried he even leaves some money to him But there's a woman who got her claws into Dan Cody before he died So J so J Gatsby's cheated out of all of it. He eventually goes to World War one comes back decorated He really did some good things he quickly rose I think it was a major was put in charge of the machine gun battalion earned a few medals in the war but came back Pennyless found out Daisy was attached sort of hover to her in her aura for a long time and then get attached to this Myer Wolfshine guy who hooked him up with some sketchy money We find out and I don't know I'm not sure I wrote this down anywhere But we find out later that what he did was together They bought a bunch of tiny drug stores and then started selling bootleg liquor out of them. So grain alcohol That's how they made their money or at least that's how they started making money now They've got some nebulous thing that's kind of dark and nobody talks about but there's they're making even more money So there's all this stuff at one point J even tries to get Nick in on it. He says hey I've got a thing You might be interested you can make a good bit of money doing it and Nick of course doesn't need it.
He's goes No, no, thanks It isn't even tempted like many any kid at that time You know we're coming up on the Great Depression here any kid of that time would have been eager to make it some cash There's there was easy money to be made this was like a massive boom in America And but Nick doesn't need it because Nick's comes for money. He's already set He doesn't need it So you know when you're already got 12 pillowcases to go to home somebody offers you a handful I know so it's like why go to crime when you have all the connections to go into banking or go into bonds or whatever You want to get like why yeah, he's a bond I take that risk when you can go and like be a legitimate Okay Later in this scene after we're finding out about all this stuff We He starts he invites her to a party Daisy and Daisy does not really like the party she doesn't really have a good time It feels kind of gaudy. It's not really great. The parties were never really great And I think seeing her reaction to these back and alien things Yeah, there's been crazy parties and she doesn't really have a good time and Jay is just feel Mr.
Gatsby feels awful about it He just he's all of a sudden sees everything in a new light and this will be the last party throws the last one He doesn't do it again I'm gonna read this little quote because it's really kind of revelatory of what's happening in Jay Gatsby's mind as he's dealing with Daisy Sorry, I'm kind of taking a while to get a start. Hope that's right. I Stayed late that night gas Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had Run up chilled and exalted from the black beach until the lights were extinguished in the guest rooms overhead when he came down the steps at last The tan skin was drawn unusually tight on his face and his eyes were bright and tired. She didn't like it.
He said immediately Well, of course she did she didn't like it. He insisted she didn't have a good time He was silent and I guess that his unaudible depression. I feel far away from her He said it's hard to make her understand you mean about the dance the dance he dismissed all the dances He had given with a snap of his fingers old sport the dances unimportant He wanted nothing less of Daisy that she should go to Tom and say I never loved you After she had obliterated three years without sense They could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken one of them was that after she was free They were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house just as if it were five years ago and she doesn't understand He said sparingly she used to be able to understand we'd sit for hours He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers I wouldn't ask too much of her. I ventured you can't repeat the past can't repeat the past he cried incredulously Why of course you can he looked around him wildly as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house just out of reach of his hand I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before he said nodding determinately She'll see he talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something some idea of himself perhaps that she had gone into Loving Daisy his wife had been confused and disordered his life had been confused and disordered since then but he could once return So it but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly He could find out what that thing was and then there's a little he livesies one autumn night five years ago They'd been walking down the street when the leaves were falling and they came to a place where there were no trees And the sidewalk was white with moonlight they stopped here and turned to each other now It was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year Quiet lights of the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars out of the corner of His eye got to be saw that the blocks of the sidewalk were really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees He could climb to it if he climbed alone and once there he could suck on the path of life Gulped down the incomparable milk of wonder his heartbeat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own He knew that when he kissed this girl and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath His mind would never romp again like the mind of God So he waited listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star Then he kissed her at his lips.
He touched at his lips as touched She blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete through all she said even through his appalling sentimentality I was reminded of something an elusive rhythm a fragment of lost words that I'd heard somewhere a long time ago For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth And my lips part like a dumb man's as though they were more struggling upon them than a wisp of star layer But they made no sound but I'd almost remember it was uncomfortable forever right? That's a weird passage What do you guys get from that rich girls man rich girls? Sure? you want to say anything more no like the thing that I always Reflect on with Gatsby is you have The idea and you have the reality you have the idea of what Daisy is and what he wants her to be and it's everything about his insecurity And his desire to be great and his desire to be ushered into high society and to be rich and to be successful and all this kind of stuff And to be unashamed like he's super like he doesn't want to talk about where he gets his dirty money He's ashamed of his like foreign immigrant sounding your you know German name and he's and he just wants to be in this and for him Daisy is you know if Daisy loves him he's done it and then on the other hand There's a reality you have this like real person of Daisy and she has her own desires And she has like kind of life that she wants to live she has the own pressures that are on her and like marrying Tom Buchanan is the script is the thing that you should be doing and he's the athlete and he's the all-american you know this life of wealth and like buy your bonds and drink your champagne and and And but then she's also got her heart and then there's there's Jay, but anyway, so but you guys He doesn't even realize this about Daisy like he it's not like it's not this relationship of equals who are wanting to like forge a life together It's not it's not a Darcy and Elizabeth right these two people that even though there's a class discrepancy their their relationship of equals It's that Daisy's been Symbolized diminished by Jay into into a symbol and then she's getting wrecked and the thing is that's probably like Daisy's curse Tom's probably done it She's the she's the woman I'm supposed to marry she's the she's the she's the you'll get you're supposed to get and then he can go off And have is like you know what he really wants was just just like you know passionate love making with some like you know Smoldering woman and that Daisy's not giving that yeah, he wants some tumult.
Yeah, right? He wants passion Yeah, he's not yeah, Daisy's not yeah, and so the poor girl. She's just like She's she's object she's object for the men around her and order. She's cries But Tom seems to treat most women like yeah Yeah, and he idolizes a little more but here's where the bit about the voice comes in fully so right after that scene They're thinking about they're all kind of hanging out there think and she's been spending a lot of time at Gatsby's in the mornings Tom kind of doesn't like this he kind of gets starts to kind of key into what's going on here, and it's looking kind of weird He starts to investigate Gatsby's like I don't really know what's happening not really into it But they're all hanging out one hot day Nick Jordan Gatsby Tom and Daisy.
It's really hot now. I'll decide to go to town and Tom says I don't see the idea I don't see the idea of going to town broke out Tom savagely women get these notions into their heads Shall we take anything to drink called Daisy from an over window? I'll get some whiskey and sir Tom he went inside Gatsby turned to me rigidly I can't say anything in his household sport. She's got an industry an indiscreet voice.
I remarked. It's full of hesitated her voice is full of money He said suddenly that's it. I never understood before it was full of money That was the inexhaustible charm that rose and found it the jingle of it the symbol song of it I know white palace the king's daughter the golden girl so her voice was yes It is her siren quality, but that quality is cash. Yeah, she's got lots of it.
Yes. She can always promise a wonderful thing to come It's not just like she's rich. It's that everything that money can do it's the optionality. It's the promise.
It's the freedom. It's the fun. It's the fun It's the it's the cool rooms upstairs. It's the like Iyer We can travel at any moment.
We could go do whatever we want to do all of those things Yeah, it is the life of if you if you just think it and will it you have it. That's who date. That's like what Daisy said That's what her voice can promise you. Yeah, so that is that little thread running all the way through it That what Daisy has her desirable quality that siren song is money.
That's the thing that gets me like that is the thing that captured him I'm gonna read a section in a minute that actually kind of better sort of exhibits that little piece What's time I got whoo sometimes so yeah that this is kind of the thing that captured Gatsby in the first place And it seems to be the thing that continuously gets him. What's crazy is that this comes directly from his mouth He said she's got money. That's the thing that's in her voice, right? Alright, so they go to town.
I'm this is the part I printed out for you guys to read with me I go to town and they kind of stop at the gas station where the Wilson's are and it's kind of awkward and not great and they go downtown they're trying to decide what they're gonna do with themselves, but alas They can't think of anything to do except a rental room to drink in so they go to a hotel rental room Like man that so so this is what they decide to we're gonna start on page 115 you guys see a little star there Yeah, there's a couple on yours I think where I highlighted and then crossed it out because it's not actually you if you look out for those X's Oh the X's mean, that's not actually me that means I that's not actually so I read all this yeah There's some Tom is not a very nice person. Tom is not a very nice person. There are some swears here So just the heads up So there's Tom's where more like who are you reading? Well, he just says the darn word D.
I. M. So if you're listening with kids now might be a time to fast forward a little bit He's an unfortunate comment about intermarriage in the first section. Yeah, we'll highlight that cool Okay, yes, okay, let's go.
They're all drinking and then Tom says wait a minute. I want to ask mr. Gatsby one more question So we'll take it from go on go on Gatsby said politely what kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow? They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content.
He isn't causing a row days He looked desperately from one to the other your causing a row Please have a little self-control self-control repeated Tom incredulously I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let mr. Nobody from nowhere make love to your wife Well, if that's the idea you can count me out nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions And next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. Okay, not great Not great written in the 20s not great second Isn't this a little bit ironic because Thomas treating on because Tom is cheating and sneering at family institutions So he doesn't even see the irony of his own words and what's more? It's not highlighted in the book This is one great thing about the great Gatsby novel is that it does a really good job of not drawing connections for you It'll hint at things and and supply sort of what's happening But you have to make all these connections for yourself it respects the reader and trusts you to do a lot and the pros is totally beautiful Anyway, I just wanted to highlight that's total irony coming from Tom, right?
Yeah, flush with his impassioned gibberish. He saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization We're all white here. Remember Jordan. I know I'm not very popular.
I don't give big parties I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends in the modern world Angry as I was as we all were I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth the transition from Liberty to Prig was so complete I've got something to tell you all sport began Gatsby, but Daisy guessed that his intention. Please don't she interrupted helplessly Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home? That's a good idea.
I got up. Come on Tom. Nobody wants a drink I want to know what mr. Gatsby has to tell me your wife doesn't love you said Gatsby quietly.
She's never loved you She loves me. You must be crazy. Explain Tom automatically Gatsby sprang to his feet vivid with excitement She never loved you do here. He cried she only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me at this point Jordan and I tried to go but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain as though neither of them had anything to conceal And it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions sit down Daisy Tom's voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note What's been going on?
I want to hear all about it I told you what's been going on said Gatsby going on for five years and you didn't know Tom turns a daisy sharply You've been seeing this fellow for five years not seeing said Gatsby No, we couldn't meet but both of us loved each other all that time old sports and you didn't know I used to laugh sometimes There was no laughter in his eyes. I think that you didn't know. Oh, that's all Tom tap to stick fingers together like a clergyman and lean back in his chair You're crazy. He exploded I can't speak about what happened five years ago because I didn't know Daisy then and I'll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her Unless you brought the groceries to the back door But all the rest of that's a goddamn lie Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now No said Gatsby shaking his head she does though the trouble is that sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn't know what she's doing He nodded Sagely and what's more I love Daisy too once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back and in my heart I love her all the time.
You're revolting said Daisy She turned to me and in her voice dropping an octave lower filled the room with thrilling scorn Do you know why we left Chicago? I'm surprised I didn't treat you to the story of that little spree Gatsby walked over and stood beside her Daisy that's all over now. He said her it doesn't matter anymore. Just tell him the truth, but you've never loved him It's all wiped out forever.
She looked at him blindly. Why how could I love him? Possibly you never loved him She hesitated her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal as though she realized that last what she was doing and as though She had never all along intended doing anything at all, but it was done now. It was too late I never loved him.
She said with perceptible reluctance not at capiolani Demetatomp is just a rich miss sounding place Demetatomp suddenly no from the ballroom and if muffled and suffocating cords were drifting up on hot waves of air not that day I carried you down from the punch bowl to keep your shoes dry There was a husky tenderness in his tone Daisy, please don't her voice was cold the rancor was gone from it She looked at Gatsby. There Jay, she said but her hand but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling suddenly She threw the cigarette and burning match on the carpet. Oh, oh you want too much? She cried to Gatsby I love you now.
Isn't that enough? I can't help what's passed. She began to sob helplessly I did love him once but I love you too Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. You love me too?
He repeated? Even that's a lie. Said Tom Sabbagley. She didn't know you were alive Why there's things between Daisy and me that you'll never know things that neither of us can ever forget the words seem to bite physically into Gatsby I want to speak Daisy alone.
He insisted. She's all excited now. Even alone. I can't say I never left Tom She admitted in a pitiful voice.
It wouldn't be true. Of course it wouldn't. Agreed Tom. She turned to her husband As if it mattered to you.
She said of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you from now on You don't understand said Gatsby with a touch of pink. You're not gonna take care of her anymore I'm not Tom open his eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself now.
Why is that Daisy's leaving you nonsense? I am though. She said with a visible effort. She's not leaving me Tom's words suddenly lean down over Gatsby Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he put on her finger I won't stand this cried Daisy.
Oh, please. Let's go out. Who are you anyhow broke out Tom? You're one of that bunch that hangs around with my wolfshime that much I happen to know I've made a little investigation into your affairs and I'll carry it further tomorrow.
You can suit yourself about that old sport said Gatsby Steadley I found out what your drug stores were he turned to us and spoke graphically He and this wolfshime bought up a lot of side street drug stores here in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn't far wrong What about it said Gatsby politely? I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too proud to come in on it And you left him in the lurch didn't you you let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you. He came to us dead broke He was very glad to pick up some money old sport.
Don't you call me old sport right Tom Gatsby said nothing Walter could have you could have you up on the Bedding laws too, but wolfshime scared him into shutting his mouth that unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face that drugstore business Was just small chain continue Tom slowly, but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about I glanced at Daisy who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband and Jordan who'd begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on the Virgin then I turned back to Gatsby and was startled at his expression He looked and this is said and all contempt for the babble 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 It passed and he began to talk excitedly today's eat denying everything defending his name against accusations have not been made with every word She was drawing further and further into herself So he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away trying to touch what was no longer tangible Struggling unhappily Unsparingly toward that lost voice across the room the voice begged again to go please Tom I can't stand this anymore her fright and eyes told that whatever intentions whatever courage she'd had we're definitely gone you two start on home Daisy said Tom and mr. Gatsby's car she looked at Tom alarm now, but he insisted with magnanimous scorn go on He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his pre-presumptuous little flirtation is over Okay, I think we probably stop there Yeah, this is I think it ruins the the affair like yep So Tom breaks the illusion right even has the moxie to tell them to drive together back to his house Right you can ride with Gatsby like man what a power move I also love the basic comedy of this like the old sport and there's just so much silliness because they're all a little bit half drunk and It's I don't know. This is a pretty hard scene.
I'm wondering if I should talk about what happens right after this I think I'll leave that bit up to our up to our leader this this I won't spoil it for you But there's a lot of the ending you have to talk about the very very thing. I said about happens next all right fine Alright, so what happens is on the way back We find out that Gatsby lets Daisy drive and as they pass seeing Tom Buchanan's car The woman Myrtle at the gas station runs out to talk to him because she thinks it's Tom so Daisy tries to swerve away from her and then the last second you know Was is out because there's another car there and she actually hits Myrtle and kills her The car pauses for a moment and then drives on so Daisy can't handle it. She panics she drives away Gatsby says he will always claim that it was him Tom of course drives home. Wait, why is Myrtle wind come on to talk to me?
Can't because it's Tom like it's not broken her nose And she I think she misses with her husband now and it's you know was a drunken fight They had and this whole thing anyway on the way back Tom stops in at the gas station sees the body tries to comfort the husband Basically says it wasn't me. I wasn't driving the car. I'm in a different car We just came from New York anyway The husband has a horrible night the next morning He kind of disappears for a little while and then as J gasby sort of waits for the hammer to fall He decides to go swimming and use his pool for the first time ever that summer He hasn't at all and as he's swimming mr. Wilson comes up and shoots him and shoots himself So J dies in a swimming pool which back then was a pretty amazing thing to have and definitely a symbol of wealth and so she's dies sort of in this wealth Which is fun America man.
Yeah, we're all proud of wool. That's the great thing There was a kid in class says Catherine that as they were coming up on it She's like yeah, we're gonna read the great guys. He goes isn't that the one about how the American dream leaves you den your pool She's like shut up Give it away. Yeah, so yeah, he dies in this pool and that's awfully tragic Gatsby when right when they arrived home is that a criminal right when they Right when they arrive home from that tragic night Gatsby was afraid that Tom would hit her or something So he sort of stands out in the bushes all evening But what's really happening is Daisy and Tom are coolie discussing what they're going to do next over beer and chicken that they don't touch They talk it's old money conspiring to make that clear He's like what you know Gatsby wouldn't would have seen if he looked through the window was old money calmly, you know Macking me and figuring out what they're gonna do so They disappear they go on a trip and catch it up Gatsby dies Nick has trouble getting anybody to come to his funeral wolf Shine won't come he can't get mixed up enough guy who got killed none of the party Or is come the only guy that shows up is this random border who is sort of in J Gatsby's house just hanging out doing push-ups?
He was like just some random guy living there he showed up and he said like he deserved more than this right for people to actually come my theory is That's Fitzgerald. Mm-hmm. I think that's the author why I think he's hanging out in the house is there any any connection between them? I would do if I was the author I would put somebody in there to be me and that the well the other great thing And I'll touch on this really quickly before I sort of read the end is that Fitzgerald wrote on this because he lived it He loved when he was young that was rich and his the family basically said no You don't have money and poor little boys shouldn't try to marry rich girls The second girl he was into they were engaged for a little while and then because he could not seem to get a job That made enough money the she basically said when you are financially Like okay, and you can support this lifestyle that I'm used to we can get married and he couldn't do it So she broke off the engagement and then he wrote his first book it became a success and then she came here up He hit her up and they did get reengaged and eventually got married, but even then yeah, even then at the height of their like coming back together He said I have no feelings for her like I wouldn't care if she died They had a tumultuous relationship They were part of the you know Ernest Hemingway crowd and had all this money and did all this drinking and he did not hold his liquor Well neither of them do they started accusing each other of infidelity She may have had schizophrenia like all this stuff.
He had a really hard life But Jay Gatsby's story is almost the story about Fitzgerald's love of this woman in his early years right this first woman They really wanted and couldn't have right he writes about it because he lived it But I still think the border was Fitzgerald sort of being in the story and attending the funeral and all that stuff I'm gonna read the the glasses. I mentioned earlier I'm gonna I'm not gonna go back and read it But there's a point where mr. Wilson takes his wife when he finds out that she's been running around on him and forces her to look out Upon the ashes and the glasses and he says look God is always watching and so these glasses become sort of the symbol for the eyes of God Which are looking over the ashheaps and the poor but also aren't doing anything right? They don't solve the problems They're they're present in these important times, but they don't do much and even then there's a little comedy thrown in because the guy that's Standing there that mr.
Wilson telling the story to he goes yeah, but those are just an advertisement Points up, but there's a little bit of symbolism there. I wanted to read the very last page sort of as a Bye, let's see how we do it on time here. Yeah, it's time Okay, so last page Fitzgerald has noted or Nick has noted that all of the all of the main characters are westerners and not really Easterners Right, but they might have this thing in them. That's not accustomed to the eggs the West Egg East egg Is that no that they like they are western United State?
They're not native Easterners So he says most of the big short places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy moving glow of a theory Vote across the sound as the moon rose higher the in essential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that floured once for Dutch sailors eyes a fresh green breast of the new world It's vanished trees the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house had once pander and whispers to 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 was something commensurate to the capacity for wonder and as I sat there Bruding on the unknown world. I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock He'd come a long way to his blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that it could hardly fail to grasp it He did not know that it was already behind him somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city where the dark fields of the republic rolled on Under the night Gatsby believed in the green light the orgistic future that year by year recedes before us It alludes us then but that's no matter tomorrow will run faster stretch out our arms farther and one fine morning So we be on boats against the current born back ceaselessly into the past So Gatsby yes, he set up Daisy as this effigy of all the things that he desired At the very end it may become a commentary upon how we in the United States have like we had this new world We had this thing that was commensurate to our capacity for wonder this thing that we wanted and our country was born on the promise of the West now. We don't have it anymore. That's gone So there's something in us that still yearns on for this I don't know purposeful adventure this something that is commensurate with our capacity for wonder and we rush towards it when all the time It's behind us even talks about the republic right that's thrown in when it's talking about Gatsby's desires So Gatsby becomes sort of the symbol for America right we want this thing then in our heads sound so awesome But it's not there anymore It's it's and it's certainly not going to deliver on the promise Gatsby had what what Donaldson would have called a moment of great joy That's what happened on that sidewalk He tasted that and then it became incarnated and Daisy right the incarnation was up complete that whole feeling that Possibility all those riches all those things that he wanted became embodied in her and he couldn't have it any other way He wanted her or nothing else and what's weird is it once it's gone once it's done He's in his swimming pool and he's looking around and everything has lost that dream like quality It's just material and I think it's in grotesque anyway That's sort of everything that is happening for me in great Gatsby.
Just cool. Do we have time or do we have to go to him? I think we're at an hour, but we're gonna say like to me I think that makes sense I always see Gatsby as like this caution not a cautionary tale, but like human beings and maybe it's a maybe it's more of a masculine things We definitely have this like sort of these competing like Tom and Jay fighting over Daisy, but there's this like everybody has this Desire that is sort of driving them and motivated them to do something and everybody needs to get to the place where they can Temper and control it or debunk it or do you maybe it's debunk it? But it's like if you let it be it's almost like if you let that animal side of you the thing that wants and wants If you if you let that take control like there's no stopping it once it gets going and then the reality is like It's desire It's hunger is so much more than the actual things that you get like the things that sort of symbolize what it wants Once it has it's not enough like once you get days once you have Daisy It's not gonna be enough and he's like Jay doesn't just it when Daisy says isn't enough that I say I love you right now And you just like no no no no you have to have loved me all the time forever and ever and that's the only acceptable thing Days is like can't do that that's not real right and and that breaks it for Jay like Jay Gatsby needs He's given himself completely over to that desire This is even going back like Renee's right right like that mnemonic desire You want you're driven by that thing that you think other people have and that animates you so everybody needs to get to the place where they can like Temperate or they can sever the desire from growing further.
It's almost like You can't let it you know continue to You know create roots and spread throughout the entire yard right like you need to contain it at some point or you're gonna Land up down your swimming pool. You know you can't you can't let it run you You it's almost you turn it almost into like animal version of yourself the whole thing you lose control That's the thing that I was remembering I read Gatsby is is like as the book goes on It's got this big veneer of everything being sort of like fun and happy But as it goes on it's just like there's this big bottoming out where the whole thing loses control and you really there's like getting drunk in a hotel room and Big old thing is really intended to do anything over tragic things are happening and you like you can't even deal with the present tragic thing Because of the most previous tragic thing that's just happened in your own life So you keep driving and it's just like the whole thing is and even then Daisy and Tom are untouchable Yeah, they disappear that to me and at the end they're having this cool little conversation about like art How do we manage this how do we deal with this like how are we gonna be able to keep our? Relationship in whatever it is and for whatever reason it exists How are we gonna keep this going they're gonna go on a fancy trip like of course she's not gonna believe you can no She's definitely not gonna leave you can partially I think there's some weird narcissist abuse happening there for us clearly not great guy But of course, but he's also like the guy you marry if you're the real the wealthy girl from like this other like you marry Tom You can't he's the guy you marry yeah, and you don't marry a guy and manage his Flandering somehow and I think when she found out that Gatsby had earned all this money through dark means of course She cannot run away with him. She cannot have that dogging her heels like that I think for her We should show up at a party and be like that's Daisy She's from this old money family and she's Gatsby a bootlegger a bootlegger a criminal a guy who's made his money from like you know crypto Like it's got that it's got that mark on it's gone mark on it's gone.
She can't have that mark And so now she's I think that that illusion for her has broken yes. Yeah anyway, so it's such a great book Yeah, the pros and just as a note it's beautiful the book is gorgeous he does such a good job of following a couple of the rules of style that I'm cooking up a podcast on for the next few episodes and Yeah, it's he is incredibly good at writing so you should read it. It's a fantastic book recommend it without reservation Awesome. Thank you.
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