Please make me understand why is this book good and so appraised

Please make me understand why is this book good and so appraised.
I read it and got nothing out of it. I didn't even find it entertaining or beautiful, just plain and boring. What am I to take from this book?

Read more books until you stop seeing books as One (1) Token Redeemable For One (1) Point At PatricianLand

Just keep doing it until you stop being a fucking pleb. Learn some history too. And stop being a faggot.

Been there done it you pretentious faggot
Ive beeb reading my whole life albeit most of the books I read uo until a couple years ago have been YA or Genre Fiction. Im not asking for validation here you mong I just want to hear opinions and arguments in favour of this book because I read it with high expectations and felt nothing trough it.
Stop insulting and start giving arguments.

I don't know, I found it pretty entertaining personally

It's not good. America has no good authors (excluding Melville), that's why garbage like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Hawthorne are shilled in high school literature courses. There is nothing else.

But I loved Stoner, V., Brave New World, Sirens of Titan, etc...
Is just that I feel like Im missing something.

Not OP, but is this book something that only people who have been in serious relationships can understand? I didn't get it either.

Purple Prose

People will tell you to stop being a pleb, but that's literally all there is to Fitzgerald. Purple fucking prose.

Same here OP :(

>What am I to take from this book?
That you lack the intellectual aptitude to appreciate art. But you've come to the right place, as evidenced by

Read it yonks ago. Isn't it an allegory about how rising to the top is not as fulfilling as some may perceive it to be? That wealth and status and a trophy girlfriend doesn't automatically fill one's soul with the contentment you get from a hearty winter's broth.

I always assumed its reputation came from it being an enjoyable book that high schoolers could read and realise that there's more to it than simply lovely, flowing text.

What an embarrassingly shallow reading.

I read it over ten years ago mate

Really? I thought he was fucking spot on. I'd also add that there is some absolutely beautiful and immersive imagery that almost teleports you into roaring twenties high society.

>almost teleports you into roaring twenties high society.
Lmao

...

Thanks for all the replies.
I liked the relationship between characters a lot, specially the awkward scenes between Gatsby and Tom. However I still found it lacking. Gatsby's life and past seemed to be a really important part of the book yet I couldn't for the life of me get really involved in it. It all seemed so rushed. I liked more the off the side characters like the jew on the restaurant and the owl at the library than the protagonists. The MC was captivating at moments but still felt like he fell flat during the last parts of the book, like suddenly he idolizes Gatsby for no real apparent reason. If they developed a good and profound relationship I want to read how it happened not that it just happened. Case in point the airplane the supposedly flew together on. Im sure that was a turning point of their relationship but Fitzgerald didnt show it to us he just made references to it and I just have to accept that out of nowhere the MC loves Gatsby.
The high class society was really interesting but at times it felt empty and shallow, not in a portrait way but in a storytelling way, like when the MC is at a party and he starts to namedrop a thousand people just by names and vague descriptions. I guess that if I had lived there at that time it would have made more sense like in Don Quijote where you don't really get most knights references of that era but still.
What I really liked were certain moments of intimacy and solitude of the MC thoughts but they were far and between a lot of uninteresting or undeveloped storylines.
The ending was really poignant with how everyone treats Gatsby's death but again it felt underdeveloped, I didn't really cared about Gatsby or his surroundings.

Im not saying is not a good book, is above average for sure and there are a bunch of beautiful and touching moments but I just don't get how this has become such a universally acclaimed piece of literature. Even Holden Caulfield thinks is one of the greatest books of all time and I just dont get why. Maybe is what other anons have said, is just a good book forced down kids on school and it was probably the first good book they read so it remained as a nostalgic classic for them.
I'll maybe get around rereading someday but I highly doubt I'll get anything out of a second read.

It's strange, I often feel better about myself whenever I encounter people who are clearly less intelligent and able than I...but this is then followed by a cold and sinking feeling every-time. These are my peers. In life and in shitposting. I am alone. What seems so obvious to some is utterly beyond others, and that's a two-way street.

ah, monsieur, it was written by an american. that is enough understanding for anyone

Yeah that's real nice but can you reason what I'm not getting instead of being a pretentious cunt?
Seriously what the fuck is wrong with you guys lately?
I've been here for a couple of years now and I could always get honest answers if I asked honest questions but now is all shitposting and dickmeasurement. I get it, this board has always been elitistic but this is ridicolous, I'm not even trying to say that I'm better than everyone because I don't think this book is not as good as people say, I'm genuinely trying to understand this book better.
Jesus christ.

This is a book made for kids to discover "close reading". Prior to my reading of it in high school I hadn't realized what exactly books can do. My teacher specifically pointed to Gatsbys line about daisy's rejection: "it was only personal", pointing towards how shallow and impersonal their and everyone else's relationships were. It's a very simple book, but it accomplishes what it needs to; I'm certain I missed some things some would benefit from another reason.

It's shit. I swear to fucking god, I've read a bunch of American "classics" (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kerouac) and they were all fucking awful pleb lit. Is there a single American author who is actually worth reading?

>Is there a single American author who is actually worth reading?
Gene Wolfe. (Not trolling BTW.)

>reads YA and genre fiction
>gets pissed that he gets called a pleb
why? if you don't like people insulting you for not reading good books you should go to

liar liar pants on fireee

Soeey, I didn't grew up reading Ulysses in chinese like all of you
lso your reasoning is wrong.
I got pissed because instead of giving reasons and answers you just shitposted and called me a pleb because I didnt get Gatsby not because I used to read YA
You are not gonna make it

>this book is SHIT
>give me arguments why it isn't
ayyyy

Literally I didnt say that the book was shit
Even if I had that doesnt mean you cant reason against it

How does one reason against the totally unsubstantiated?

It was picked up by highschool English departments because it's really easy to analyze.

It wasn't well-received when it came out.

It's really good. Chapter 7 and the disillusionment of the MC makes the book. While people live in the purely material world, Gatsby lives in an esoteric fantasy and cares not for the things around him, only his dream. The jealousy the animal feels for the man leads Gatsby to be killed by the materialists and cannibalized by society. Ultimately, though, Gatsby's death saves bit himself and the MC. It immortalizes Gatsby's fantasies before Gatsby could realize their impossibility, while unveiling the toxic nature of the materialist world to Nick (MC).

LOL

It's only good if you stopped reading in highschool.

That's really it.

I didnt consider that angle but you are right Gatsby doesnt give a fuck about his mansion or money yet all the others seem fixated on a specific lifestyle.

Not really.

I dislike the book because it's fundamentally whiney. Whatever other concepts people try to force out of the pages, the whole story boils down to the idea that the American Dream is a lie.

It's a belief that really took root in the North in the early part of the 19th century, but the idea that "Any working class fella can reach esteem if he's clever and hard working enough" (this is opposed to old European and even Antebellum South cultural beliefs that status had more to do with blood than money. Aka: A prince was a prince whether he was broke or not, and even if you're rich if you're from commoner parents, you'll always be worse).

The idea that the American working class is deceiving themselves. Tom is aristocratic and Jay isn't. So no matter how much money Jay makes, no matter how big his house or how lavish his parties. No matter how he tries to weasel his way into the upper class there is a quality of birthright or belonging that transcends that that can never be over come.

Tom wins.
Jay loses.

The whole book is just "boo hoo, why do the rich always win??"

I don't care for it one bit.

that isn't the primary focus of the book. You'll remember Nick looks down on Tom when he meets him again. The aristocracy are not something to become, they are something to disdain. They live material life without any other considerations, and don't care about anything else. The most important conflict in the story is Gatsby's love versus reality, not newly rich vs. inherited rich.

I read GG in high school and it wasn't a horrible read. But for some, it can be considered shit that keeps dragging on and on so it can have a story. I enjoyed Nick Carraway's narration and his relationship with Gatsby.

GG is definitely about wealthy people. Especially the comparisons of the old rich from East Egg and the new rich from West Egg. All in all, I enjoyed it but I can see how others can't

Good posts. I think we can also generally agree that Jay is a confused individual and that Fitzgerald does an admirable job making us sympathetic towards his flaws. Which in turn illustrates the effectiveness of the lie (the American dream) and how it's able to make any man's head spin just like that little girl in the Exorcist.

Isn't it nice when the shitposters manlets leave and we can discuss properly a piece of literature?

I enjoyed Gatsby as a study of how we perceive human relationships to work versus how they truly work. It wasn't a book that blew me away as soon as I read it, but my fondness for it has grown on me with time as I continually find parallels to it in other places.
A really fun, off the wall one is Elliot Rodger. From the moment he finishes high school on, he's transfixed with this idea of "If I just X, girls will like me."
It becomes his reasoning for everything he does: hanging out in bookstores, going to college, moving out, dressing in nice clothes, having a nice car. Eventually he literally Gatsbys and becomes obsessed with getting rich. It's almost like a sick parody.
And of course, none of it works, because he's a sperglord who's literally afraid of girls. But he doesn't have enough self-awareness to realize that.
And that's exactly how we all work. We both rationalize our failures and fill ourselves with hope by explaining things away with "Well I just need to get X."
But only a total sociopath actually likes people because they're rich, or have nice clothes, or throw great parties. That's not how human culture works and it's not how human biology works. We like (or don't like) the individual behind these things.
But damn, do we not realize this.

if you don't appreciate the prose in this book you're a pleb plain and simple

It's also about nostalgia and living in the past. Gatsby has everything, but wastes it all on trying to reconstruct the perfect past he could have had with Daisy.

your reddit is showing

Melville

It's generally praised by mentally lazy plebs who try to spout and signal their intellect. Friendly reminder that this is standard required literature for teenagers, and most people don't bother to read it again beyond that point, if at all.

Literally just read this, hate it, grow up, then realize how accurate it is

You can't be young and appreciate this masterpiece

Is there any character who is more Chad incarnate than Tom?

Can't run over the Buchanan

But you can run over his mistress
:^)