Reading Gatsby now, knowing its story and themes, I am able to appreciate more fully Fitzgerald's gorgeous writing. When for example Nick understands, in Chapter 4, Gatsby's aim — in a word, Daisy — there is this: "He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor." I cannot imagine a more perfect sentence. There is imagery, metaphor, alliteration (the p's in "purposeless splendor"), rhythm, elegance, simplicity, and a furtherance of plot. All in fourteen words!
It is interesting that two books published in 1925, this one and Manhattan Transfer, perhaps best capture the New York of the Jazz Age and yet are so different stylistically. Fitzgerald, unlike Dos Passos, does nothing radical here, but what he does is as good as it's ever been done.
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