The Promise of Life

Why read The Great Gatsby

This was originally an entry to the Marlborough Literary Festival’s “Love Books” competition.

‘The great American novel’, doomsayer of the American Dream, chronicle of the Jazz Age…

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

We are constantly told what The Great Gatsby is: bombarded with trite opinions and sweeping sentiments that give superficial explanations of its timelessness. As a result, the book is never allowed simply to be — to float in empty awareness, to be encountered for the first time, probed with innocence, openness, and sincerity.

Such was the misfortune of my first encounter with the novel. I picked it up expecting a grand, incisive social commentary, a book replete with profound and original genius. It is no surprise I found it teeth-gratingly boring.

My relationship with The Great Gatsby would have ended right there… except, our draconic English department dragooned us into studying it. What follows can only be described as a slow-burn romance. First, I leaned into Daisy’s “breathless whisper”, sweet as a sylvan harp. Next, I was entranced by Gatsby’s smile with its “quality of eternal reassurance”, filled with the promise of dreams. Finally, I discovered something more profound (and far less boring) than social commentary: Jay Gatsby, not…