Sex, lies and jazz

Not so many weeks ago I created an activity at work focused on The Great Gatsby as part of America during the 1920s – the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, or whatever similar moniker you choose to apply to this decade of wealth, excess and new personal freedoms (if you were rich). It had been many years since I'd read F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, which I hailed as an example of the Great American Novel and it was something I'd been meaning to re-read for a while now. Which in itself is a good start; while I read a lot, there's not so many books that I come back to. Often those I do are comfort reads – I'm not harbouring any great desire to plough through Ulysses again.

So when Gatsby was chosen for book club, I was pretty happy. It's also the second of Fitzgerald's books we've read, a first for any author for us. And while it's a short book, I burned through it in a couple of hours. Mostly because it's fantastic. The writing is exquisite, just effortlessly elegant. Simple to read, it just carries you along without you noticing it's there because you just become so absorbed in it. Which to my mind is a great thing. Sometimes with great writing you savour it for the language and turns of phrase, the poetry or the dialogue. This has all of that, yet at the same time often the books where you just get sucked in because its so flawless you don't notice quite how good it is are the best, and I think this is one of them. While there is an awful lot to admire in the language, and many memorable and great descriptions and lines, it just sweeps you away with the fact that Fitzgerald makes it all seem so easy.

And the plot too, I'd forgotten (or perhaps not fully appreciated) how explosive things are and how much happens. The characters are vivid, each one largely a mass of energy, wealth and flaws. All of whom, pretty much, are unhappy, and . So is it a moral tale, then? Money doesn't equal happiness. Well, yes, that's certainly true, especially in such a decade of excess – and the descriptions of Gatsby's parties are worth the entrance fee alone. But it's more than that, it's the capacity for love of the characters, the true emotions, the fickleness of others. It's the lying, the posturing and the bravado. And the carelessness and destructiveness with which a lot of it is carried out.

It opens with a memorable line, perfectly setting things up, before hurtling through the wreckage of lives across the book. Add to that its tragic ending – and truly it's unbearably sad, living out one of humanity's secret fears, to die in vain, to be forgotten and, far worse, for nobody to care – and you have a pretty flawless work. I'll be returning again I feel, there's a lot to take in, to savour and appreciate, and to learn from. And also it's just a bit bloody good. A Great American Novel? Definitely. The Supreme American Novel? Just maybe.

Book number: 40
Title: The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Category: Book club/recommendations