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Jun. 21st, 2012 01:46 pmSo I re-read The Great Gatsby, while reading Strange Pilgrims, mainly because I started on Gatsby and then realised if I want to avoid a fine I had to have Strange Pilgrims back at the library by Wednesday.
I read the book for the first time when I was fourteen, a year ahead of when we were supposed to read it in school, because most of my friends were a year above me at school and I had to keep up. I think it's kind of fucked-up to make kids in the middle of puberty read a book about the reinvention of identity and the grasping of adults after adolescent pleasures, but it's a short fast read about a historical era so I suppose that's why they do it.
( It still confuses me. )
So in the end it's not that I don't like The Great Gatsby. I do. I just don't understand about two thirds of its layers. And there's so much more I could say, but I'm going to leave you with Kate Beaton's excellent critique instead.
I read the book for the first time when I was fourteen, a year ahead of when we were supposed to read it in school, because most of my friends were a year above me at school and I had to keep up. I think it's kind of fucked-up to make kids in the middle of puberty read a book about the reinvention of identity and the grasping of adults after adolescent pleasures, but it's a short fast read about a historical era so I suppose that's why they do it.
( It still confuses me. )
So in the end it's not that I don't like The Great Gatsby. I do. I just don't understand about two thirds of its layers. And there's so much more I could say, but I'm going to leave you with Kate Beaton's excellent critique instead.
