What Gatsby?

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 1925, 1995)

First off, this is a re-read. Once upon a time (high school) I read this book and was profoundly moved to indifference tinged with distaste. (This was typical of the books I read for my American literature class, which may say quite a bit about my teacher.) I couldn't quite figure out what to do with that when I got to college and got interested in the Jazz Age, and when I was enchanted by Tender is the Night. (On the other hand, I was totally unmoved by This Side of Paradise.) When I found a cheap copy, I bought it, figuring that eventually I would give Fitzgerald another try, this time giving him the benefit of how much I wanted to like him.

And here the assist goes to Baz Luhrmann. The story seems right up his alley, and while I haven't particularly liked  his other big films, I am newly fascinated by Leonardo DiCaprio, and have to go see this one. But I wanted to be back in the text first, even if that is likely to hurt my enjoyment of the film.

First and foremost, I was amazed at not only how short the novel is, clocking it at 189 pages, but how quick a read. I blew through it. The events of the novel take place over a single summer, and they pass as quickly as summer always seems to. Nick meets up with Daisy and Tom, meets Jordan, meets Tom's mistress, meets Gatsby, meets Gatsby's business associate, hears a variety of rumors and half-truths and straight up lies about Gatsby's origins and wealth, and watches as a series of love triangles collide. And then it mops up.

Weirdly, while I remembered lots of feelings about the book's characters (Nick is lame, Gatsby naive, Tom terrible, Daisy annoying -- and everyone made me feel vaguely uncomfortable) I had lost a lot of the plot. Like I knew the raw sketch of the climax, but not all the details. How did I lose those?

Oh, and here's what the LA Times had to say back in 1925. I'll approve, but how on earth does the reviewer get away with not only giving away the fate of the characters but what might also be one of the best lines in the whole book, when Nick realizes the truth about Tom and Daisy?