An Optical Illusion Called the Great Gatsby

"You see, but you do not observe." Holmes to Doctor Watson AN OPTICAL ILLUSION CALLED THE GREAT GATSBY presumes to "observe" what Fitzgerald meant when in 1924 he excitedly wrote a friend that The Great Gatsby (published 1925) was "a new thinking out of the idea of illusion." The precise nature of Fitzgerald's illusion-making-its technique or leger-de-main, and its centrality to the novel as a whole-remains more or less a mystery to this day. Small wonder the author complained following his novel's appearance that "of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about." Since the novel's publication in 1925, readers, in particular those luckless enough to have been "taught the novel" in colleges and universities, have been indoctrinated into believing THE GREAT GATSBY to be little more than an embodiment of a fantasy (not mentioned anywhere in the novel, itself) called "The American Dream." The novel Fitzgerald actually wrote is infinitely more profound, interesting and universal. GATSBY is most certainly "Great." A recent list of "top-100-novels" ranked it #1. Readers and critics alike consider it the major contender for yet another fantasy or illusion, "The Great American Novel." And, now girding its loins against a mindless Hollywood extravaganza bearing its name, starring some drop-dead cutie named Leonardo butchering the title role, THE GREAT GATSBY has been apotheosized into a NEW YORK TIMES best-seller in fiction. High time to "observe" the drop-dead wonderful book F.Scott Fitzgerald was putting on the page some four score and ten years ago.