The Great Gatsby-Chapters 1-3 The fast lane

[kiakar]

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CallMeLeo wrote:
I did take the telephones for granted! Good catch! But I didn't take the cars for granted. I noticed the first three chapters had several mentions of the automobile, including Myrtle's husband owning a garage and wanting to buy a car from Tom. (How sleazy to visit his lover's husband face to face. It shows his arrogance and lack of common decency!) You are right to point out that society is just getting faster paced with advanced technologies and mechanics. The airplane will soon be crossing oceans.

Nick seemed to be attracted to Jordan because of some of these modern qualities and her self-confidence. She's not too snobbish to go to Gatsby's party but she is at home in Buchanans' set as well. Like Nick, she bridges both worlds with outward ease. Puzzling that her possible dishonesty in the game doesn't bother him, if anything more forgiveable because she's a woman. I sensed some old-fashioned condescension there. What did others think? Does it mean that Nick is willing to turn a blind eye to deceit,

He must turn a blind eye to deceit and dishonesty, because he was part of Daisy's scheme to see Gatsby and also he was with Tom when he visited Myrtle. He didn't seem liable to pass judgement on them since he even helped Daisy see Gastsby and could have left the company of Tom and Myrtle when they were together. So how honest was Nick? If he didn't approve of Jordan's dishonesty, he never rebuked her for any of it. So are we saying that Nick was honest but he didn't care whether other people are honest or not?

[foxycat]

Notthing in your message, kiakar.

We're moving on to chapters 4-6 tomorrow in the next thread.

[kiakar]

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foxycat wrote:
Notthing in your message, kiakar.

We're moving on to chapters 4-6 tomorrow in the next thread.

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Mine is the last paragraph of Leo's. I goofed up with trying to eliminate some of it. It got all mingled in together. ha.

[chad]

Hi everyone!

I hope I'm not too late for the discussion. But I heard people were thinking about discussing JD Salinger's "Catcher." Catcher and Gatsby would be interesting to do together. I've read Catcher, and only 2 chapters of Gatsby thus far. I just came from the Dracula discussion, and, along with other things, it's about how we tend to encapsulate time or tend to put it into different time frames, circles, or spheres. Indeed, we always fall under the spell of the contemporary. Well, squashed a little flatter, the circle might become an oval or something egg-shaped, and, Whoola!,we get a smoother transition from the 1800's to the roaring 20's- where I find an aftermath of the issues and concerns of the 1800's, where I find that the transcendentalist now takes the shape of a garbage man, and where I find, of course, an egg is a little more than egg. This can't be happening! But it will be interesting...

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 01-17-2008 04:34 PM

[chad]

There may be some arguing over the shape of our world today, but I wouldn't know where it might be and I wouldn't know what to where or drink at such a gauche debate. But, perhaps the important point is, that if we apply uniform pressure to a sphere or egg, the egg will break first at its stress points. The egg, not necessarily split in equal partitions, might form halves which could represesent east and west, respectively. So, I begin the Gatsby, after a large crack has formed along the trenches of the western front of Europe- a crack undetected by a seismometer, I might add.

Chad

[chad]

The time or period of history that followed the line of the western front was something Fitzgerald protrays as colorful, lively and "gay", but as forementioned" something we've encapsulated, as Carraway does when he writes in the names of Gatsby's guests on a 1922 train timetable. In this case, the line forms a new egg, so to speak.

[chad]

The western front of WWI could almost be considered to be almost like a time rift, but definitely something "unreal" to the people who fought in and along the front. The line is a cross section of reality and "unreality", and the color, shapes and lines of the roaring 20's seemed to remedy the shapeless, colorless rifts of trench warfare.

Chad

PS- The colors, lines and shapes of the 20's would later become new lines, breaks or cracks- some invisible to the human eye or undetectable by human senses.

Message Edited by chad on 01-21-2008 02:31 PM

[chad]

Someone said that Fitzgerald did not like the military- I'm not sure. But I believe he was in the military. A military is the line of civilization, that is, they literally become the "frontline" of a war. Postwar eras might see new lines or shapes which formed from battle lines during a war. They may even become breaks or lines in civilization, or they may form new shapes, which may later become lines in society. The best example would be Carraway meeting war veterans at parties, like Gatsby.

Chad

Gray would be the color of the army, but soldiers don't necessarily retain this color. Grey becomes othey colors when flying flags, or perhaps when veterans throw lavish parties like Gatsby's. So, something colorless becoming colorful would be the important point.

Message Edited by chad on 01-22-2008 01:02 PM

[chad]

The million dollar egg industry that developed out west in Petaluma was significant in creating the "west egg." As Fitgerald writes, the eggs can literally become the lines which separate east from west. Shape becomes line, and vice versa, or 2d to 3D, if you will.

Chad

[chad]

I should also mention that Gatsby is about new music of the 1920's or the Jazz Age. But Gatsby in general is about how we crave variety in music, color or shapes and a uniformity of the same colors, sounds and shapes must exist to maintain the same variety, to make variety and spice last. Life is that struggle and tension between uniformity and variety...uniformity arising from and destroying variety, vairety then again arises from the ashes or the monochromatic...and how our senses may perceve variey when there actually is uniformity, and vice vera, particularly in the time of the 1920's...

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 01-22-2008 06:35 PM

[chad]

Sorry for the typos on the last one. Our own eyes are great examples of how shapes, circles and ovals, become lines. That is, our eyes define lines and shapes in Nature. Our lips, the oval down below, can define the same, they can literally define what we see. That leaves our noses- uh oh! The canine, and possibly people with large noses, can percieve an entirely different world of its own.

Chad

[chad]

I probably should post a little more about the characters, but I thought I'd hit on some of the big points. Gatsby is about how line transforms into shape, and vice versa, and our inability to sometimes see how shapes become lines, and vice versa- particularly a human shortcoming during the 1920's, nestled in between two world wars. The 1920's was a colorful decade, but also something of a warp or a line, itself.

Chad

[chad]

... and it's difficult for humans to make connections between shapes and lines, especially when our own eyes can vacillate between these two states as we open and close our eyelids, or perhaps when we wink. Our eyes percieve or funnel light to distinguish color, line and movement. So, when we find ourselves in a rift, the "valley of dust", or something monochromatic, we have a little more difficulty seeing shapes or movement. Similarly, variety can produce a "dazzling" effect- shapes and lines are once again obscure.

Chad

PS- examples of "shapes producing lines" might be Daisy's string of pearls. Where the shapes of the pearls become a line that she crosses when she places them around her neck before she marries Tom. Her neck later becomes a shade of grey.

examples of "lines producing shapes" might be something like a new contraption of the telephone, where a line produces or shapes events on either end. Perhaps the lines become the shape of the character's homes or "shape" their homes. And the character of Gatsby moves from something flat to something three dimensional. Or the entire book begins with one sentence or one line and gardually takes shape around the character of Nick Carraway. Well, I think we get it anyway....

Message Edited by chad on 01-24-2008 07:40 PM

[chad]

I think one of the most interesting thoughts about the book and the decade, particularly after reading Dracula, where we learned that a reality or a contemporary can be created by the will of one or several individuals, is the 1920's as something "created" to cover a rift or a line still existant after the first world war. People were "bedazzled" by color, music and lively parties, with liquor I kight add. In fact, the entire time period, as mentioned, was a place "inbeteween"- the colors, art, music and architecture seemed to take on "vacillating" effects, and the people of the prohibition era wavered somewhere between rebellion and conformity. Moreover, the truth was something that took shape, but it was no more than that. Indeed, the God of the religion was someone with eyes, or someone able to discern shape, but hopefully someone not needing glasses like Dr. Eckelberg.

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 01-25-2008 02:23 PM

[chad]

The earth naturally vacillates at the equinoxes and a longer natural vacillation which may account for the ice ages, gloal warming etc. The shape of the universe is for later-, but the big Bang and other theores has the whole universe vacillating between two shapes, or shape and line- whatever. But I think the key phrase would be "dynamic equilibrium." Many objects that we would consider to be static are actually dynamic or are the antagonists, and vice versa. Ultimately, this state of "static flux" may be the only truth and is what Carraway sees. But the human tendency and perhaps a flaw, is to shape and define through our own eyes, especailly if there's something colorful or something that excites our senses, like a great party. Gradually, a protective shell may form around the variety or fun- we want it to last.

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 01-25-2008 03:07 PM

[chad]

After the age of Industrialization or Imperialism, there perhaps arose a need to be more than what we were, more three-dimensional or more alive. Naturally, we can only see in front of us, and not our "backsides", our "outside" and not our "inside." Language can help us give a fully three dimensional view of ourselves. But, languages in the 1800's were in part used to dominate and control, and not to taught, if at all, to express and describe. Indeed, Carraway is literally enclosed in a shell by one sentence, and later, the shell breaks. Moreover, characters whisper or rumor, adding "unwanted lines or dimensions.

So, that need to be 3d, to be more than what we were, especially after the war, was reflected in the culture and art of the times, but perhaps that need blinded the culture of the 1920's, with it's Gatzby parties, glitz, and glamour. Perhaps, some would even take advantage of that need, and obscure or create new lines with color and lavish parties which would eventually lead to World War II. The key to our own survival, as Fitzgerald thought, would rest on the fragility of language, or the fragility of an egg.

Chad

Message Edited by chad on 01-26-2008 11:28 AM

[chad]

...I think I should leave with the above comment, but the 3d, essential to understanding "the Gatsby", would be colorful, dynamic, maybe well-rounded, the inside of an egg, etc. etc. The 2d world would be static, flat, colorless, like a trench. The move from 2d to 3d would be the shape of a cone. We can distinguish line, shape and movement when we distinguish color, light and sound. When there is too much motion, light sound, and alcohol of course, things become "blurred", and "blurred" again, when we "pass out", or when things go dark in the blink of an eye, or during a "power outtage." Another interesting example I can give you might be a church and steeple- the 3d structure of the church converges to a point or invisible line to something without shape(?), like God. The religion seems to mimic this vacillation between two worlds. And the earth seems to be more like Mercury, or becomes something mercurial in the decade of the 20's.

This is Gatsby in a choppy nutshell, or should I say eggshell?- but another great classic and it raises some interesting questions about our US history.

Chad

PS-Perhaps the conversion and convergence of the 1d, 2d and 3d might move you into 4th dimension of some kind. It's also interesting that astronomers have postulated the shape of the universe might be the shape of a horn or something conical. Or perhaps the universe is a large egg that continually forms and cracks- something akin to the big bang theory.

Message Edited by chad on 01-27-2008 12:43 PM

[chad]

The human evolved to speak language, giving civilizations line, sounds, color and shape. The human, and this was also discussed in my last novel "Dracula", has also evolved eyes. So, our mouths, also oval in shape, give the world and ourselves, an added dimension- possibly a fourth dimension. There are several ways you could interpret it. Perhaps our intellect has evolved "too highly", and our heads have developed a tilt, or they are "out of sync" with our bodies. Or perhaps our eyes are not in balance with our lips, causing a "tip" or a tilt. I think the main point of Gatsby is to give people an added dimension. Tell them that they are "great" and move them from 2d to 3d to 4d. The 3d shape is fleeting- we eventually return to line and dust.

Chad

PS- So, in this novel, language is shape, color, sound, line- any, all, or none of these. It's as simple or as complicated as that.

Message Edited by chad on 01-28-2008 11:53 AM

[chad]

The earth has a natural tilt and perhaps the universe? There seems to ba a natural flow from stable states to unstable states and back again. We, like the observed earth's rotation, may have evolved a tilt, possibly the tilt is the human intellect manifested by language through our lips. And we try and steady ourselves and each other with our hands, but sometimes the variety or our human differences in the shapes of what we think and what we "sense" can produce instability or fissures.

I keep going on and on, but what's next?

Chad

[chad]

The eastern seaboard was the "old frontline" between the civilization and the "uncivilized, and later became another egg or something that attracted westerners again back to the east coast. You might compare it to the yolk or the sun- but something colorful, like the 1920's. The entire US could be considered to be an egg, but lopsided? with its east and west components? Something that will crack or something that causes fissures, like east and west egg? And perhaps these fissures were created by the multimillion dollar egg industry....

Chad

PS-The western front of WW1 may have helped create new eggs and new "breaks."