A glamorous facade, with a dark underlying. When I read Gatsby, I had the feeling that Fitzgerald didn’t like his main character that much. He created the character based on much of his own, yet painful experience, mainly his failed love pursuit of Ginevra King, and difficult engagement with Zelda Sayre, all because of his financial insecurity. It’s not hard to imagine that Fitzgerald became cynical of people of money, new or old alike. I feel that the only depiction of genuineness in the novel is Gatsby’s boyish love for the idealization of Daisy, which also brought the end of him. Everything else all had a facade and an underlying. I think Fitzgerald presented his frustrating love life in such a great“show, don’t tell” work, set in an era of superficiality, that was what made this book a classic. Thanks to you for giving us a forum to engage in exchanges like this. My humble opinions for your critiques.
Hi Anne-Kathrin. Another great video from you. I'm not a great fan of this one but your videos always put me to see things in a new perspective and this one remembered me of Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker that was wrote to show people how rot Wall Street was inside but made a lot of youngsters pursue careers in financial markets around the world. So it seems to me that to criticizes big money in certain ways produces what Max Weber described as the unintentional effects of action. I think you will love Lewis's podcast Against the Rules in which he is studying how big money is undermining US democracy. It's fantastic from episode 1. Thanks for sharing your time and knowledge.
Strong dialectical materialist reading. Thanks for the effort. SPOILERS: While I am mostly in agreement with your reading (especially the idea of Daisy as almost a consumer fetish object that Gatsby is attempting to obtain in order to compensate for his self-perceived lack in terms of class consciousness, which in this case is negative for Gatsby), the fact that the reader is related the story through Nick's perspective diminishes our capacity to understand Jay Gatz/Gatsby, because it is filtered through Nick's class status, which is approximated by Fitzgerald, whose own class status was more similar to Gatsby's (though without the explicit organized crime element)... in a way (in one way to read the novel) it is Fitzgerald looking at himself through a lens of alienation. While that doesn't diminish your reading, it may add nuance. For example, not remembering the word for word quote, but at some point Nick states to the audience, something like, "Gatsby turned out alright in the end" or achieved his end or goal, or something like that. How is this statement possible when Gatsby ends up dead at the end of a gun held by Myrtle's husband, because he believes Gatsby was having an affair with his wife, while it was Tom who was having the affair, and Tom just continues on wrecking people's lives and espousing racist eugenics and social darwinism with means he did not earn through his labor, without any consideration for anyone? The thing is, in the details of the death scene, Gatsby is expecting Daisy to arrive as she said she would and was leaving Tom. Gatsby doesn't see his end coming. He dies in the glow of the full expectation of achieving his long sought after object (intentional word choice there... Daisy is not an object as she is a human being, but she holds more value for Gatsby as signifier in the symbolic order than as a person sublimated in their subjectivity beyond the imaginary) and thus realizes his dream without ever having to engage with the realities of the day to day of "happily ever after". It is a cynical form of success based in illusion, but that is perhaps the extent of a positive ending that can come from a narrator enmeshed in the symbolic order that serves him and an author alienated from an order that presents him with a status of non-belonging that actions and merit seemingly can never overcome within the status quo of his episteme. Thanks gain for your efforts. Haven't tangled with this novel in a long time and was glad to do so today at your prompting. Best of luck and skill to you.
Wow, what a coincidence. I've been staying at the Grove Park Inn for a few days - where F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived off and on during the 1930s. "The Great Gatsby" is relevant today, as the USA enters a new Gilded Age with tech and crypto billionaires and wealthy parvenus seeking anointment and acceptance into "high society", or maybe even more stellar heights as in the "Occupation of Mars"? :) Thank you, Professor Anne-Kathrin, for your stellar videos, and may you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Magical New Year!🎄🎄👏👏🍾🍾
Great video again, thanks! Would you agree, that we again live in an age, where superficiality, materialism and the showing off of wealth dominates not just public life but the mentality and reality of large parts of society?
Hi, thank you for that. Good question… I think the fascination with and the pursuit of being recognized for one’s wealth has definitely increased significantly in recent years. If you take a look at Instagram, RUclips, TikTok, and similar platforms, it’s exactly this kind of content- content that essentially just markets luxury and products that tends to get the most views. Back then, you would mostly see celebrities on TV showcasing this kind of lifestyle if you couldn’t afford it yourself. But now, we’re constantly surrounded by influencers and this culture of materialism. It feels like we’re always watching a constant stream of advertising, whereas in the past, during TV commercials, we’d just look away or go to the fridge. Now, that advertising has become the content itself. What is your take on this?
@literature.café Is it not true that materialist philosophies, like Marxism, encourage a life of materialism and superficiality, since they exclude the idea of the existence of a Supreme Being, the First Cause, and the Ultimate End? For, excluding that, what is left other than the things of this world and the pursuit of self-gratification, as if happiness were found in them? Will not the idea of a good will become an illusion, since without a Supreme Judge, the concept of good and evil as something universal and unconditional loses its meaning, with neither infinite good nor evil being consistently affirmed? Please, I ask you to answer this question. For me, it is a very profound issue, and of the utmost importance.
Hey Anne-Kathrin, à propos the great Gatsby, are you old- or new-money? 😃 Your whole setup is quite exquisite. The bouquets of flowers, the wall paper, your outfits, are all very sophisticated and easy on the eyes. Thank you for the nice content.
A glamorous facade, with a dark underlying.
When I read Gatsby, I had the feeling that Fitzgerald didn’t like his main character that much. He created the character based on much of his own, yet painful experience, mainly his failed love pursuit of Ginevra King, and difficult engagement with Zelda Sayre, all because of his financial insecurity. It’s not hard to imagine that Fitzgerald became cynical of people of money, new or old alike.
I feel that the only depiction of genuineness in the novel is Gatsby’s boyish love for the idealization of Daisy, which also brought the end of him. Everything else all had a facade and an underlying.
I think Fitzgerald presented his frustrating love life in such a great“show, don’t tell” work, set in an era of superficiality, that was what made this book a classic.
Thanks to you for giving us a forum to engage in exchanges like this. My humble opinions for your critiques.
Hi Anne-Kathrin. Another great video from you. I'm not a great fan of this one but your videos always put me to see things in a new perspective and this one remembered me of Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker that was wrote to show people how rot Wall Street was inside but made a lot of youngsters pursue careers in financial markets around the world. So it seems to me that to criticizes big money in certain ways produces what Max Weber described as the unintentional effects of action. I think you will love Lewis's podcast Against the Rules in which he is studying how big money is undermining US democracy. It's fantastic from episode 1.
Thanks for sharing your time and knowledge.
I love your channel 😍
Strong dialectical materialist reading. Thanks for the effort. SPOILERS: While I am mostly in agreement with your reading (especially the idea of Daisy as almost a consumer fetish object that Gatsby is attempting to obtain in order to compensate for his self-perceived lack in terms of class consciousness, which in this case is negative for Gatsby), the fact that the reader is related the story through Nick's perspective diminishes our capacity to understand Jay Gatz/Gatsby, because it is filtered through Nick's class status, which is approximated by Fitzgerald, whose own class status was more similar to Gatsby's (though without the explicit organized crime element)... in a way (in one way to read the novel) it is Fitzgerald looking at himself through a lens of alienation. While that doesn't diminish your reading, it may add nuance. For example, not remembering the word for word quote, but at some point Nick states to the audience, something like, "Gatsby turned out alright in the end" or achieved his end or goal, or something like that. How is this statement possible when Gatsby ends up dead at the end of a gun held by Myrtle's husband, because he believes Gatsby was having an affair with his wife, while it was Tom who was having the affair, and Tom just continues on wrecking people's lives and espousing racist eugenics and social darwinism with means he did not earn through his labor, without any consideration for anyone? The thing is, in the details of the death scene, Gatsby is expecting Daisy to arrive as she said she would and was leaving Tom. Gatsby doesn't see his end coming. He dies in the glow of the full expectation of achieving his long sought after object (intentional word choice there... Daisy is not an object as she is a human being, but she holds more value for Gatsby as signifier in the symbolic order than as a person sublimated in their subjectivity beyond the imaginary) and thus realizes his dream without ever having to engage with the realities of the day to day of "happily ever after". It is a cynical form of success based in illusion, but that is perhaps the extent of a positive ending that can come from a narrator enmeshed in the symbolic order that serves him and an author alienated from an order that presents him with a status of non-belonging that actions and merit seemingly can never overcome within the status quo of his episteme. Thanks gain for your efforts. Haven't tangled with this novel in a long time and was glad to do so today at your prompting. Best of luck and skill to you.
Thank you for your comment! - It gives me another perspective, additionally with Nick :)
Very enjoyable.
Wow, what a coincidence. I've been staying at the Grove Park Inn for a few days - where F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived off and on during the 1930s.
"The Great Gatsby" is relevant today, as the USA enters a new Gilded Age with tech and crypto billionaires and wealthy parvenus seeking anointment and acceptance into "high society", or maybe even more stellar heights as in the "Occupation of Mars"? :)
Thank you, Professor Anne-Kathrin, for your stellar videos, and may you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Magical New Year!🎄🎄👏👏🍾🍾
Ohh, that’s really a coincidence xD
Thank you very much- I hope you enjoy it, and I also wish you a Merry Christmas with your family! 🎄❄️
Great video again, thanks! Would you agree, that we again live in an age, where superficiality, materialism and the showing off of wealth dominates not just public life but the mentality and reality of large parts of society?
Hi, thank you for that. Good question… I think the fascination with and the pursuit of being recognized for one’s wealth has definitely increased significantly in recent years. If you take a look at Instagram, RUclips, TikTok, and similar platforms, it’s exactly this kind of content- content that essentially just markets luxury and products that tends to get the most views.
Back then, you would mostly see celebrities on TV showcasing this kind of lifestyle if you couldn’t afford it yourself. But now, we’re constantly surrounded by influencers and this culture of materialism. It feels like we’re always watching a constant stream of advertising, whereas in the past, during TV commercials, we’d just look away or go to the fridge. Now, that advertising has become the content itself.
What is your take on this?
@literature.café Is it not true that materialist philosophies, like Marxism, encourage a life of materialism and superficiality, since they exclude the idea of the existence of a Supreme Being, the First Cause, and the Ultimate End? For, excluding that, what is left other than the things of this world and the pursuit of self-gratification, as if happiness were found in them? Will not the idea of a good will become an illusion, since without a Supreme Judge, the concept of good and evil as something universal and unconditional loses its meaning, with neither infinite good nor evil being consistently affirmed?
Please, I ask you to answer this question. For me, it is a very profound issue, and of the utmost importance.
faszinierend
Hey Anne-Kathrin, à propos the great Gatsby, are you old- or new-money? 😃 Your whole setup is quite exquisite. The bouquets of flowers, the wall paper, your outfits, are all very sophisticated and easy on the eyes. Thank you for the nice content.
Thank you! Yes, I like this Rococo style a lot, but I am not “old money.” :)
okay let me eyp while you tell me how careless you are 😊
@ airball bro 😂😂😂
@ I do not repent