#13- Read a Book From My Classics List

This is part of my 25 Before 25 List.

I just read one of the books of my classics list a few weeks ago- The Great Gatsby. I read this book back in high school in my Freshman English class with Mr. Olsen. (Anyone else have him? I LOVED that guy!)

Anyway, I loved the book back then, and took extensive notes in it so that I wouldn't miss anything. Now I look at those notes and think to myself, "Ohhh, that's where I must have learned that word..." which is weird because I don't remember actually learning the word, but there it is underlined with the definition next to it.

I did this with a lot of my classic books. I have a habit of underlining words that I don't know, or like and want to use more often, and ear-marking the pages. So my copy of the Great Gatsby has some underlined words, and though I didn't add any more marks to the pages, I did stop and think about a lot of the story.

Even though I had already read this book, it was different from how I remembered it. In fact, the parts that I remembered from the book, were not the parts that I really enjoyed or thought about this second time that I read it.

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Like the part of the story on page 144-145 when Gatsby is at Tom's house. Gatsby tells Nick that he is going to stay and watch over the house because Daisy said that she would flip the light off and on if there was any trouble. Then, when Nick goes over to peer through the windows, Daisy and Tom and downstairs in the kitchen talking. Nick describes it as an "air of natural intimacy about the picture". This time when I read it, I noticed the and felt the heartbreak for Gatsby. Here is a man, OBSESSED with a woman, who toyed with him. Deep down I think she was living in a fantasy world, but yet, she made him believe she really meant to leave Tom. And maybe she did, but she just didn't have the courage to. She left her light on and made Gatsby think she was in her room with her light the whole time, when really she was running back into the arms of Tom. It made me realize what a weak, confused girl she was, and what a hopeless, romantic man Gatsby was. Fitzgerald put it so eloquently when he ended that chapter with "So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight-watching over nothing".

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I never noticed this before. I mean, I read this part of the story, but I didn't get the emotion in those 2 pages. Now, as an adult, I do. This is why I am re-reading the classics.

Well, that and because there are no good books that I can relate to for twenty-something-year-olds.

Yay books! And movies that are based off of books!