F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ Turns 100

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 on Laurel Avenue in St. Paul, he attended St. Paul Academy and wrote “This Side of Paradise” at 599 Summit Avenue. He was a modernist who examined themes of disenchantment and the unattainability of the American Dream. He was also a card-carrying member of the Lost Generation, a group of ex-pats disheartened after World War I, who found contentment in Europe, allowing them to create unique works of art.

Portrait by Alfred Cheney Johnston

The Annotated Great Gatsby: 100th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

One such creation is “The Great Gatsby,” originally released on April 10, 1925. To celebrate the book’s centennial year, the Library of America just released “The Annotated Great Gatsby: 100th Anniversary Deluxe Edition” with a preface penned by Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III and an introduction by “A Gentleman in Moscow” author Amor Towles.

Sales Slump of Gatsby in 1925

“The Great Gatsby” was Fitzgerald’s third novel—”This Side of Paradise” and 1922’s “The Beautiful and the Damned” established Fitzgerald’s reputation as an author who captured the zeitgeist of the Jazz Age. When “The Great Gatsby” was released in 1925 it sold only 20,000 copies, and reviews were uneven. But after Fitzgerald died in Hollywood in 1940 at 44, Scribner released an omnibus, which included his unfinished Hollywood novel “The Last Tycoon” and a new edition of “The Great Gatsby” attracting droves of new readers to Fitzgerald’s oeuvre. West weighs in on Fitzgerald’s newfound renown: “Much new attention came to Fitzgerald and to “The Great Gatsby”  from [the] 1941 edition. Fitzgerald’s reputation grew during the 1950s and 1960s and in decades after that.” Today, Scribner sells more than 500,000 copies annually.

Fitzgerald’s Talents and Jay Gatsby’s Reinvention

When revisiting the novel, we are reminded of Fitzgerald’s mastery of language through his lyrical prose and his creation and development of the five main characters. They are all flawed and are all New York transplants: Jay Gatsby traveled to New York from North Dakota. Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker hail from Louisville. Tom Buchanan is a Chicagoan, and narrator Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin, is a Yale grad from an unnamed city in the Midwest. In his introduction Towles states that he “was captivated by the narrative point of view: Nick Carraway is by turns an observer, voyeur, and detective who looks at the world in a manner at once shrewd and wistful.” We learn early on that Gatsby and Daisy were previously romantically involved and Gatsby reinvents himself to win her back. He hides the fact that he was raised penniless in North Dakota, wears a pink suit, drives a yellow Rolls Royce (his death knell), and he stretches the truth about being an Oxford man.

The Setting and Themes

The setting is summer 1922, the beginning of prohibition, and as Towles astutely points out the action takes place in “a handful of locations; three houses on the north shore of Long Island; an apartment, restaurant, and hotel in New York City.” Themes of the American Dream, materialism, duplicity, and class struggle are threaded throughout the text. First-time readers in 1925 were also introduced to organized crime through Gatsby’s gangster friend, Meyer Wolfsheim.

The Plot

The plot features scenes of the decadent parties at Gatsby’s house on Long Island, which Gatsby hosts to impress Daisy, and jaunts to New York City where we witness Tom’s affair with Myrtle Wilson.  The crescendo of Daisy killing Myrtle suggests the blithe nature of the characters’ actions.

Sidenotes

The Library of America edition includes annotations detailing several interesting facts such as T.S. Eliot’s claim that “The Great Gatsby” is “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James,” Chicago debutant Ginevra King was one of the inspirations for Daisy, and Wolfsheim “is a thinly veiled stand-in for Arnold Rothstein, kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City.”

Readers have attempted to find meaning in the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. I believe that it first symbolizes optimism and later the unattainability of Daisy for the titular character. One thing is for sure: 100 years later readers still enjoy this masterpiece. I sure do.

Want to celebrate, Gatsby style? Check out the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library Gatsby centennial celebrations.