The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's writing in this chapter was probably my favorite of the entire novel. Even the small, detailed descriptions of irrelevant moments were so beautiful. Some of my favorites include: "a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano," (Fitzgerald, page 147) "pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions," (page 149) and "fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing at the office window" (page 155). [I'll talk about my absolute favorite, albeit a little unorthodox, passage from the book in just a minute.] I also want to touch on the weirdness of Nick and Jordan's break-up because I still don't fully understand what happened. Their conversation was very stiff and I feel like we missed something between them, that only the author and characters were privy to.
And with just a touch of foreshadowing, we learn Gatsby's fate. "By half-past two he [Wilson] was in West Egg, where he asked some one the way to Gatsby's house. So by that time he knew Gatsby's name" (Fitzgerald, page 160). The two paragraphs concluding chapter 8 were the most gruesome, yet most beautiful in the entire novel, at least to me anyway. Gatsby's death was hidden in this small passage, yet we still understand what has transpired--"a holocaust" (Fitzgerald, page 192). Although we know for sure Gatsby and Wilson died, I want to clarify a bit. Wilson shot Jay and then himself, right?
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