That time a quiet guy in our book club totally flipped the script on 'The Great Gatsby'

We were meeting at the old library branch downtown about five years ago, and everyone was calling Gatsby a hopeless romantic. Then Mark, who barely ever spoke, just said, 'He's not in love with Daisy, he's in love with the IDEA of a rich past he never had.' It was so simple but it stopped the whole room. We argued for an hour about whether the green light was about a person or a dream. I still think about that line every time I reread a classic now. Has a single comment from a club member ever made you completely rethink a book's main character?

3 comments

3 Comments

torres.sage15d ago

Had a friend point out that Holden Caulfield was just a scared kid, not some deep philosopher. Totally changed Catcher in the Rye for me.

dylan60415d agoTop Commenter

My buddy had the same thing happen with that book, @torres.sage. He read it again and just felt bad for the kid instead of being annoyed.

the_sam6d ago

Yeah, it's a book that really changes when you're older. I read it in high school and just thought he was a whiner. Picked it up again in my thirties and it hit different. You see the grief and fear under all that anger.