The American Dream in the Great Gatsby

王文杰

    Like many people, it was because Murakami understood Fitzgerald and understood Gatsby. Although I liked Murakami, I didn't have the habit of following my favorite writer to read books, so although I was secretly sure that I would like this book, I didn't look for it. Another reason is the huge words that hang over the book: "The American Dream." Just as the disgusting preface of the translator Shi Xianrong led to me never seeing "The Catcher in the Rye", just as the poster of the movie "American Beauty" came to the eye with the word "middle class" in my mind, and the characterization of "writing the disillusionment of the American dream" also made me sincerely reject "The Great Gatsby". American writers have always had a tradition of close attention to social life, so the works of American writers are very suitable for the tastes of some critics.
    After reading it, the story of the novel itself did not arouse my deep feelings, perhaps, such feelings have experienced too many works that express the "bourgeois snobbery, hypocrisy and coldness", from Balzac to Kafka, have piled up. What struck me was the innocent decadence of Fitzgerald that came between the lines of this book. The humorous and light tradition of American literature came to him, adding strong lyricism and sentimentality, adding Eastern compassion and care, thus giving it an extraordinary taste. There is a lot of dialogue and a lot of details in the novel, and such a novel is difficult to write without boring, but when it comes to Fitzgerald, it is handled with relish.
   The neurotic woman is alive, the witty metaphors are endless, the spicy arguments hit the nail on the head, but the feeling of the long sentences that bring the rhythm of the novel to a halt has a lyrical temperament. I am deeply interested in what kind of life experience the author who wrote such a text has.
    So I found Fitzgerald's life information, which really fit my guess. If the relationship between a writer's life and creation is divided into several types, Fitzgerald is undoubtedly a life experience as wonderful as a novel. Born poor, soaring, living a rotten life, dying desolate, he is not only a writer, but also a real-life dreamer, a child who looks up at the sky while intoxicated with earthly pleasures, he is a black rose blooming in the sludge. In fact, he is a poet, or rather, he is a novelist with a strong poetic temperament, which determines the texture of his work. The brilliance of detail in his novels comes from the poet's ability to rename things on earth.
    I firmly believe that the core of the heavy works that accumulate in the corners of the edifice of human politeness is the same. For generations, people have written about the same theme, but with a different structure and intonation. The charm of literature lies in the wonderful way of speaking; Literature, preservation
With the power of human speech.
    How can the word "American Dream" sum up the full meaning of "The Great Gatsby", break through the clouds of reality, and I see the looming green light on the other side of the sea, which Gatsby sees, that the big eyes in the billboard, that Fitzgerald sees, that many, many people can see. Some people, as time goes by, gradually can't see it, some people can see but no longer believe that they see it, and some people can always see it, always pointing in the direction of the light and muttering. It was a permanent pose, and that pose was beautiful.