Can't Stop Writing…

Careers have been built on mining the depths of The Great Gatsby, that most iconic of American novels. I recently read it for the third time to see what I could learn about the craft of writing.

I decided to stay close to the data of the text, so I sorted some of my reading notes into categories to see what emerged.

1. I am not as fond of the pathetic fallacy as Fitzgerald was. (Pathetic fallacy = attribution of animate qualities to inanimate objects). I use it once in a while to spice up a description, but it’s rarely convincing and I think it usually sticks out as a manufactured, “writerly”  technique.  So lesson: Use it sparingly.

“The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials…” (p 11)

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad… (27)

:…the dust-covered wreck of a ford which crouched in a dim corner.” (29)

“…spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs…” (44)  (Also: isn’t this an error? The hams would have the harlequin designs, not the salads.)

“…the red, white and blue banners in front of all the houses stretched out stiff and said tut-tut-tut-tut in a disapproving way.” (79)

“Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd.” (111)

“[the automobiles]…drove sulkily away” (119)

“…the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil…” (131)

2. One of the reasons the book is dense is that Fitzgerald shorthands character descriptions with adjectives. A good adjective can border on metaphor and can cast an interesting light on a noun phrase, but piling up plain adjectives can seem hasty. Today’s narrator doesn’t have the authority he/she once had, so if you say “Tom was sturdy,” I think, “Oh yeah? Show me.” It is no longer possible to describe things by fiat.  Lesson: Don’t try to cram descriptions into adjectives.

Of Tom Buchanan (p. 11):  he’s “sturdy,” with a “hard” mouth, a “supercilious” manner, “arrogant” eyes. He leans “aggressively” forward, with “enormous power” of his body, a “great pack of muscle”, capable of “enormous leverage,” a “cruel body,” and has a “gruff husky” voice.

3. Incomprehensible descriptions. Fitzgerald’s descriptions usually capture the imagination, but surprisingly often, I couldn’t visualize what he wrote. Possibly the surrounding context was edited out. Perhaps I expect overly concrete descriptions rather than more poetic ones, but my lesson learned here is to make sure my descriptions are clear and not cryptic.  

“Miss Baker’s lips fluttered…” (p. 13)

“…her low, thrilling voice.” (p. 13)

“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker…” (16)

“[The evening] was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.” (17)

“Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart. (25)

“… she held my hand impersonally…” (47)

“‘You’ve dyed your hair since then’ remarked Jordan and I started but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket.” (47)

“… he dropped my hand and covered Gatsby with his expressive nose.” (74)

“…[he] began to eat with ferocious delicacy.” (75)

“I tried to go then, but they wouldn’t hear of it; perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone.” (99)

“…he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable vision to her perishable breath.” (117)

“So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star.” (117)

“…just as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice.” (124).

“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. (127).

“…Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men…” (158)

[Nick, of Jordan:]”Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy’s house but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid.” (163)

4. Related to the preceding point, sometimes Fitzgerald’s descriptions couldn’t be visualized (by me), not because they were cryptic, but because they were abstract, empty generalizations that conveyed nothing. I am guilty of this in my writing, so the lesson learned is: always push descriptions down to the five senses.

“… a wan, charming, discontented face.” (p. 15).

By midnight the hilarity had increased. (51)

“It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it…” (52)

“She had drunk a quantity of champagne and…” (55)

“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.” (90)

“Daisy looked at Tom frowning and an indefinable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable…” (127)

5. I noticed that sometimes Fitzgerald’s descriptions used concrete nouns and verbs, but I would come away from the sentences without having registered anything. On closer examination, I’d realize that even when there were sensory details, the description overall was stating vague things, even though the individual words were clear. I also do this in my writing. Lesson learned: Say something definite and specific; don’t traffic in generalizations.

Of a typical party at Gatsby’s:  “a pit full of oboes and trombones…”, The air is “alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo,” and “the lights grow brighter,” and “the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music,” and “laughter is easier.” (44)

“[I wandered] among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know… all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all talking in low earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans.” (46)

“Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” (93)

“Jay Gatsby” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice and the long secret extravaganza was played out.” (155

“She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between.” (155)

“… and for a moment I thought I loved her.”  (63)

6. Adverbial dialog tags. Apparently, they were not so out of favor a century ago.  I am sometimes tempted to use them, but even the AI editor I use flags them as questionable.  Why are they considered evil?  They are an authoritarian attempt to shorthand a description that should be spelled out. Lesson: Don’t tag adverbially.

“Do they miss me? She cried ecstatically?  (p. 14)

“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. (15)

“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. (17)

“No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. (29)

“What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,” cried Daisy… (125)

“I never loved him,” she said with perceptible reluctance. (139)

“I ejaculated an unrestrained “Huh!”” (177)

7. Questionable omniscience by the first-person narrator. Nick is the 1PN and much of the genius of the book depends on that narrative choice. I have discovered that 1PN is difficult to sustain. Nobody is so interesting that the reader won’t soon tire of the voice (unless you write like Nabokov). Fitzgerald lets Nick drift into omniscience from time to time. For example, Nick wasn’t even there at the Cody yacht incident, but then he hastily adds “Gatsby told me all this,” (p. 107) to salvage his 1PN POV. I think that technique works, more or less.  Lesson learned: Don’t be so rigid about 1PN. If you have a good, believable narrator, he/she can slip into omniscience from time to time without the reader getting too upset.

“I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her…” (21)

‘Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.’ A thrill passed over all of us. (48)

A stout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table…” (49)

“I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others…” (62)

Jordan tells Nick: “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.” (83) This news is a huge revelation to Nick. He says, “He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.” But how did Jordan know that?

“Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.” (94)

“He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.” (97)

Of Gatsby’s (unseen) emotions: “He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third.” (97)

And again: “…Daisy tumbled short of his dreams, not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.” (101)

“Myrtle Wilson was peering down at the car. So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed and one emotion after another crept into her face…” (131)

“Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom. (148)

8. Zooming Out. Once in a while Fitzgerald suddenly zooms out of a scene to consider it as if it were seen by an omniscient observer. When that technique works, I think it’s brilliant, and it’s something I hope to copy. 

“It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to extract a contributory emotion from me.” (22)

“…they came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. (24)

“Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands.” (56)

“…her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.” (57)

“Gatsby, his hands till in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom.” (91)

“Amid the confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself.” (92)

“She was appalled by West Egg… by its vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing.” (114)

[Of Gatsby meeting Daisy’s child:] “Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before.” (123)

9. Backstory. Readers hate backstory for good reason. It stops dead the momentum of the story and generally adds little or nothing. I struggle with this. One reason I write backstory is because I want the reader to know and understand my character. But backstory is not the answer. The reader wants to understand the character by watching him/her save the cat, not through recitation of biography. 

Another reason writers use backstory is that it’s shortcut for the difficult work of setting up a cat that needs to be saved.  In TGG, Fitzgerald uses some superfluous backstory that adds nothing and should have been cut (in my humble opinion) or expanded and shown as real-time character development.  Myrtle’s story on Page 40+ for example. Does it help us to know all that?  I say no.

On the other hand, the novel depends on Gatsby’s backstory, particularly the ambiguity of it.  Who is he really?  That’s a central motif and that’s why we get, not one, but multiple backstories on him. 

Gatsby’s story in his own words seems important, even though we are not sure whether to believe him (69+), but at least it reveals what he wants Nick to believe.

A different biography of Gatsby is presented by suddenly-omniscient Nick  on 103-104, which includes the Cody yacht incident. Why does that incident matter?  Does it illuminate the character of Jay, the man?

Another, different backstory on Gatsby is told by Tom who “made a little investigation.” (141).

Yet another tale of Gatsby’s past comes from some blend of Nick and the invisible but ever-lurking third-person omniscient narrator, on pp. 157-58.

Daisy’s backstory (p. 79+), seems particularly important.  Like the way the Paris romance between Rick and Ilsa motivates  Casablanca, the Daisy and Jay early romance is the main event that gives meaning to Gatsby’s actions, so it is necessary to the structure of the story.  

I don’t think I’d ever care to write a story where the main character’s backstory substitutes for his real-time character description, but I do think good characters often live in the past, like Rick and Ilsa, Jay and (less so) Daisy, so my lesson learned is to use backstory only when it is a structural element of the main story.

10. I saw only a few examples of symbols in TGG, none of them compelling. Ever since the great white whale, I think modern readers may have symbol fatigue. I’m keen on allegory and allusion, but straight-ahead symbols often come over as either clichés or failed attempts that stand out for their obscurity.

Whose are The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg?  Are they related to The Hands of Orlac?  Was this just a goofy device to insert humor or was there supposed to be some symbolic suggestion of an omniscient observer? A divine one?  Too much.

What is up with The Valley of Ashes? Garbage separates East and West Egg.  Didn’t we already “get” the difference between the two communities without this obscure symbol?  Was the Wilson garage in the Valley?  Hence Myrtle and her husband were “between two worlds?”   I wonder if we really need a symbol for that rather simple idea.

On pp 58-59, a guest leaving a Gatsby party wrecks his car and a wheel breaks off.

The car was “violently shorn of one wheel…” and horns sounded and “added to the already violent confusion of the scene.” (58. ) Not only that, “there was another man in the car.” (59)

But nobody is hurt and there are no consequences to any of it, and despite the “caterwauling” that had “reached a crescendo” (60), Nick just walks away and the scene ends. The point?

On p 82 Nick notes that “Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front wheel off his car.”   The wheel-off-the-car thing must be some kind of cryptic symbol, too subtle for me to grasp.

On 97-98, Gatsby throws a pile of shirts on to the bed so Daisy can inspect them, which she does and almost swoons. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before. ” (98)  the word “shirts” appears five times in as many lines. What is this scene about? What do the shirts symbolize?  Too subtle for me.

I’m sure plentiful ore yet awaits mining in this novel, but there are a few things I learned.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1925/1995).The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 189 pp.