I've been puzzling over why it is I find it difficult to like F Scott Fitzgerald's work. The gilded lives of his characters that seem so utterly unreal in this day and age? Perhaps. But then again, I don't face this problem reading Wharton. Perhaps the self-absorption - bordering on narcissism - of his characters, wrapped up as they are in their gilded lives then. I didn't find any of the characters in the Great Gatsby very appealing or sympathetic. Reading my review from 2 years ago, I wrote that at best, they inspired pity. With Amory Blaine - yet another self-absorbed character and an egotist and a bit of a prat to boot - all I felt was a mild sense of irritation. Any sympathetic feelings he might have inspired following the episode with Rosalind quickly dissipated in the events that followed.

We follow Blaine's journey into adulthood - through prep school, college, a war, romance; it seems at several points that he might just be on the cusp of self-awareness and actually trying to do something instead of satisficing with his intellectual posturing and affectations. But each time, he lapses back into his old habits of being a self-professed sentimentalist, correction, romantic, who philosophizes, expounds, languidly lounges. But to what end? Eleanor and Rosalind are perhaps the only other characters in the novel apart from Amory that are somewhat fleshed out. While they start out as intriguing, strong, (perhaps more accurately, headstrong) characters, they ultimately disappoint Amory (and this reader) with their weakness and inconsistency.

I've been wanting to read this book for a while for personal reasons and I'm glad I finally got round to it. I just wish I could have liked it more.