For a first post to my blog, what could be more appropriate than posting a link to an article about a book I haven’t read in decades?

On 10. April 2025, the BBC had an interesting article on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel THE GREAT GATSBY, which has been one of those American novels most Americans (at least in my generation) were assigned to read at some point in our adolescence and / or early adulthood.

Find it HERE:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210209-the-worlds-most-misunderstood-novel

Never let it be said I am not up on current trends…

I was fifteen when my eleventh-grade English teacher passed out copies to us.

My first glance at the volume told me it would be a long read. I don’t recall that it bowled over, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever read. (My least favourite to that point was by another famous book by another titan of American literature we had to read for the same class. It was the Titans of American Literature year.)

I didn’t really understand GATSBY. The Beeb article suggests that many don’t, even when they are no longer fifteen and no longer so very very certain of always being right.

Having learned that many people who knew more than I did — and more than I do now — have had difficulty through the years understanding the book, I feel marginally less stupid when I think of GATSBY.

Marginally.

It feels like a good time to explore it again. I’ve acquired a copy, as well as copy of Michael Ferris Smith’s novel NICK, in which he tells a back story of Nick Carraway, the character who narrates THE GREAT GATSBY.

Once I’ve finished with the current novel I’m reading (by yet another titan of American literature), assuming I do finish it, I will try to tackle GATSBY and see if my cluelessness about it might diminish.

No promises.

Welcome to my website. You probably surmised that it is a work-in-progress. The AI fillers currently occupying most of the space will be replaced gradually by my own efforts and, probably, some pictures of the cat who rules our home and allows us to live here.

Should you wish to sign up for an occasional newsletter (IT’S FREE!), you can do so via the link (which I will post soon). I will send it out to your inbox six to ten times a year, beginning probably in the early summer. In the meantime, check back to see what AI bits I’ve replaced with things I wrote myself.

And probably some cat pictures…

Thank you for stopping by.

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