Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

I bought this book because Murakami mentioned loving it in his memoir about running, but also because I loved the cover. The evocative, muted and well cropped full-bleed photo, the perfectly balanced sans serif text, the little orange penguin classics logo in the bottom right corner, the matte finished, non-glossy heavy stock cover material.... it hurts me to put this book down and walk away from it. I wish that I could bring it with me everywhere I go.

So I was a bit confused when I found the novel itself sort of disappointing. I really struggled to finish it and never really felt either emotionally or intellectually engaged by it. This could mean that I just didn't understand it and should stick to easier-to-read books like Harry Potter. I guess that Fitzgerald was writing for an audience from an era before MTV (er, Much Music?) and incredibly short attention spans.

On the other hand, there were some things that I liked about the book. The portrait of the two great types of Americans is pretty classic - the decadent, amoral and empty rich versus the endlessly climbing and grasping men trying to outrun their impoverished or uncultured roots.
Also great was the long delay in finally meeting the mysterious Gatsby himself, which reminded me of the structure of the Third Man and Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now.

And there was one moment that actually made me wince:

I just remembered that today's my birthday. I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade......Thirty - the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.

God, that's cheery. But also one of the few times I felt like this book had anything interesting or relevant to say to me. Still, I love the book design and may carry it around with me for a few more days just to admire it.