![]() ![]() A subsequent re-reading caused her to reconsider the book she now feels is anything but a conventional or archetypal novel. Susan Choi, whose novel American Woman (2004) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, explained to me that she dismissed Gatsby for years in just this way. By spawning countless papers on the themes that teenagers are trained to seek ("unrequited love," "the American dream"), Gatsby's reputation has diminished somewhat its famous symbols, like the wall-high eyes and green dock light, now risk seeming pat for their familiarity. The book's perpetual place in high school classrooms-alongside The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and The Scarlet Letter-makes it seem somehow entry-level, just for kids, light lit. I say "quietly" because some writers tend to be bashful about citing Gatsby, and many have not given it serious consideration. Clifton Spargo and, this week, Susan Choi-have been quietly obsessed with this book for decades. It would be tempting to explain this by saying that The Great Gatsby runs thick in the zeitgeist at the moment, mostly thanks to Baz Luhrmann's high-grossing film (and its horde of corporate tie-ins). For the first time in this series, two authors asked to speak about the same book-and, by coincidence, in back-to-back weeks. ![]()
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