I was just finishing up another short – at the rate I’m going, I may have to put out an anthology of short stories entitled something like “You Really Don’t Want Mind Uploading Tech”. Depressing as this was, for some reason I got to thinking of Gatsby again, and the more I think of it, the more disturbed I am.
This is supposed to be Great Literature ™. But on top of not liking *anyone* in the story, (spoiler) at the end Gatsby is killed in revenge for a hit-and-run which the narrator tells us he wasn’t driving, the other woman was. So, if we go back to consider class, he was a fraud, rich by working with a Jew, involved with violating Prohibition, and the women who was guilty gets away scott free… but then, she’s from a rich family, and he was nothing.
And so far as I can tell from the story, there are no working class people in the East….
I always understood (I can’t claim I was taught) that the fraudulent nature of Gatsby was half the point, and the randomness of fate was the other half; so it was an allegory about the ruling class, its pretensions, and the fact that most of the people involved got there largely by luck.
But that’s the upside down of what I’m saying – he had come into money, no more fraudulently than any of the wealthy… but was “neuveau riche”, and so defined as “lesser”. And, of course, most got there by being born into it.
Hey, I hope you’re feeling (and getting) better.
Hopefully. Barely noticed my side today.