123. The Great Gatsby, Part 1

The Public Square
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New Warhorn Media post by Nathan Alberson:

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Congratulations on your engagement @nathanalberson . I’d insert some playfully scathing “it’s about time” remark here if I knew you better. You can fill in the blank.

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I have inserted it. :heart::heart::heart:

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Re: your recommendation of the book Max Perkins, Editor of Genius I’m glad you put that in. My wife got me a used Kindle for Christmas, and that book was on it. The title intrigued me, but I deleted about 40 self-help books, which didn’t give me confidence in the previous owner’s choice of books. :slight_smile:

Anyway, now I’m actually looking forward to reading it.

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Success!!! (Complete sentence here)

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Thanks for the show. Appreciate the work and the context. It has been years since I first read Gatsby (20?) and I was a fairly disinterested high school student at the time. Just finished it for the second time a couple days ago. I was shocked by the ending. I had not remembered at all what brought about Gatsby’s demise, nor did I recall the auto accident. (!)

That said, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the part of the book after Gatsby died (basically the last chapter) and really disliked the part before. I guess I can get into “honoring the dead” more-so than I can “idolizing the living.” The writing is great, and worth reading, though I hated that first bit where Carraway introduces himself.

“Can’t repeat the past, he cried incredulously. Why, of course you can.” Loved it. Absolutely loved it. From a certain viewpoint anyway.

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We’ll have more to say about all that on this Wednesday’s episode, but … yep. Exactly. :smile:

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Interesting that you guys also struggle to remember Gatsby as well. It’s not the book’s plot that sticks with you. It’s just the “feel,” the atmosphere.

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Yeah I think that’s exactly right. And not even a criticism. Just the way the book operates.

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Regarding the common state of people nor remembering the book from their high school years: I’m thinking that the book is about the inability to back in time, but that’s not an experience most high schoolers are having yet.

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