The Great Gatsby: From flop to Great American Novel
The Great Gatsby: From flop to Great American Novel
How did Gatsby become so…great?
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
The Great Gatsby is the greatest American tragedy disguised as the greatest party you’ve ever gone to.
Even if you haven’t read The Great Gatsby, you know Gatsby.
But did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel didn’t exactly debut on the bestseller list?
So why is it still required reading?
Modernism was born out of this lost generation of people who were born into a world with horses and buggies and lived through a moment where suddenly you could talk to someone on the telephone and take a train across the country and you could drive a car.
They felt this nostalgia for the past and this propulsion towards the future.
If you were born before the iPhone, this might sound familiar.
I think that we as a generation, a hundred years later, really, really understand that feeling. I remember having a rotary telephone. Having people talk about the idea that there would be video phones and that everybody thought that was crazy.
At some points, The Great Gatsby has been required reading in more than 50 percent of American public schools. That kind of exposure leaves a lasting impression.
I would talk to people about it, and I would say, What do you remember about The Great Gatsby? What was the thing that mattered to you about it?
There were certain things that everyone I talked to would bring up: Daisy talking about Gatsby’s shirts.
And I thought that was so fascinating that that was such a big moment for everyone. And when you read it, it was something that felt a little vacuous.
And that’s not just one person’s opinion.
The initial reviews for The Great Gatsby were actually very negative. And F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that the reason that they were negative was because they were written by women. The majority of the reviews in the 1920s were written by women. And the two things that he thought—or the reason that he didn’t get great reviews—was, one: that the book wasn't terribly long, which ended up being a fantastic coup for him in the long run, and two was that he didn’t think that the character of Daisy had enough depth and clarity.
It makes sense, then, that for Gatsby to become popular, the novel needed to find a new audience: men.
That’s exactly what happened during World War II, when Gatsby was picked up in a campaign to ship books to soldiers overseas.
When these soldiers returned home, they spread the word about their new favorite book.
And for more exploration into the characters of Gatsby who aren’t, well, Gatsby—that’s what adaptations are for.
Even if you haven’t read The Great Gatsby, you know Gatsby.
But did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel didn’t exactly debut on the bestseller list?
So why is it still required reading?
Modernism was born out of this lost generation of people who were born into a world with horses and buggies and lived through a moment where suddenly you could talk to someone on the telephone and take a train across the country and you could drive a car.
They felt this nostalgia for the past and this propulsion towards the future.
If you were born before the iPhone, this might sound familiar.
I think that we as a generation, a hundred years later, really, really understand that feeling. I remember having a rotary telephone. Having people talk about the idea that there would be video phones and that everybody thought that was crazy.
At some points, The Great Gatsby has been required reading in more than 50 percent of American public schools. That kind of exposure leaves a lasting impression.
I would talk to people about it, and I would say, What do you remember about The Great Gatsby? What was the thing that mattered to you about it?
There were certain things that everyone I talked to would bring up: Daisy talking about Gatsby’s shirts.
And I thought that was so fascinating that that was such a big moment for everyone. And when you read it, it was something that felt a little vacuous.
And that’s not just one person’s opinion.
The initial reviews for The Great Gatsby were actually very negative. And F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that the reason that they were negative was because they were written by women. The majority of the reviews in the 1920s were written by women. And the two things that he thought—or the reason that he didn’t get great reviews—was, one: that the book wasn't terribly long, which ended up being a fantastic coup for him in the long run, and two was that he didn’t think that the character of Daisy had enough depth and clarity.
It makes sense, then, that for Gatsby to become popular, the novel needed to find a new audience: men.
That’s exactly what happened during World War II, when Gatsby was picked up in a campaign to ship books to soldiers overseas.
When these soldiers returned home, they spread the word about their new favorite book.
And for more exploration into the characters of Gatsby who aren’t, well, Gatsby—that’s what adaptations are for.