The Great Gatsby -- Take 2

After much prodding by K, I finally read The Great Gatsby. Twice.

Let me explain.

Upon K's urging, I decided to dive in for some true-classic summer reading.  On my first reading, I started out appreciating the writing, but not being propelled through the narrative.  Frankly, not much happens.  But when things start to go sideways in that NYC hotel room, I couldn't put it down.  That was the turning point for me.

I got to see K back in late June, and we were both their with our copies of Gatsby.  K had a heavily-annotated copy, which she agreed to let me borrow for a second read-through (to make up for my prior educational delinquency).  I thought it would be interesting to see what a real Gatsby expert thought was important.  

I started my second read and got about 25 pages in before discussing my second reading with K.  I said that it was enlightening to see what she thought was important, and how it was different from what I might have marked.  (She also had a lot of comments about the over-arching motifs, so I could tell it was organized in such a way as to identify topics for student papers!)  Anyway, she told me she wouldn't mind if I also annotated it, so I took my red pen ("Red means love!") and went to work.  About 4 weeks later.

For some reason, restarting the book the third time seemed daunting, but eventually I got it done, and it has been returned -- red markings and all -- to its rightful owner.

So, what did I think?

I really liked it!  The writing is excellent.  That should come as a surprise to no one -- that is one of three ways that books typically get "classic" status.  The overarching tale of lost love is timeless.  As the introduction says, it's a good novel and can just be read as a good story, rather than getting caught in the academic aspects of it, if you're not in the mood for that.

One of the things that K told me she loves so much about this book is that every time she reads it, she notices different things and it speaks to her in different ways.  I can definitely see how that is the case, even reading it twice in three months.  That doesn't mean I'm about to go read it again right now (I'm not K, after all), but I could see reading it again in a handful of years and finding different themes.