A Single Green Light, Minute and Far Away
by Charlotte Reads Classics
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.
This is everything that is amazing about The Great Gatsby. I first read it in high school and haven’t picked it up since, but I always remembered how this one little light could come to represent all hope, nostalgia, melancholy and loss all at once. How remarkable is that?
Nick Carraway compares Gatsby’s dream of Daisy from across the dock to the Dutch sailors that sailed towards the New World. A dream that was close enough to see but completely unattainable. I love the comparison between Gatsby’s all-consuming quest for wealth and status with the explorers. They saw some green, virgin earth but that only existed in their minds: The land had a history all of its own, just like Daisy has in the years Gatsby has been away creating himself. You can’t colonise innocently, just like you can’t achieve dreams that reinvent the past. Gatsby managed to reinvent himself, but he could never undo his own history.
There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. […] No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart.
Whist the force of Gatsby’s dreams is at times superhuman, Fitzgerald’s book is based around the incredibly human trait of never being satisfied and how that fits into the American ideal if you work had you can achieve anything.
The book is very firmly of the twenties but is timeless all the same. You can be seduced by these amazing parties which on the outside are dazzling and the people are witty with cocktails in hand, but getting closer it turns out nobody is really enjoying themselves. They are all racing, all the time, against each other to get more – to say more, to see more, to have more. No amount of glitter can hide the ugliness underneath. Is history on a loop? Did we ever learn from Gatsby?
I really enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby again because I had the luxury or reading with the intention of looking for the green light. The story was as good as I remembered from all those years ago but I had forgotten how slim a book it is. Surely a testament to Fitzgerald’s writing: He says exactly enough in exactly the right words.
This is a lovely review Charlotte. “Gatsby” is a book I’ve revisited several times over the years, and it’s wonderful every time. And I agree with you that the quality of Fitzgerald’s writing is amazing – so much said in so few pages!
Exactly, I had remembered it as being a much longer book than it actually was, which is surely a testament to the writing: no wasted words here.
Thank you for the reminder of what I love about Fitzgerald’s writing, Charlotte. I intend to re-read it this year for the first time since university. I’ll be watching for your little green light 🙂
Thanks, Lee-Anne! Mine was definitely a successful rereading so I hope you enjoy yours as well 🙂
Despite constant study of the green light symbolism for my A Levels, it’s certainly one of my favourite quotes in literature. Thanks for the post!
Mine too, it is always a feat of great writing (and teaching) when you finish studying a book and still love it!
This is one of those books that I never really ‘got’. People kept telling me how wonderful it was but I read it about three times and still wondered what the big deal was. maybe I’ll never know!
Thats the thing about reading I guess, some books do it for you and some don’t regardless of whether people consider them classics or not. 🙂