Without doubt, the great gatsby would always be one of the great american novels - the book of hope and despair, of love that never ends, the tragic pursuit of the american dream; of riches attained by shady means, and everything lost in death.
In Jay Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald created the magical american figure, the descendant of Ahab, the man with a sense of going after a thing desired - in Ahab of Moby Dick it was revenge; in Gatsby the love of a woman - and like all universal tragedies, both died, without attaining the desires of their hearts. While Moby Dick is a superior novel, a dark, secret, heaving book; the Great Gatsby is less clumsy, more controlled, less metaphycial - and much more full, and pursuing with perfect ambition the american dream of great riches (even through unright means).
In Jay Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald created the magical american figure, the descendant of Ahab, the man with a sense of going after a thing desired - in Ahab of Moby Dick it was revenge; in Gatsby the love of a woman - and like all universal tragedies, both died, without attaining the desires of their hearts. While Moby Dick is a superior novel, a dark, secret, heaving book; the Great Gatsby is less clumsy, more controlled, less metaphycial - and much more full, and pursuing with perfect ambition the american dream of great riches (even through unright means).