Yeah, poor Gatsby doesn’t realize that the old elite keep moving the bar and Daisy will never leave her old money husband for a nouveau riche man.

I love the Great Gatsby. It’s actually a novel I sit and take the time to re-read every year.

I taught it to my freshman last year. I think it’s a great novel about ’first love’ and how things can get distorted with time. Gatsby and Daisy might have loved each other once upon a time five years ago. But Gatsby is very changed by his experiences (in the new 2012 movie there’s a scene that looks like he’s experiencing a ptsd moment while Daisy is in his house) and Daisy has become colder and harder living with Tom.

The real question for me is, how well did Gatsby and Daisy know each other before? Did Daisy have a personality before or was it simply enough that she could coast on her looks/wealth and never bothered to develop one beyond that? How did Gatsby present himself to Daisy and did he really consider the fact that he’d have to lie to her everyday if they got together? Are either of them actually in love when the meet again, 5 years later, or is Daisy just using Gatsby to get back at Tom while he uses her as an objective goal that he’s “made it big”? I think both of them realize this thing they have over the summer is unsustainable. I even think deep down, Gatsby realized that no, you can’t repeat the past and Daisy isn’t how she used to be. But typical for him/humans-he buries himself in denial and tries to pretend everything is fine.

I love reading and used to be a voracious reader. But as I got busier I took breaks and had to actually force myself to read. It sounds like what you are going through.

I started re-reading old books to get over that, ‘I’ll never finish a book’ feeling. That was great because I started noticing different things and getting involved in different aspects of the story. After that I started reading 1-2 new books a year, with some chapters read on my lunch breaks/before bed. And I also use goodreads to set myself a certain limit of books I want to read for the year.

It’s definitely something I’ll have to start back up, since I’ve been a really bad reader ever since my son was born a few months ago.