In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.
Rules of the Game?
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First Impressions
As a ‘cold reader’, I assume our narrator is Gatsby. On the whole, I’m not sure how much to trust or like him, yet.
Close and Cold Reading
These aren’t just close readings, but cold ones, too. So before we begin, a quick word about that term: cold reading.
A cold reader isn’t necessarily reading a novel for the first time. But we act like we are, setting aside everything we know or think we do about the text.
Our first impressions after 100 words may prove completely wrong, but that’s precisely the point. We’re looking at the assumptions an author encourages us to make. How they manipulate our thoughts and feelings.
To Gatbsy, then …
All I know is a name, and that epithet, ‘Great’. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other ‘Great’: Alexander. So the term comes with reputation and status. And the narrator’s high status is established fairly quickly, when his father reminds him of ‘the advantages you’ve had.’ It’s vague, but impossible to ignore. Shakespeare distinguishes between those who are “born great“, those who “achieve greatness“, and those who have greatness “thrust upon them”.1 For now, ‘advantages’ suggests our narrator is in the first category. And this contributes to my assumption that he’s probably Gatsby. I think it’s backed up by the cadence of the writing the overall level of vocabulary, too. Both feel well, perhaps expensively, educated.
The opening sentence catches my attention for another reason.
The narrator speaks of his “younger and more vulnerable years“. Instantly, I hear Shakespeare’s “green and salad days”, from another play.2 Both phrases look backwards from the perspective of maturity. The narrator sounds older, perhaps wiser, and perhaps slightly embarrassed by his younger self. Then again, “vulnerable” is such a carefully chosen adjective.
Vulnerable to what? To whom? Fitzgerald raises the question without giving us the information to answer it.
Already, he’s playing his cards remarkably close to his chest.
Can I be honest?
I’m slightly irritated by it.
Not because the writing is poor, but because I don’t know enough. Fitzgerald is deliberately withholding information, forcing me to make judgements based on very little evidence. That frustration is itself worth noticing.
The narrator’s relationship with his father deepens that uncertainty.
He tells us he has been “turning over” his father’s advice. Fitzgerald could simply have written that he remembered it. Instead, “turning over” suggests repeated examination rather than unquestioning obedience.
Then comes one of the strangest phrases in the passage:
We’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way.
Can I be honest again? I don’t trust it – at all.
It’s contradictory, almost oxymoronic. And focuses on the narrator’s entirely subjective interpretation of that relationship. What it tells me is that the narrator believes he has the gift of insight into character. He could be right, but on the whole I prefer people to show me what they can do rather than tell me. Would his father agree?
“Reserved“? It smacks of – yes, class and high social status – but also on a lack of emotion and, well, unknowability. Apparently, father “meant a great deal more than that“, but what? Why be coy? Just tell us!
To the advice then. I think this is problematic, too!
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” his father says, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
At first glance, it sounds generous and humane. Yet I’m not entirely convinced that’s all it is. Books – like all communication – are fascinating, because a word or phrase can strike you in very different ways on different occasions. Depending on how I read it today, it could equally suggest quiet condescension or even what we might call humble-bragging.
The narrator tells us he is “inclined” to reserve judgement – notably not that he always succeeds – before explaining that this habit has introduced him to “many curious natures” whilst also making him “a victim”
Those word choices matter.
“Inclining” (not refusing) to be un-judgmental sounds great – I aspire to it – but within our 100 word limit the narrator uses ‘curious’ , and ‘victim’ to talk about how it has impacted him.
“Curious” is not the same as wanting to know. Here – used by an educated man – it has almost Victorian connotations, I think – something strange, alien, to be observed under a microscope in a detached, unemotional way. And of course, ‘victim’ tells us that there’s been some personal cost. I think that’s all that we can say at this stage, with just 100 words.
Where does this leave us?
With one overwhelming question.
Not where.
Not when.
Not even why.
Who?
Who is speaking? What sort of person are they? Most importantly, should I trust them?
The clever irony is that Fitzgerald has manipulated me into doing exactly what the father’s advice warns against: judging someone on incomplete information.
Perhaps that is the first lesson of the novel. Fitzgerald quietly makes me guilty of the very fault his narrator warns against. I’m not entirely sure I like being manipulated in that way. Then again, perhaps that’s exactly why I admire it.
After 100 words, I’m complicit. And I feel uncomfortable about that.
As you read on, look out for …
How our relationship with the narrator develops. Do we get close? Do we have sympathy? Most important of all – do we trust what they tell us?
The backgrounds and contexts of other main characters. Fitzgerald has already foregrounded their importance. Personally, I’m expecting people to behave inexcusably, with the novel asking us to make allowances for them. Does this apply equally across barriers like class and gender?
The relationships between characters who should be close. Does Fitzgerald follow the pattern of suggesting that it is largely based on things unsaid?
Whether time and place become important at any stage. Because right now, they are unknowable. Does this suggest that it is a novel of ‘circumstances’, which might have happened, any time, anywhere, to anyone?
How judgmental the narrator is, and how often we are manipulated into judging. Undue criticism seems to be the only thing we know the novel is about at this stage.
Close reading lies at the heart of successful Literature studies.
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