My Google Diary for The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Format: select

 

When I read, I ask a LOT of questions. Here’s some stuff I searched or wondered about while reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

From my review:

I loved the writing.  It was simple, charming, and witty – an interesting contrast to the much deeper story going on.  The last line about how we can’t escape from the past points out that even though as Americans we say that anyone can achieve wealth, happiness and equality, the truth is we keep getting sucked into the rules of the past....Read More

Music

My number one complaint about the movie adaption by Baz Luhrmann was I didn’t like the music. I wanted some real jazz.  The book mentions a lot of specific songs, so I made a YouTube playlist for you of the songs mentioned in The Great Gatsby. If the video above doesn’t work, you can see the playlist here.

• Three O’Clock in the Morning by Paul Whiteman
• Beale Street Blues by Ella Fitzgerald
• Ain’t We Got Fun? by Van & Schenck
• The Sheik of Araby by Fats Waller (this one is my fav!)

“The piece is known,” he concluded lustily, “as Vladimir Tostoff’s Jazz History of the World.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (p. 49).

Vladimir is not real :(

Books

The Rise of the Colored Empires by Goddard is mentioned by Tom. It’s not a real book, but the title is really similar to The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, by Lothrop Stoddard that I found on Wiki.  The Stoddard book was written in the 20s and is about “scientific racism.” I definitely won’t be reading it.

[Nick] sat down discreetly in the living-room and read a chapter of Simon Called Peter— either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things, because it didn’t make any sense to me.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (p. 29).

I think this book, Simon Called Peter, is out of print because it has like 4 ratings on Goodreads. And all I could find about it was that it was really popular in the 20s and was controversial because of the sex and religion in the book. Huh. Wonder if it would be controversial now… (Source)

Places

“Two studies. One of them I call Montauk Point— The Gulls, and the other I call Montauk Point— The Sea.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (p. 32).

This is some of the riveting conversation at the party with Tom and his mistress (um in the book the parties are not as flashy as the movie. They are really quite lame).  But hey if the guy at the party did paintings of a real place, I want to see.

Montauk Point Lighthouse.  Ooooh pretty :)

Montauk Point – The sea :)

The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (p. 68).

Queensboro Bridge.  I want to go to New York.

Quotes

Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (p. 88).

That is so oddly true.

“See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism!

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (pp. 45-46).

I totally freak out about books like that, too. But I wondered about the Belasco reference. He was a theatrical producer. I’m not the only one who was confused by the reference because the wiki page explains it like this:

 “The Owl Eyed Man,” who says of Gatsby “This fella’s a regular Belasco,” commenting on the theatrical (meaning ironically false) nature of Gatsby’s giant library. In other words, “The Owl Eyed Man” is noting Gatsby’s artificiality, comparing it to that of a stage player, by his amazement that the books, unlike Gatsby, are genuine. – Source

Wow. Look at the useless stuff you learn on this blog. I hope you play a lot of Trivial Pursuit. Dude I should play Trivial Pursuit….

Movie Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8So7s4QFi8