Fiction Fans

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald feat. Krystle Matar

• Episode 200

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Your hosts are joined by Krystle Matar to discuss The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. They wonder why no one talks about Gatsby being a crime lord, throw around wild F. Scott conspiracy theories, and rank the characters from least shitty to most shitty. (It's all of them. They're all the most shitty)


Find more from Krystle: 

https://bsky.app/profile/krystlematar.bsky.social

https://bsky.app/profile/drippingbucket.bsky.social

https://www.instagram.com/krystlematar/


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,

Sara:

And I'm Sarah, and I'm so delighted to welcome Krystle Matar back onto the podcast today, this time to talk about The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.

Krystle:

Whose idea was this? Lily? Was this my idea? Did I invite myself on again? Or did you come up with it this

Lilly:

I think it was you and Sarah, like plotting together to make Sarah's Day bad for some reason, but I was like,

Krystle:

This is, this is, this is our revenge for Shield's start. And then the other one that was also Shield's Start a

Sara:

it's not because I hated this book. Well, I didn't hate it, but,

Lilly:

yeah.

Sara:

I'm pretty sure that the last time you were on, after recording was over, we were just shooting the shit and we were, for some reason we were talking about Gatsby or like the Nevo book. That's a A Gatsby retelling.

Lilly:

And we found out you had never read it and were appalled.

Sara:

Yes.

Krystle:

Gatsby? No, I read Gatsby.

Sara:

No, no, no. Me, me. I'd never read it. Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah, and I, I feel like maybe I made a comment about like how the classics are wasted on high school students or something. I, but maybe that was somebody, anyway, I don't remember. I don't remember who came up with it. It's entirely possible that I invited myself back your

Lilly:

but it's perfect because we needed an occasion for our 200th episode. So

Krystle:

there we go. Yeah,

Lilly:

gonna be popping champagne for this book anyway,

Krystle:

we're all definitely costumed up in roaring Twenties gear for sure. And I can say that because it's audio only.

Sara:

Mm.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

So everybody please imagine us with, you know, three piece suits and flopper dresses and really fancy cocktails. Exactly,

Lilly:

fringe.

Krystle:

exactly. That's definitely the truth.

Lilly:

before we dive into what might be an extended conversation, judging by my own emotions

Sara:

oh.

Krystle:

Oh boy. I thought you liked the book.

Lilly:

Yes, very

Krystle:

very ominous. Oh,

Lilly:

Oh no, I just, yeah, this is, well, we'll get into it. First, what's something great that happened recently? Sarah, I'm gonna pick on you.

Sara:

So my apricot tree had apricots and I got two huge colanders full of apricots, and they are, oh my god, the best apricots I've ever had. They're so

Krystle:

I bet, I bet apricots are one of those things where it's like they're kind of meh, but it's because they don't grow locally.

Sara:

Yeah.

Krystle:

But I believe that a fresh,

Sara:

yeah, this is, this is the first year that I've had fruit on this tree, so I didn't really know what to expect. And it was amazing.

Krystle:

Yeah, that sounds really good.

Lilly:

mine is also plant related. A couple years ago we bought a white lavender and it was just a little, little baby guy. And it kind of died down over winter, but I thought that happens. Maybe it'll come back. Didn't. But this summer it did. So I guess it was just biting. Its time waiting.

Krystle:

I was just hanging out for a year, kind of collecting its energy. Some plants do that where they only come up every other year.

Lilly:

Yeah, well, lavender thrives in my yard. We have one that's like taller than me. So I was like, Aw man. If it didn't make the make it through, then we probably lost it. And we had two and one of them still hasn't come back. But now I have hope like Gatsby. I have hope.

Sara:

your story does not end like his,

Krystle:

Yeah. Hopefully nobody shoots Lily or the lavender. Spoiler alert.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

If nobody knows how Gatsby ends at this point though, it's, that's not you. Well,

Sara:

I mean, I didn't know how Gatsby ended until, no,

Krystle:

well, that's awkward,

Sara:

I mean, I have, I have now read the book, but

Lilly:

yeah.

Krystle:

good.

Lilly:

All right. Well listeners, we're gonna be spoiling this book, but again, we still need to hear

Krystle:

literally literally a hundred years old now'cause we're 2025. So, my good thing is that I finally went to the art store and got frames for all of the art prints that I bought in Edinburgh and Glasgow last year, fully a year ago. And so those are finally going up on the wall this week. So that's, I feel really proud of myself. It only took me a year to see that task through to the

Sara:

look, I have art that I bought in 2020. That's still not framed. So

Krystle:

2020 does not count as reality though. Like,

Sara:

yeah. Okay. I also have art that I bought in 2021. That's still not

Krystle:

Oh shit.

Sara:

So you're doing okay.

Lilly:

that's the kind of chore that's so easy to slip through the cracks.'cause you're like, I would really like this. It would make me happy, but it's not necessary, and

Krystle:

Well, and also like, there's a lot of decisions in it, which I think is part of why it gets into that like paralyzed zone because like you have to decide, you know, what kind of frame they go in. You have to decide where they're gonna go. And it's like, it's just so many decisions that it's, it's very intimidating.

Sara:

All of my art lives in a box on the floor after it's been framed because I don't have wall space for it. But

Krystle:

that too.

Sara:

I take my stuff to a fancy framer because I just do. And so it also, like, I, you know, I've got pug fat bills I can't be spending money

Krystle:

That, that, yeah. See we did not do that for the prince, and I feel like it's one of those things that I will do it later when I have a nicer house to like justify the expensive frame. I just went and bought frames, but even that took forever because there's four that are the same size and one that's slightly bigger. Which was, which made it an ordeal for me of like, do we make them all match? Okay. I've decided to make them all match. What do you mean? There's nothing that comes in both of these sizes? So, yeah, that was, that was challenging.

Sara:

That, that can be very frustrating.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So what is everyone drinking today?

Sara:

This

Lilly:

say as I pour myself

Sara:

this book is very much a champagne book and it is our 200th anniversary,

Lilly:

200th anniversary.

Sara:

200th anniversary. 200th episode. It counts. I haven't even had any of my drink yet. But,

Krystle:

Whatcha waiting for?

Sara:

I'm not really in a champagne mood right now due to life things. So I'm drinking whiskey, which to be fair is also consumed quite a bit in this book.

Lilly:

It

Krystle:

Yeah, it it is still topical. Yeah. I'm starting off, I'm starting off a little lighter with some Guinness.'cause I'm that kind of obnoxious that my beer of choice is Guinness because I went to Dublin. And then I I I've got my eye on some whiskey. When that Guinness is done, who cares about the rest of the day?

Lilly:

It is funny, the characters.

Krystle:

Yeah, exactly. The characters would approve of this decision of noonday whiskey.

Lilly:

Oh yeah. And I there, I feel like there's a whole chapter that they spend talking about mint juleps, and then never actually drink a mint julep. That felt like a chekhov's gun moment. I was like, no, you have to have one.

Krystle:

I have, I have a funny relationship with tulips because, and funny as in like, literally funny, not funny as in traumatic. Because my, my great-grandmother and, and my great-grandfather he was like a diplomat or something, a lot of question marks. And they were posted somewhere in the states at some point in their young lives with a couple of children. And nana was very old school hostess type vibes. And she al she always put parties on for people to come to the house. But she had this thing with the mint juleps wear. She ran out of ice or something, so she made them ahead of time and put them in the freezer. But that meant that like all of the non-alcohol froze at the top and there was like alcohol at the bottom of people's glasses and people weren't drinking the ice, just drinking the straight alcohol and they got smashed. And apparently Nana was kind of known as like the house to go to for the good parties. And the fact that it was mint julip specifically, it's like every time I feel them, I have like this warm feeling. Or anytime I hear the word mint julip, I have this warm feeling. So it's like having that in the middle of, what was it? Extremely tense scene was a weird emotional dissonance of like, oh, men just like nana. Oh, oh shit. There's like domestic violence coming. Okay. That's cool.

Lilly:

Has anyone read anything good lately

Sara:

I've read a lot about brain tumors in dogs.

Krystle:

Oh, is it good? No, that's

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

it's not. No, it's not good.

Krystle:

Stupidest question possible.

Lilly:

I'm sorry, Sarah.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

It's Mr. Squeak. She was, she was always gonna go out with a bang.

Krystle:

Oh yeah. Because she's the one that has like the extensive ve bills as as

Sara:

the problem child. She's probleming until the end.

Krystle:

So she's lancing out like see a losers.

Sara:

yep.

Lilly:

ain't seen nothing yet?

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

fast, die young.

Krystle:

girl. Yeah. At a girl living the dream. Uh, I'm trying to think what I'm reading.

Lilly:

I could go

Krystle:

actually, well I'm rereading a Dennis Lehan novel. Which takes place in Boston in 1919. So it was a very interesting contrast.'cause

Lilly:

hmm.

Krystle:

like, in some ways it, it approaches a very similar vibe. It that is the scorn for the social elites. But this one deals with a lot more politics.'cause it's like the police strike and the it's, it, the, the main character starts off as he is hunting for like, subversives and Bolsheviks as a cop, but then like very rapidly gets disillusioned in a very lame kind of way. And so it, it was interesting to like, take a break from that, to stop to read Gatsby. And boy, it changed my perspective on Gatsby as a character really fast. And, and I like, I'm not sure if it's the contrast of that book specifically or more that I, I just know more about the time period this time. So I'm gonna have a lot to say about Gatsby specifically because of this contrast. Yeah.

Lilly:

Well, I'm gonna plug issue three of our zine Sotia specifically because it was our coffee shop au issue. And we actually were able to accept a piece called The Coffee Shop au by Leonard Richardson, which is the Great Gatsby. And it is so good.

Krystle:

oh, that's, that's fantastic timing on the part of the universe.

Lilly:

It really is. And when Sarah and I were picking the theme, we were like, no actual fan fiction, even though it's a fan fiction trope, but Great Gatsby is in public domain, so it was okay. It also, like Sarah hadn't read The Great Gatsby when we accepted the piece. Like it's good, it stands

Sara:

Yeah, the, the story, the story stands on its own. If you don't know Greg Gaby, which I did not at the time. So it's,

Krystle:

now, having read the Gaby, like does it change your relationship with the story retrospectively,

Sara:

I think, so I haven't gone back and reread the story yet. I really want to.

Krystle:

Yeah, that'll be, that'll be interesting On like, just on a personal level.

Sara:

yeah, but I do think that it would, knowing the context that the Au by Richardson is like in would change the reading of it. Not in a bad way, just like it would bring, bring more depth to it. Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah. And hell of a skill too, to write something that specific, like a Gatsby fanfic that just stands on its own. Like, that's impressive.

Sara:

the really cool thing I have to gush about this again, is that Richardson works in, or he, he writes Python libraries, so like techie stuff and the Python library that he's written, I haven't used personally, but we do use it at my work. And so, so I saw that and I was like, wait, I know this, I know this name.

Krystle:

That's, that's also a really weirdly interesting universe thing, is this, this story was meant to be basically

Lilly:

it really

Sara:

basically,

Lilly:

Yeah. So I have to plug it. If anyone hasn't read Sotia issue three, there are a lot of other great stories in it. And it's$3. So

Sara:

and you can find it on our Patreon, you can, you don't have to subscribe to the Patreon, you can just buy it at the Patreon

Krystle:

buy the magazine.

Sara:

But if you are a subscriber to our Patreon, if you support us on Patreon, you get it for free.

Lilly:

and you can buy it on our website. Now that's new.

Sara:

Oh, yes. You can't buy it on our website now too.

Lilly:

Okay. Enough of that though. The great fucking Gatsby.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

Before, before we start out, so obviously we've talked at length about how I was not familiar with the book, I mean the title. Yes. But I'd never read it before. What?

Krystle:

And you'd never seen any of the movies I'm guessing as

Sara:

No, I'd never seen any of the

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I re-watched the Boaz Luhrman one last night because as much as I love this book, I also really love that version. So I'm just swimming in

Krystle:

the, is that the DiCaprio one or is that

Lilly:

Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes.

Krystle:

I, let me tell you just that this is super niche. They have Jason Clark as Wilson, and that is some Jason Clark slander. Like, I'm so mad, like having Reread Gatsby and like reading the description of this guy Wilson and then knowing that they've chosen Jason Clark for him it's like, oh, he's so underrated. Like, I really wanna see him in more stuff because he is always so good. And like when, when the, what am I trying to say? When that character was talking, I could hear Jason Clark's voice, but it, it, I, that didn't happen for any of the other characters and I don't know why he specifically has left such a impression on me.'cause I don't know. He's just really good and the, I'm begging Hollywood to put him in more, more movies

Sara:

so

Krystle:

for bigger parts.

Sara:

obviously you both are very familiar with the book and adaptations. What is your relationship to the book? Like, how did you come to it?

Krystle:

I came to it pretty late. And I think it's gonna be an interesting spread between us.'cause you are brand new to it. I first read it two years ago, maybe less than that because I picked it up as like. An inspiration for my own like prohibition era fantasy novel that I'm working on. And I just kind of wanted like the voice of the 1920s and of course that like Fitzgerald's so well known as being that like he was in the time writing of the time and it, like, it's just, he was the right person for it. So I picked it up not that long ago. And I think I missed how awful everybody was the first time

Sara:

could you do, they're so terrible.

Krystle:

I was so, I know they do. Like I, I knew specifically Tom was terrible'cause he, like, he underscores that like the minute you meet that guy, but the pros is so beautiful that I just kept, like, I'd get so sunk in and I think because I was, listen, I'd like, I was listening to the audio of it, I would get so sunk into the pros that I was almost missing the little hints of like, what he wanted us to think of these people, with the exception of Dom specifically.'cause there's no missing that that guy fucking sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then now, like I said with, you know, I've, since then I've read a lot of inspiration, a lot of research and, you know, a lot about the politics of the time and prohibition specifically. And, and so now I'm, I'm going through it like this is a fucking crime novel. Like there's all this hidden stuff in it and then also everyone sucks so much. And it was just, it was like, it was so much fun in a way that Yeah, I know, I know. And I'm sorry that you didn't,

Sara:

everyone sucked. And why should I care about them? Because they're all terrible people. I don't wanna read about terrible people.

Krystle:

it reminds me of SC Scorsese movies. In that way that Scorsese just does these movies about people that fucking suck. But the narrative is very careful to make sure you know that you and the author, or you and Martin Scorsese are both aware that they sucked. It's not like, it's not like some books where the main characters suck and you can feel that the author thinks that these people are great. Or the author's trying to be edgy and impress you with, with how dark it can be. It's just like, this sucks, doesn't it? And there's no lesson. There's no lesson at all because they just suck so much. And it's like all of these people attract each other with their poison and then, and it's just like, yeah, thanks for that pal. Like thanks for exposing that

Sara:

That's not enough for me

Krystle:

in a way, in a way that, you know, it's people that they're used to hanging out with.'cause it's like Scorsese makes movies from a point of view of growing up in that environment. And very clearly, Fitzgerald is writing this book from a point of view of these are his peers and or peers in the next level above him that he hates, but also kind of wants to be.

Lilly:

Yeah. Well, I think that's what makes the Great Gatsby. I mean, yeah, everyone in it sucks, but it's, it's almost like an exposition of how much this class of people is not better than everyone else.

Krystle:

Yes, yes.

Lilly:

So it's, it's not just, let's talk about shitty people. It, it's making a statement about how shitty these people are. Like, they're not better than you just'cause they're

Krystle:

These, yeah, these glittering beautiful people are not actually better than us. So why, why do we keep aspiring to this?

Lilly:

But also, wouldn't

Krystle:

we are still, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sara:

I recognize your points. I think they're very

Krystle:

But also, yeah.

Sara:

it's not enough for me as

Krystle:

Yeah. No, I get it.

Sara:

style of preference or my, my preferences as a reader is that just doesn't work for me.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

So

Krystle:

Yeah. I, and I like, I can definitely see how if that's not your,

Sara:

yeah,

Krystle:

lane, it would just be so repulsive,

Sara:

yeah. Like the And to,

Krystle:

at least it's very short.

Sara:

Yeah, to the book's. Credit. It doesn't drag on it's a very quick read and the prose is beautiful, so you can, like, I was almost able to overlook how much I hated everyone in this book. But ultimately I couldn't. But it was not a terrible reading experience because it was at least very nicely written.

Krystle:

I, I think, yeah, that, that's like, it's one of those things where them sucking was not a skill issue. Like he, he very

Sara:

not. Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah. And I think that that's why it probably almost redeems itself for you, I'm assuming, where it's like, it's not a skill issue. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just like people think they're writing something that's really impressive and they're just drip eggs. And that would bother me more,

Sara:

Yeah, it was very intentional. Like Fitz Fitzgerald knew what he was doing and he was

Krystle:

Oh yeah.

Sara:

a thing intentionally. I just didn't like it.

Lilly:

And you don't have to spend that much time with them. I don't think anyone could survive 500 pages of

Krystle:

Oh yeah. No,

Sara:

it is, you're right. It is. It is very short

Krystle:

I

Sara:

and everything moves so quickly. It doesn't, it doesn't linger on how terrible they are. It just is like, yeah, these people are terrible. Next, you know,

Krystle:

And I think also it being through Nick rather than like Daisy's point of view or Gatsby's point of view, like, or literally anyone else's point of view, also makes it a little bit easier to swallow. Because every now and then Nick kind of makes eye contact with a reader. Like, he's fucking guys, am I right? And I'm like, yeah, buddy, but also you are making these choices. So I don't know if I believe you, I think I wrote on, on page 54, I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known, and I just wrote, okay, buddy. Fuck the, so, uh, yeah, that's pretty much sums up my relationship with that narrator.

Lilly:

Okay. I'm gonna take you through a very, very quick history of my life. I was 12 years old. A teacher complimented a short story I wrote by comparing it to this book. So of course I had to read it. Had not read it before. Did not get it.

Krystle:

specific high. Like that's a good hit right there. Yeah.

Lilly:

Did not understand it'cause I was fucking 12. But I, like, I knew it was a compliment and I was like, I'm gonna go read this book now. Read it again in high school at a time that I also read Cold Comfort Farm, which is also like more comedic, more satirical, but also kind of criticizing society in a

Krystle:

you guys

Sara:

I did like cold Comfort farm Better. We did read

Krystle:

Yeah, I, I remember that. I, I remember that episode.

Lilly:

My friends and I swiftly became absolutely obsessed with not just the 1920s, but this kind of like criticism and admiration at the same time of wealth in the 1920s. And it just spiraled out of control. And that this is the very abridged version of my obsession with this book.

Sara:

and you've been trying to get me to read it ever since.

Lilly:

Yes. I will not try to get you to read. Tender is the Night speaking of horrible people, that's where a psychiatrist marries his patient. It doesn't go well.

Sara:

Great.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

sold, I don't think that one's on the audio book compilation that I have.

Sara:

I love Kay. I love our two very different reactions to that

Krystle:

Oh, yeah. I I feel like that sums us up as readers very quickly. Yeah.

Lilly:

Well, it's funny

Krystle:

if it's short

Lilly:

oh, tender is The night is longer than the Great Gatsby. Not by a ton, but it is definitely novel length. Whereas this is borderline. If it's not a novella, it's borderline

Krystle:

It is a noll for sure. Yeah.'cause it's,

Sara:

like 70,000 words or something. I did look

Krystle:

it's only six hours, is it really? 70,000 words. It's only six hours on audio, which is not very much

Sara:

Actually, nope, I take it back. It is 47,000 words.

Lilly:

Technically a novel

Krystle:

it's in that, yeah, it's in that, that gray area. The,

Lilly:

I did read it this time on the plane back from visiting my parents with some sparkling wine in not the cheapest seat, but like the next level up, so I was like, I'm practically daisy.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. It is always funny to

Krystle:

that's a good vibe for this book. I think on the plane. You're stuck there. You can't go anywhere else. You might as well sit with some fucking awful people.

Lilly:

It's so funny to me how Fitzgerald, he's like the quintessential author who can't keep himself out of his novels.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

every main character is a little bit

Krystle:

Oh yeah,

Lilly:

Every love interest is a little bit.

Krystle:

a whole, there's like a whole, is it like a fully a chapter? But when he is like, Gatsby is telling him about how him and Daisy met, and I was like, Hmm, that sounds familiar. I'm pretty sure I saw that in the biographical. And it, it was like very on the nose, like, so. Exactly. And I, it's interesting that he then goes on to imagine like, what if we hadn't married, I guess is what this is. Like, to what end would I go to win you back and I get murdered. Like, it's like, okay,

Lilly:

I mean, it's, it's, I would die without you basically. Right. Like, yeah. Which is again, well, not again. But in another note, not only is this autobiographical, the appreciation of men in Fitzgerald's writing is always a little bit like side eyed by myself and other people. I just, the descriptions, the introductions of Gatsby and Tom, who you're supposed to hate, but is described as an absolute hunk.

Krystle:

Well, I think that that ties in, at least for this book specifically, it ties in really nicely with that envy, right? It's just like, I hate you, but also I think I would trade places with you. You know what I mean? Like,

Lilly:

I think there's some of that, but it's, I don't know. The admiration is, feels a little bit more than that to me.

Krystle:

I'd ha I'd have to read more of his work.'cause I think in the constraints of Gatsby, it works as it works toward the theme. But if he's doing it every single book, then it's like, yeah.

Lilly:

Well, and then you also get, like, like I said, I'm extrapolating a little bit, but the way he and Hemingway describe each other, it's just like, okay guys. Alright. We get

Krystle:

quote. Okay.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

need this, I need this T.

Lilly:

It, it's just very thinly veiled obsession and Hemingway hates all women, but like Zelda the most and it's so clearly jealousy like

Krystle:

Oh,

Lilly:

So yeah, Fitzgerald, I, I believe in my, a personal opinion, believe he appreciated all human beings

Krystle:

oh, I'll take that.

Lilly:

because he definitely loves Zelda. Like, I'm not saying I think

Krystle:

Oh yeah.

Lilly:

in the closet, but

Krystle:

halfway in the closet, one foot in the closet counts. Like,'cause bisexual at the time wouldn't have been any more accepted than fully gay. So

Lilly:

Anyway, that, that's a little bit of my conspiracy theory, but holy shit. Just the way he

Krystle:

we tend, we tend to swerve a little, a little a little queer, so I, I'll buy it,

Lilly:

And then this book is so soap opera. Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

I was gonna say on the description, something that I picked up that was really interesting to me once I noticed it. I think you can tell which people are, are meant to be his favorite people. So like, specifically, and I, I had to fact check myself, but specifically oh, what's her name? The tennis player? Is it

Lilly:

Jordan?

Sara:

Jordan,

Krystle:

Jordan Baker, yeah. Jordan, Daisy and Gatsby. They're never described literally. Everybody else is. Tom gets like, this guy's a hunk. And Catherine is like, she was such and such with, red hair and like they're, they're described in a very literal human way of like, this is a list of what they looked like. But Jordan, Daisy and Gatsby are given these really ethereal, very vibe aesthetic. It's like, never once are we, I don't think we're ever told the color of Daisy's hair, for example. It's, but he describes her voice and her laughter and like the things that live inside of her, and he does Gatsby the same way and Jordan, and it's like those three people are just elevated to this level of more than human and everybody else are these filthy animals, like in comparison. And I thought once I noticed it, it was so cool and it was such an interesting way to set them apart in the narrative. And it's like cripping that I'm stealing that. Like, I'm gonna remember that.

Lilly:

And but setting them apart, but not making them better people than anyone

Krystle:

Oh, absolutely not because you very explicitly says that Jordan is dishonest and like lies

Sara:

she's a compulsive liar

Lilly:

She cheats at golf. She's a huge bitch. Yeah.

Krystle:

yeah,

Sara:

and she balances stuff on her face. Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

think he was describing it was always something invisible. Right? So I think it's just more like she has her chin up in the air because she

Krystle:

yeah. Well, and it was. I, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, she, she's described as being like very sportsman and her shoulders are jetted back, and like her carriage is very authoritative, but she's quiet and, and mysterious and fucking lies about everything. And so it was like, it was just this interest. Like he clearly has a soft spot for those three people in a way that we're meant to notice, but then also they're dirt bags too. So it was just an interesting contrast. And then contrast them, Tom, like he hates Tom and he wants us to hate Tom immediately from nearly the first thing that

Lilly:

peaked in

Krystle:

oh, I guess not.

Lilly:

He was good at football and did nothing else ever again.

Krystle:

now he's a loser. And, and then

Sara:

But a rich loser.

Lilly:

but a rich and hot loser you get. Okay. I'm gonna find the description of him. I'm not wrong,

Krystle:

yeah. No, you are right. You are absolutely right.

Lilly:

My specific note was this description of Thomas Scandalous,

Krystle:

Yeah. The muscle's rippling in his shoulders or something like,

Lilly:

a sturdy straw haired man of 30 with a rather hard mouth and a super silliest manner. Two shining arrogant eyes, had established dominance over

Krystle:

I'm gonna

Lilly:

face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his writing clothes could hide the enormous power of that body. He seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of

Krystle:

I right?

Lilly:

shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage. A cruel body.

Sara:

I mean, that doesn't necessarily sound hunky to me, but it it's definitely

Krystle:

It's a weird fixation.

Lilly:

yeah.

Krystle:

I like, I don't think he, he, he describes anyone else's body in such,

Lilly:

He does say Myrtle is curvy, Myrtle is thick, and we know that she's a thick redhead. But otherwise, yeah. No. Tom is the most like physical person on the page.

Krystle:

But it's like, it's also a little bit of fear. It's like there's this knowledge that this motherfucker can beat the shit out of me. I think.

Lilly:

Tom is dangerous. We're not supposed to like him.

Krystle:

oh yeah. Immediately. And it's like, the thing that I noticed was that early on Nick spends kind of the first page, the entire first scene talking on and on about how hopeful he is. And it's like how, you know, he believes the best in people and it's reserving judgment is a matter of infinite hope. And he says it more than once. And then one of the first things that Tom says to him is I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things, which like immediately set this interest in contrast. And then right after that went extremely racist for no reason. And I found his racism was like such an interesting choice because the novel itself isn't interested in that at all. And so Fitzgerald making the choice to make Tom so hateful and racist was like kind of a progressive choice at the time. And also he's extra misogynist compared to everyone else, which is also kind of a progressive choice of like, Hey, maybe we shouldn't beat the shit out of our mistresses. Maybe. Like it's kind of a bad thing, don't you think? Although I was really shocked that Nick leaves Myrtle alone with him after he

Sara:

Nick, Nick spends that entire evening seeing what's going on and

Krystle:

Yeah. And then

Sara:

'cause he, he

Krystle:

walks away.

Sara:

of it. Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah. And that's why like the thing about the honesty, it's like, okay, buddy. Like,

Lilly:

Well, he is not that, I mean, lying by omission, right? Like, it's not like he tells anyone. I guess it's an open secret that Tom is having an affair, but

Krystle:

Oh yeah. And Daisy knows, like, we're told immediately that Daisy knows about it. But the, the fact, yeah, I wrote on all caps. They just leave her there. Question mark. Question mark. This is after he punches her in the face just fully broke. Tom

Lilly:

punches his mistress in the face, not

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. Not

Lilly:

Yeah. I, the thing about Nick, he's

Krystle:

everybody just walks away.

Lilly:

Yeah. As in

Krystle:

just as bad

Lilly:

he's just as bad. Yeah. In a book full of awful people, he does not enact awful actions. However, he, he's always like, I'm just an observer. I'm just watching people and it's all beyond me and I can't do anything about it. And it's like, buddy. Yeah.

Krystle:

maybe call the cops on the guy that just broke somebody's nose. That would be something

Sara:

he is a hundred percent an enabler.

Krystle:

oh

Lilly:

always goes like, oh, I wanna leave, but they asked me to stay, so I had to like, no, you are complicit in this.

Krystle:

Oh yeah. Well, and, and that scene where, where Tom hits Myrtle, he doesn't leave until somebody else goes, like the, the other guy. I, I, we never see this person again. So I like, I don't really grasp who he is, but the other guy's like, peace out, I'm outta here. And Nick is like, yeah, me too. I'm good.

Sara:

was, he was one of the, he lived

Krystle:

an acquaintance of

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Sara:

in, like the apartment below Myrtle's Love Nest.

Krystle:

pad. Yeah,

Sara:

Yeah. So he's just some rando in the building basically.

Krystle:

yeah, yeah. And he's like, I don't have time for this. These people are too much for me. I'm outta here.

Lilly:

Which was also a fascinating, like if we draw some between Tom and Gatsby, they both throw parties for the underclass on their dime, but just at such different scales, right? Tom is like, let's invite some people over to this hotel room and waste a bunch of champagne and whiskey and get like absolutely obliterated and punch my mistress. Which is a different kind of party, but it's still that opulent over the top that

Krystle:

Yeah. It's like, look, look at, look at me. Because he very specifically pick picks up mistress who from the description is like even further below Nick.'cause it's like West Egg is considered kind of trashy, but then you go, you have to drive through this really awful area. And like he's, he's chosen a mistress who is so far below his station and it feels very intentional because

Sara:

I mean, it's a power move.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah, exactly. And it's a power move for Gatsby too, to throw these, you know,'cause it's like he's got it in his head that the reason Daisy didn't marry me is because I'm poor and he married a rich guy, so I know what I'll do. I'll get rich and then she'll have no choice. And it's like, okay buddy, good luck with that. And, and it goes about as well as one would expect that to go. Yeah, it's all power. They're, they're all trying to flex on each other. Although it was really weird how, how much Tom and Gaby hung out in the second half of the book. It's like, what are we doing here, guys? What's,

Sara:

but that, that also feels like

Krystle:

The the power

Sara:

on both of their parts. Like they're trying to, to show the other person that they're not afraid of, you know of them.

Krystle:

The other guy. Yeah. And

Lilly:

The, the new money, old money tension. That's

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of money, I don't let, now I, this could just be me and my unfamiliarity with some of the classics, but I, I don't think I ever fully realized that, or I've never heard anyone talk about how Gatsby is a crime boss

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

and like, is that, is that not something that people talk about when they discuss this book? Like, why haven't I, or

Lilly:

simplified down to he's a bootlegger, like he's selling alcohol during prohibition,

Krystle:

Yeah, but it's very

Lilly:

classy way to make money, which is what Tom gets at. Right? Like,

Krystle:

yeah, yeah. Well, but see, I picked up even more than that. So the first,

Lilly:

some kind of bond scheme.

Krystle:

It's more than that. It, he's a, he's a crime boss. Or rather, I think Wolf Wolf Wolfs

Lilly:

Wolf chime I think is,

Krystle:

boss.

Lilly:

yeah

Krystle:

and

Lilly:

kind of his face, because Gatsby can talk the talk. He can fake being a, a rich folk.

Krystle:

Yeah. And, and I found it really interesting how it's threaded through. First of all, that prohibition itself is never mentioned. It's mentioned occasionally that he's a bootlegger. And it's mentioned once that somebody near the end didn't like Gatsby because he drinks openly and that's it. And

Sara:

Gatsby doesn't drink

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

thing.

Lilly:

at at the parties. It's always him not

Sara:

does not drink, but he provides a lot of alcohol for

Krystle:

oh, yes, I'm misquoting, that's my, that's my bad. It's, he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby's liquor. So the fact that Gatsby was allowing liquor in his house openly in the midst of prohibition. And so, like, I had to check, I checked and it says in the book that allegedly, this takes place in 1922, and it was published in 1925. So it, to me, it was an interesting, probably not on purpose in that, you know, the, you know, the states were in the midst of prohibition and probably everyone just assumed that everyone would always know what Prohibition was, because certainly his readers knew exactly what he was talking about. And so it's treated as just this, this thing that's very real and it's not world built at all in that way that people who write about the real world get to do.

Lilly:

kind of like throwing out something about the

Krystle:

Yeah,

Lilly:

like, oh yeah, that pandemic, no

Krystle:

pana. Yeah. And a hundred years from now, unless you read your history, you would, you wouldn't really know why it was so, and so it was an interesting thing. And so then that led me off into picking up all of these mentions where I had, I had a, a little smells like organized crime every time because it's like. Wolf Chime has this thing about, you know, his friend was shot in the street and then just is like, and so we're gonna do business together. Right? And it's like he, he just told Nick that he's dangerous and his business is dangerous, but you're coming in with me. And Nick is like, no, no. And Gatsby is like, we'll talk about that later. That's some other guy. And so it's like there's this active crime going on in the background of this entire

Sara:

I wonder how much of the lack of discussion is because this book is taught in high schools

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

kind of simplified and like, I've not read,

Krystle:

And so they focus on,

Sara:

and I've not read any scholarship around Fitzgerald or this book in particular. But I wonder if a lot of what you see online is kind of more geared towards those high school students who are first,

Krystle:

it could be.

Sara:

reading this book, and there is more discussion of that in the more academic

Krystle:

be, would, well, wouldn't high school students be more interested if they knew that this guy was like, I know I

Lilly:

you're talking about effective teaching and not protecting the poor dear 14 year olds.

Krystle:

Who don't know. Okay. I guess so. That's fair.

Lilly:

I am Fas you mentioned earlier, Kay, that this is a book written of the Times in the Times, and that

Krystle:

yeah.

Lilly:

so striking to me. I don't know, like there's a lot of things set in the twenties, but this was written in the

Krystle:

In the

Lilly:

it's happening like it, it takes place three years before it was published, so it must have been written at the time. And I think something about that gives it such a more sincere energy

Krystle:

Yeah. Well, and I think that's part of why the discussion just kind of flies under the radar for us. Literally a hundred years later, I wrote somewhere, this is a crime novel in disguise.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

That drugstore business was just small change. But you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to talk about. That was the line that like clicked the puzzle together for me. And, and I think my hypothesis is that he's treating this crime in the same way that he treated prohibition, in that he's assuming that everybody who reads the book knows about it and he doesn't have to talk about it at length, because everybody in high society knows a couple of people who are low new money and extremely dangerous in the same way that everybody of the time at the time are gonna click to it immediately, because they all know a guy that you don't ask too many questions about. And so it, like, it got me really energized in the sniffing of the crime novel in the middle of this book.

Sara:

what I'm hearing is that I really want to read this book, but rewritten so that it is about the crime

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. I I have good news for you. I'm writing it.

Sara:

Oh, fantastic.

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm writing it and

Sara:

Okay. But, but please, please have a couple of more likable characters just for me.

Krystle:

yes. Yes. I will definitely do that. And so, like, on that specific note, it was such an interesting thing for me on a personal level I started with this book. This was my first book of, I'm gonna write about the 1920s, what should I read? And this was the first one, and I've read a whole bunch since then. Both fiction and nonfiction, and now I'm coming back to it going, this is a fucking crime novel. Because now I know so much more about the crime of the time. So that's my, that's my big pitch for Gatsby. Like if ever you hear about it and you're like, I'm not interested in reading about awful people, what if one of them is a mobster? Are you interested?

Sara:

but you still probably, I mean, it's still about awful people and it doesn't, it doesn't focus on him

Krystle:

them at all.

Sara:

so.

Krystle:

But then you get to play the, the detective game with me and finding all the one off lines that very clearly call this man a mobster. And

Lilly:

Oh, and the, the huge implied, I mean, not even implied corruption, what a police officer tries to pull him over and he's just like, look, it's a picture of me with the police commissioner. Don't ask questions.

Krystle:

well, yeah, actually that ties even. I did, I missed that because I, I wasn't onto my crime novel thread in that scene. Because I think that's right before he meets

Sara:

It's pretty early on,

Lilly:

Yeah. It it's on their way to meeting Wolfs chime and,

Krystle:

if anything that proves my point,

Lilly:

yeah. No, it's, it's the corruption. It's

Krystle:

them in his pocket. yeah.

Lilly:

rich don't follow the rules and no one is trying to make them.

Krystle:

Especially if they have mob ties

Lilly:

Well, yeah.

Krystle:

because everybody talks about Chicago. So like in theory, this motherfuckers got ties to Al Capone and stuff, so I'm going too far now. I'm, I'm just inventing stuff. I'm self-aware.

Lilly:

it's, it's of the era, though. Something that shocked me. I maybe I, I picked it up last time I read it. I don't know, but so Wolf chime is Jewish, which we, we get on the page and he works for the swastika company, and then at some point, after everything falls apart, Nick refers to it as the Holocaust. And I'm reading this going,

Krystle:

What an

Lilly:

words sure have changed.

Krystle:

Yeah, because when he wrote that, those, those words weren't, those

Lilly:

No.

Krystle:

have the same weight.

Lilly:

That, that's just this novel's historical like p puzzle piece.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

it is something that I had to go like, okay, wait, different. He, he was not trivializing the Holocaust by comparing it to a woman, cheating on her husband.

Krystle:

Yeah. I did the same thing es es especially with Wolfs chime and him going to the offices that are like the swastika something or other, and I'm like, Hmm, that, that sure is a choice. Oh, wait,

Lilly:

Maybe

Krystle:

have been a choice in 1923. So actually Okay. Then

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

words, words change in a hundred years or 20 years.

Lilly:

I, I mean, 10, not that like,

Krystle:

Yeah. 10

Lilly:

yeah. It just like the, the fact that this book and that is like such a comment on it being so of the time, just to keep repeating what you said earlier, but it's just so true. Like, and that makes it so special, I think, because how often are people writing about their, now it's always like, like right now everyone writes about the eighties or the nineties. I feel maybe everyone is a broad generalization, but you get that like people wanna write about 10 years ago.

Krystle:

Well, I, I, I think, and it, it's to make that same comparison right now, we're all dealing with this, the, the aftershock of, you know, 2020 in a way that it's like, I don't wanna write about that. That sucks. And so people go back to before it, like, I, I had a novel idea of like writing now in this world, and then I was like, oh, but. Lockdown. I don't wanna write about lockdown. And so I've been thinking about writing it in the seventies or the eighties because no phones, no Twitter, no COVID doesn't sound that bad. But you're right that it does make Gatsby really special in this way of being

Sara:

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I, I'm not sure I entirely agree. Like yes.

Krystle:

It, it is probably more common in lit in literature generally,

Sara:

Yeah, like, like Gatsby.

Krystle:

of their time.

Sara:

You're, you're right, Gatsby is very much of its time. But I wonder how much of the, of our perception that that is a unique or different thing to do is filtered through what we read specifically. Like, because we read a, an

Krystle:

romance novels,

Sara:

of fantasy and science fiction that even when it, even when it does take place in, you know,

Krystle:

our world or

Sara:

our world, it's not usually our time period. But that doesn't mean that there aren't genres that don't do that.

Lilly:

I mean, you're right. You, that's like how, and now with the internet and there's so many books being written and,

Krystle:

but also those of us living in our time probably don't reflect on how special our time is, whereas since we're reading a book from a hundred years ago, it feels special because we have this little time capsule. And I'm sure, you know, if the world still exists and reads in 21, 25. People will find our little time capsules of the writers that do write our time and be like, oh, this is so interesting. This is so novel and so different compared to whatever hellscape they're living in. Godspeed to them.

Lilly:

Yeah, I, I guess my comment was more on the volume of writing that there is today in a way that just wasn't the case in 1925.

Krystle:

Yeah. That also makes sense

Lilly:

and so I'm, yes, I am talking about trends and generalizations because I'm sure there are millions of people writing about today, today, but it's not filtering

Krystle:

to read less SFF

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

I like, I, I think, I think that's partly a genre thing,

Lilly:

But even then, like I read news, like I get book release news. I see headlines about books that are coming out, and they're not about right now.

Sara:

but they, but they are, like, I see a lot

Krystle:

Yeah, you're

Sara:

and I do actually see a lot that take place in, you know, 2020 or 2022 like that do take place

Krystle:

notice my, my 12-year-old reads a lot of like high school now stuff because the genre, like the YA genre is, more firmly rooted even if it's S-F-F is more firmly rooted in the now for them. Even if they, they branch off into magic somehow along the way it's still like, such and such was a sophomore in high school and it's like, okay,

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

just reading a lot of high school books. But yeah, I think Sarah's right. It's, it's us we're the problem.

Sara:

yeah. Yeah,

Lilly:

Well, and I, and I think maybe that impression is just, there are so many things being written that you don't, there are niche corners, whereas.

Krystle:

we're not clocking at

Lilly:

When there's, what three books published a year or whatever it was in the 1920s. If you were one of the five people who could read, then yeah, you read'em.

Krystle:

I think it was slightly more than that, but I'm not gonna fact check it.

Sara:

No officially.

Lilly:

me and, and leave a comment and tell me

Krystle:

Yeah, that's, that's for the viewers. Yeah.

Lilly:

was interesting though, Kay, that you mention ya being sort of rooted in the high school experience now, and that does bring us sort of relatability to a story that the great, the Great Gatsby, the overarching plot is, I would argue, at least for me, not relatable. I guess if you're F Scott Fitzgerald, it's relatable. But that's what you get for marrying an unhinged southern belle.

Krystle:

Yeah. Well also he was, he was trying to do the same thing of climbing the social ladder. Just considerably less successfully than Jay Gatsby does, I think, as

Lilly:

but doesn't get murdered. So maybe

Krystle:

But yeah, maybe wealth. More also less murder. Yeah.

Sara:

on what your metrics are for success.

Lilly:

But

Krystle:

Live fast. Die young. He failed. Yeah. I think, I don't know what age he died.

Lilly:

But I, I do think there were

Sara:

or something.

Lilly:

yeah, still pretty young.

Sara:

Yeah, he, he did die pretty young, but it, it wasn't murder.

Lilly:

but I'm gonna finish my thought. But there were many individual emotional beats that I found very relatable, and I thought that was in like, there are so many moments of like, oh. The, that comradery between women who had never met each other before. And I was like, yes, I've been there. I've been that person or the, the optimism and hope of

Krystle:

quiz that I'm super failing. Which two? Never

Lilly:

two? Oh, I, that was just a quote, that was literally just the quote that I had written down. And it's not even a direct quote. I can find the exact one.

Krystle:

Oh, I see. Okay. But not, not main characters.

Lilly:

no, no, no. It's just a, it's just a throwaway line that Fitzgerald throws in there about just like, you know, two randoms at a party. And I was like, oh shit. Yeah. But actually, yes, that is so true. and it's these really small moments like that, that are really impactful,

Krystle:

of, of the ones in that vein that I highlighted is on the first page where it's like most, he says, most of the confidences were unsought. Frequently I have faint sleep preoccupation or a hostile levity. When I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon, motherfuckers describing trauma dumping people are trauma dumping on him because he's a, he's a listener, and he's like, no, man, I don't want it. Leave me alone. And, and that was like on the first page that set the tone for me. And I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna meet you where you're going. And I think you're talking about the same thing a hundred years, nothing has changed.

Lilly:

Exactly.

Krystle:

you're marked as a listener, you're doomed.

Lilly:

It is true. And like there's just these small moments of human connection. He describes that like optimism of moving to a new town and reinventing yourself the way you always imagined you could be. And it's like, yeah, Gatsby does that on this huge scale, but who hasn't moved to a new town and been like, this is it. I got

Krystle:

Yeah, I got this now I'm gonna be a totally different person. Yeah. There's a line near the end about how that turns sour for him. That was like, Ooh, ooh, that's good. Ooh. That got me. Did I not highlight it for shame?

Lilly:

But he buries all of these nuggets within this grandiose,

Krystle:

Mm-hmm.

Lilly:

story. And, and you still have this like really genuine human experience inside of it that keeps it, in my opinion, or at least for me, from being just totally over the top absurd.

Krystle:

Yeah. But I think even when it is over the top absurd, he passes over it so quickly.'cause like we're told about the parties and we, we only actually spend a couple of pages at the parties at any given time because he just skims over it of like, yeah bro, it's crazy. And it's like, yeah man, I believe you. But instead of lingering there to try to prove to us how crazy it is he just keeps going. And I think that's where, in a way that gives it more strength. Because if he lingered on how crazy it was for too long, it would lose, it becomes a thing that we can imagine. And then it's less weird.

Lilly:

That's interesting'cause I was thinking more of the fact that Gatsby bought a house to impress a girl. That to

Krystle:

Oh

Lilly:

crazy.

Krystle:

I dunno, I I can believe that I'm with that one. Maybe that says more about me.

Sara:

mean, I, it's crazy to me, but that's because I'm used to house prices in the Bay Area. I'm like, who the fuck can afford to buy a house just to impress someone?

Lilly:

Well

Krystle:

Yeah. Somebody, yeah. Organized crime money smells like a crime novel. He says it only took him two years to make enough money to buy the house. Yeah, but like the, the, the way these guys were making money hand over fit, they were making it faster than they could spend it. Even those that lived the most extravagantly, like Jay couldn't, couldn't spend it fast enough to keep the IRS off their asses and the FBI off their asses. So it's like literally, I can believe that if you're making that much money in organized s crime Yeah. Buy a house to impress a girl and kind of by her, by extension, like, yeah, that makes sense to me that this is what these guys are up to. So the, the, the framework of the organized crime makes the absurd more believable in a way.

Lilly:

I guess it, it, it didn't, it's not that it felt unbelievable in for the time period or for reality, but I, I guess maybe I just mean unrelatable.

Krystle:

Oh yeah. Yeah. Can't relate. We don't get that sweet, sweet OC money.

Lilly:

Ob absurd from the, the perspective of, I just have no

Krystle:

I could burn.

Lilly:

of that.

Krystle:

Yeah. I think at some point Tom spends like stops to fill up his car with gas and it's like a dollar 20. I'm like, ah,

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

the fucker.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

hell. The times have changed.

Lilly:

Okay. We've done a little bit of spoiling, but I would like to delve into the characters specifically and we can throw that behind the spoiler wall and we can talk about our emotions and opinions in specificity.

Sara:

Okay. So, so before, before actually, we go to the spoiler section, and I'm not gonna answer this question. I'm gonna ask you Lily who should read this book?

Lilly:

Okay. I think if this is gonna, I'm gonna start with a douchey

Krystle:

Scorsese movies,

Lilly:

Yeah,

Krystle:

movies about horrible people, stories about horrible people,

Lilly:

yeah. If, if the over

Krystle:

in a way it's not that shocking. Like it's not, it's not, you know, that edge Lord thing of like, look, everyone sucks and every, like, there's a nihilistic tone. It's not

Lilly:

It's too sincere. It's so genuine.

Sara:

this book is not edgy.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

and so that, that gives it a bit of grace, I think.

Lilly:

Except in its criticism of the upper class. And then perhaps that's more of its time being edgy than, than today.

Sara:

Yeah, it, it's not edgy in the sense of today's novels with terrible people

Lilly:

yeah, there's no torture scenes. I feel like that's why it doesn't get related to organized crime today, like storylines today because it's so subtle. This book is so subtle. It's beautiful. The douchey answer is if you love the craft of like, just wordsmithing, this book is incredible. It communicates

Krystle:

really beautiful.

Lilly:

in so little space. The pros was so good it made Sarah deal with it.

Sara:

I will, I will say that I did really enjoy the prose. It's maybe about the only thing I enjoyed about this book, but the prose was great.

Lilly:

I,

Sara:

Good prose.

Lilly:

It's the quintessential first person perspective novel which is why I'm so shitty about first person perspective, which is really

Krystle:

Well, and you know, and I, I know exactly what you mean because the thing that always grates me about first person is like, you open to any particular page and you see, like I, I, I, I I, I like all the way down the page and it's like cluttered with these I statements, but this one doesn't do that. And I wonder if that's part of why you feel it's so effortless.

Lilly:

It, it also, I'm not asking why this person is telling me the story. Nick is very obviously just like, Hey, yeah, this happened. I'm telling you about it.

Krystle:

yeah, yeah. This, and it's got this bittersweet, like backwards looking regret all the way through. And

Lilly:

just some little, little

Krystle:

it's a choice.

Lilly:

points of horrible foreshadowing

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

ugh. And the way that, like Nick, the narrator knows what is going to happen as he's telling us, but not necessarily giving

Krystle:

it does the thing that you see every now and then where it's the first person perspective, but that person isn't actually the main character. And I love that. I love that device.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, and then it's such a fun story and I, okay, I say fun to a definition of fun, but it's,

Sara:

I'm making a face, but

Lilly:

are making, and yet that's fair because when I say fun, it's, it's the, I've been on a toxic romance, fan fiction kick and had no problem switching over to this novel,

Sara:

this is definitely a toxic ro romance fanfiction novel,

Lilly:

it's the og

Krystle:

yeah, yeah.

Lilly:

Daisy, I like at the very beginning going, oh, Nick and Jordan, I'm just gonna fling you into linen closets and force you together over the summer. And I was like, I've read that fan fiction,

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

Like she's writing fan fiction about her friends in front of us on the page and it, it's that, I'm gonna say gratuitous, but in a complimentary way. This book is gratuitous about human nature in a way that is for me so enjoyable.

Krystle:

Yeah. And they're like, they're also, they are gratuitous like them as people are, and it's like self-aware in a way that makes it

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

a choice whether or not you like the choice.

Sara:

yeah. I like,

Krystle:

It's still

Sara:

good book. It wasn't the book for me, but it's a good book

Lilly:

It's

Krystle:

one of these days. One of these days we're gonna have to flip the script and find a book that Sarah and I agree on. Then Lily is gonna be in the,

Lilly:

Oh man. I'm so ready. I do. I feel like it's always been Kay and I versus Sarah. Either we loved the book or hated the book and Sarah's the

Krystle:

Together. And then Sarah's like, sorry, and or Why have you done this to me?

Sara:

it's true.

Lilly:

Okay. But the Great Gatsby's, much shorter than ker. She'll start, isn't it?

Krystle:

Yeah,

Sara:

shorter than Kuil start,

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Sara:

Kuil start. I enjoyed much more.

Krystle:

yeah,

Lilly:

Yeah. We're never gonna agree on that.

Sara:

No, we're not, we're not.

Krystle:

yeah. Although it shields dirt for me was the same thing of like, it accomplishes what it wants to do. I just

Sara:

doesn't work for you. Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah, yeah.

Lilly:

No, I, I think there is just too much nostalgia for this book buried in my psyche. Not even nostalgia, just like a foundational work of my existence for me to

Sara:

yeah. It's too pivotal

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Well, for me, like I came in on it late, you know, and I don't have that, but I have that underpinning character trait in myself that it's like I'll read and or watch something about horrible people in the right framework because it's just so interesting to watch the car

Sara:

and I, I do think, I do think that that's a, a trait that you both share that is just not something that I, you know, enjoy. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

That's us! We really appreciate our patrons, because otherwise we fund this podcast entirely ourselves.

Sara:

Patrons can find weekly bonus content, monthly exclusive episodes, and they have free access to our biannual zine, Solstitia.

Lilly:

You can find all of that and more at patreon. com slash fictionfanspod. Thank you for all of your support.

Sara:

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Lilly:

So after a very, very wonderful three hour conversation that no one will ever hear, we're back to the Great Gatsby.

Krystle:

we went with opposite cover stories. We are not up on our organized crime behavior.

Lilly:

You had a line

Krystle:

I did have a line. Okay. So, I remember before the, maybe not extended break you talked about specifically the characters that we were gonna dive into and there's this, I'm back to Wilson. I don't know why he stands out for me so much. Like, this guy, like this poor fucking guy kind of got hit by a train against his will.

Sara:

Yes. But also it sounds like he's a pretty terrible husband.

Krystle:

does it though? Like he is working, but, so, okay. The line that I highlighted this is one of those things where it's like, it sounds like he's a terrible husband, but only specifically through the lens of what the narrative talks about.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

There's very little that is on the page that he does badly. And one of the things that I highlighted speaks to that where it says from the narrative point of view, generally he was one of these worn out men. When he wasn't working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people in the cars that passed along the road. And, and this is offered as like a flaw and I highlighted it and said, living in the dream, because honestly that sounds nice actually. And I, and I think it's, it's like a mismatch between, you know, the wife obviously wants a really opulent life and he's just kind of doing his best as a mechanic and people watching.

Sara:

to clarify my opinion on him as a bad husband, I don't necessarily think he's a bad person. I don't, I don't necessarily

Krystle:

It's a mismatch.

Sara:

or anything like that. I just think he's maybe emotionally distant and,

Krystle:

tracks.

Sara:

and like yeah, it's a mismatch. He can't give Myrtle what she wants.

Krystle:

Yeah. Which is a lot of, a lot of wealth basically. Like that seems to be all she's

Sara:

yeah. And, and so he's not, he's not the most responsive husband. He, it doesn't seem like he cares about her all that much until he knows that she

Krystle:

I think he's also really naive. like, there's a line somewhere, and I don't think I highlighted it so I won't find it, but there's a line somewhere where he acknowledges that he's naive and he just believes what people tells him. And, and it's like, buddy you really, you really got the train wreck? Yeah. And it and

Sara:

scheme of things, of people who deserve bad things to happen to them, he's pretty low on the list. Yeah.

Krystle:

And I, I, it's just he's a bad husband in the same way that this is a bad book for you in that it's not a skill issue, it's a taste issue. And Myrtle is just not. Not the reader for him,

Lilly:

so perfect.'cause I tried to organize the characters in, in my opinion least guilty to most guilty

Krystle:

man who shot somebody least guilty.

Lilly:

I in this book. Yeah. Okay. My counterpoint though, to everything you just said is he does try to kidnap his wife.

Krystle:

Yeah. I, I, I found that too. I've got her locked up in there and I wrote Jesus Fucking Grace. I have, I have a couple, like, I, I had different color highlighters for this and one of them was red and that one was red, and the other one that was red is when Tom fucking bunches myrtle like, yeah,

Sara:

like he does not respond well to learning about Myrtle's infidelity, which is, on the one hand kind of understandable, but on the other hand,

Krystle:

I think also

Sara:

a really terrible way.

Krystle:

Minus the shooting, I think his response is a little bit of the time for the time.

Sara:

possible. Yeah.

Krystle:

And that, that one sometimes got tricky for me because I know we of the present tend to graft our own societal pro problems on the past. And so like misogyny is a big problem that we're all dealing with again. Like, it's cool again. And so it's like, I wonder how much of a problem misogyny was at the time, and I suspect it, it was that much of a problem. And so,

Lilly:

four years after women won the right to vote in the

Krystle:

yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's like that, that was definitely an issue of that time. So some of it is of the time, for the time, but also some of it is an issue, a man with cold blood. So

Lilly:

So in my opinion of Mr. Wilson, who in case we've glossed over it too quickly, is Myrtle

Krystle:

A murderer.

Lilly:

and Myrtle was Tom's affair partner. So Myrtle was cheating on her husband with Tom their very firmly working class. He owns a gas station.

Krystle:

And he, he sits on his porch and people watches and I respect it. That's the most important

Sara:

The, the horrible, the horrible thing is that they talk about preparing cars a lot. And I just kept thinking of our cousin Bill who fixes cars.

Lilly:

yeah. But he

Krystle:

No, I, I had Jason Clark firmly, firmly, in my mind

Lilly:

bill is not a fixing cars kind of mechanic. He

Sara:

No, He is, he is. It's definitely a different kind. But

Lilly:

He makes art that happens to be car

Sara:

Yes, yes. But the cars do sometimes are sometimes from the 1920s.

Lilly:

That's true. He

Krystle:

he would get on really well with this crowd.

Sara:

no,'cause he's he's actually a good person.

Lilly:

Yeah. Also, also, how dare you? no, no. I, I

Sara:

but, but I just, I just like the image, the image of these cars and someone who works on them. And I was like, bill, he works on these cars.

Lilly:

well that's a great example of, we're coming at it from the 1920s, our vintage and cool and old. And for them, this was just like, right now,

Sara:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

Yeah. It's, it's,

Lilly:

the guy at Jiffy Lube who changes your oil is not the same kind of

Sara:

it's not the same vibe at all. And, but I'm sorry, that's what I was thinking about.

Lilly:

That's very funny.'cause it did not even occur to me. okay. What I wanted to say is that I think my opinion of Mr. Wilson was probably affected because I did watch the Bos Luhrman adaptation yesterday.'cause I love it so much. In, in the

Krystle:

slander. I love him so much.

Lilly:

It is so

Krystle:

so raggedy in the movie.

Lilly:

He is raggedy and it's, it's kind of implied that he's abusive in the movie in a way that it is

Krystle:

Oh, I'll have to watch it again. Yeah, I'll have to watch it again now that the, the book is fresh.

Lilly:

in the book, it's very much like Mr. Wilson is no match for his wife. Like she, she runs circles around him.

Krystle:

He's just kind of pathetic is the way that he is. He is just pathetic and, yeah, and the only, the only mention of, of anything abusive is that last line where he is like, I've got my wife locked up in there and you can hear like, I guess they can hear her like, banging on doors or something. And it's like, alright. But that's a choice. That's gonna help for sure.

Lilly:

kidnap her.

Sara:

the interesting thing, or maybe it's interesting just to, the modern sensibility is that no one comments on that statement.

Krystle:

I know, well the, the page before that is Tom sends, like right before this page that we're discussing, Tom sends Daisy in that car with, with Gatsby. And he's like, you guys go ahead and we'll follow in in my car. And it's like.

Lilly:

That is such a

Krystle:

He is positive, he's positive that this man is a criminal and a bootlegger. And like he, I think he is onto the trail of the organized crime and yet still he sends his wife away like, buddy, what did you think was gonna happen? Like this wasn't gonna go well for you no matter what. And yes hit her. Hitting your mistress was not what you expected, but there was no good outcome there for you.

Lilly:

that's such a power move at that point. Tom is like, Daisy thought about leaving. Well, in my opinion, never seriously thought about leaving him. And he's like, I know I have her back, so I'm gonna force her to be in a car with him and it's gonna suck for them, and then I'm gonna have her forever.

Krystle:

Yeah. He's she's gonna tell him,

Lilly:

he is so unthreatened by Gatsby, he is like, yeah, go be in private. I don't even give a fuck. Which as much as I hate Tom, that was like a, that was a

Krystle:

Big dick energy. Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. But no, Mr. Wilson is

Krystle:

I am. I'm pretty sure he is just described as pathetic in that first, the first time that they see each other. Although I can't find it now'cause

Lilly:

manipulated by and run circles around by his wife. And they're, they're just working class people. And of course she doesn't wanna be a working class people because Sounds like

Krystle:

None of us want to be wearing clothes, people. Yeah,

Lilly:

Oh yeah. Just like lay around and be rich does sound better. I'm not gonna fal her for that.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

The thing I will falter for is her treatment of her dog, which

Krystle:

The dog disappears just like the child disappears.

Sara:

dog disappears. And I, I think that this was more an attitude of like the 1920s than it is of modern day, where you pay a lot more attention to your dog.

Krystle:

I dunno. I I think it's part of the lack of care that all of these people have for literally every living thing in their lives. I, I think it is thematic.

Lilly:

Uh, that is Myrtle trying to be rich. She's trying to be that person who's above giving a fuck. And like, what is the most pure example of that? A

Krystle:

I want that.

Lilly:

Yes.

Sara:

right.

Krystle:

want that. Buy it for me

Lilly:

I don't have to think about consequences because my boyfriend is rich.

Sara:

but I, I do think that the way that we think about our pets is different now than it was then. So I, like, I don't, I don't disagree with you but I also think that mm-hmm. It just doesn't sit right with me,

Krystle:

yeah. It hurts extra.

Lilly:

it is a appalling in a way that I think it might, might not have been, but it's

Sara:

it,

Krystle:

But the, the child is treated the same way, like Daisy's

Sara:

child at least has a nanny.

Lilly:

We don't know that. Okay. We don't know that the apartment didn't have servants taking care of it, who would've also taken care of

Krystle:

it must

Sara:

We don't, but we know that the child had a nanny.

Lilly:

So I think that is modern sensibilities. Is that you wanted on the page Fitzgerald, to tell you someone was taking care of the dog?

Krystle:

it must have had somebody in it that, I don't know.

Sara:

I just, I may, maybe it is, maybe you're right. And it is modern sensibilities that I wanted someone to tell me on the page that the dog was

Krystle:

It's weird though.

Lilly:

Oh, it's,

Krystle:

weird, this

Lilly:

but

Sara:

buy, they buy this dog. It's never mentioned again,

Krystle:

until the

Sara:

Mortal dies. Yeah. Like there's, there's mention of the collar and the dog biscuits, but not the actual dog.

Krystle:

Where's the dog? Myrtle. What did you do with the dog, Myrtle?

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

But I, I think that's,

Sara:

What is, what has happened to this poor dog?

Lilly:

but that's because those are the things she brought home. She left the dog at the apartment to be taken care of by whatever servant

Sara:

but, but Tom went to the apartment and that's where he saw the dog biscuits

Lilly:

I thought the dog biscuits were with the

Krystle:

Yeah. We're never told no.

Sara:

I I thought, I thought that the dog biscuits were at the apartment, and that's where he has his breakdown.'cause he, he talks about how like, he went to the apartment and he saw these dog biscuits and then he cried for ages because he was so

Krystle:

it's never confirmed where the dog even is.'cause like the

Lilly:

I do think that's supposed to reflect poorly on Myrtle, though. I don't think that's supposed to be like, this is fine.

Sara:

Sure. I'm not, I'm not saying that. I think it's a good thing on Myrtle's part. I, but I'm wondering as a reader, what has happened to this poor dog?

Krystle:

are, there are a lot of threads tied up in that last unending chapter, which is the same length as all the other chapters. But like, there were a lot of, a lot of strenuous details in the last chapter and we never know where the dog was. So I do think it's an omission, like just on a craft level of like, he thought of the dog, he did the dog collar and the bisques, but like who

Sara:

Where is the dog?

Krystle:

dog? I have opinions about the dog. And also Jordan is a character that has dropped randomly in the scenes that she is in, like the big fight scene at the, at the hotel. She does not say a word while Tom and Daisy and Gatsby are fighting.

Lilly:

To me, that is so perfect. Really? You didn't like that? I thought that

Krystle:

Well, I, I think I'd have to, I'd have to read the book more and know her better and it was like, I left a note of like, did he drop her or is she quiet? And it, and it, it's where like my writer brain interferes with my reader brain of like, is this craft or is this on purpose? So I would love to hear why you think it's perfect and maybe I'll feel better.

Lilly:

in, so this is again, maybe my opinion of the character coming too far to the forefront, but she is kind of like Nick, our narrator. She's not part of the drama, right? She's an observer, but she sticks her nose into it. She's meddling, she's gossiping. She's like, yeah, that's Tom's mistress calling. I thought everyone knew. And she's the one who is like, oh, Gatsby wants you to make tea, like call for tea so that he can meet Daisy. She is meddling.

Krystle:

to fly on the wall. This

Lilly:

Yes, she is not involved, but she is acting upon the drama. And then everything blows up in her face, and she is

Krystle:

She's got popcorn at the corner,

Lilly:

oh, I, I actually think she, like, I think it's described that she's frightened by like the Tom and Gatsby conflict. My interpretation is that she was like, oh no, there's consequences. You telling me I can't just meddle in other people's lives. And to me, I interpret it as a very like, oh fuck, I'm in over my head. Especially the way that she reacts to Nick at the end when she's like, kind of upset that he drops her very abruptly. I, I

Krystle:

You were something or other to me on the phone and he was like, yep, I sure was.

Lilly:

He hangs up on her and she gets really mad about it later. It, it's

Krystle:

No, it, it's said that he's not sure who hangs up first. It's just that we,

Lilly:

that's Nick's recollection. And then when they meet up later in the book, she, she claims that he hangs up on her. But that's also when she claims that she was engaged and Nick was like, I don't think that's true.

Krystle:

Yeah. So she lies. So did he hang up on her? Maybe she hung up on him. And she is VOing.

Lilly:

But I, I interpret that very much as she has been nosy this whole book, and very much on the outskirts, but involved in a way that Nick is not,

Krystle:

and who knows what her and Daisy talk about Because like, one almost feels like some, if somebody cared about Daisy, they would be like, I'll help you leave him.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

Maybe. Although maybe that's modern

Sara:

I mean, she, she does have an opportunity to leave him Granted. It is, it is for Gatsby and

Krystle:

she's like, she waffles, and then something bad happens and Tom's like, I'll protect you from this. And she's like, yes, you will. Goddam it.

Sara:

Yeah. And, and she ultimately, she does ultimately choose to stay with Tom, so I, I don't think that her

Krystle:

who knows what her and Jordan talk about. Maybe,

Lilly:

fuck around and then she finds out,

Sara:

Yeah, like, and I liked Jordan. Actually,

Krystle:

Jordan has no consequences to this. She, she just leaves their house and walks away and is like, I'm out

Lilly:

But she witnesses that fight, which is pretty aggressive for what we see between that class of people in this book. And I, I think she was just like, oops.

Krystle:

Yeah,

Lilly:

out this blew up in my face.

Krystle:

I'm out. And

Lilly:

least that's how I, I interpreted it. I think that that also might be, yeah, me bringing stuff to

Krystle:

yeah. You, you might be right because she is actually a quiet character. She doesn't say much in the book, actually.

Lilly:

It's mostly quiet gossip behind the scenes, but she gossips a lot.

Krystle:

yeah, yeah. Most of her, her dialogue is like her telling Jay about stuff.

Lilly:

Yeah. Or that one time she was like, Gatsby just told me this huge secret. Oops. I shouldn't have said that.'cause I can't tell you what it is. Like,

Krystle:

Yeah. When, when she talks to him alone at the party. Yeah. I think you're right, actually. Yeah, I think you're right.

Lilly:

She's witnessing consequences for possibly the first time

Krystle:

Well, probably not the first time, but cause she bounces so, so skillfully that it's like, I, I actually

Sara:

she is done this before.

Krystle:

yeah.

Lilly:

Fair

Krystle:

I kind of love her. Like iconic, like she needs a reality show.

Sara:

She does. I'd watch that TV show, actually, no, I wouldn't.'cause I don't watch TV shows. But

Lilly:

I do like how transparent she is, though. She never puts on airs of like, I'm doing this for their benefit. She's just like, yeah, I'm gossiping. What are you gonna do about

Sara:

she is very much like what it says on the tin.

Lilly:

Yes. And I appreciate that

Sara:

Which inci incidentally, completely

Krystle:

also, which, except also she's a chronic liar,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

yeah, I That is, that is

Krystle:

is probably what it says on the tiN

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

So we came to these characters kind of organically, but the order I had had them in and I welcome arguments was from least, least guilty to most guilty. Nick Myrtle Jordan.

Sara:

Guilty in the sense of

Lilly:

Okay. Shitty maybe is a better word.

Krystle:

Least to most.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Where does Mr. Wilson fit

Lilly:

Mr. Wilson was not on my list. So where

Krystle:

Oh, poor.

Lilly:

I agree that he's probably above Nick, though. He's above

Krystle:

he's only the man. He's only the man that shot another man, but he didn't even clock on the list, which is actually totally consistent for his character.

Lilly:

he's manipulated. I, I actually think that he doesn't have enough agency

Krystle:

Because Tom lies to him.

Sara:

a hundred percent.

Krystle:

lies

Lilly:

Well, he doesn't technically lie. He's like, oh yeah. The car that hit your wife is owned by Mr. Gatsby. Technically true.

Sara:

It's lies by omission

Lilly:

oh. Yeah. He manipulates

Krystle:

And it's intentional. Like there's

Sara:

so

Krystle:

didn't know that Tom was cruising for trouble,

Lilly:

So, but I would, I would put Mr. Wilson at the top. You're right. And then Nick, I like that he's a people watcher. We get some beautiful prose out of it, especially we talked about, we briefly touched on some of the, the

Krystle:

no. He lies, he fully lies. He says he was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car. He had, his hand was on a revolver in his pocket every time he was in the house, so he like,

Lilly:

He said, who owned the car, quote unquote. He only said who owned the car, but he knew how Mr. Wilson would interpret

Krystle:

That, yeah. What if I did tell him that fellow had it coming to him?

Lilly:

Yeah. He knew that if he said Gatsby owned the car, Wilson would interpret that as Gatsby

Krystle:

think that cause did. I, okay, so this isn't on the page, but now, like, there's this, there's a scene near the end where Tom and Daisy are like talking really quietly in their house, and it's never confirmed if Daisy tells Tom that she hit Myrtle or if Gatsby

Sara:

I don't think, I don't think that Daisy does. Tom thinks that Gatsby

Krystle:

that Gatsby did it.

Lilly:

You do think that I, I think it's unknown. I think it's un unspoken because it could go

Krystle:

oh, it's, it's totally unspoken, which is why we're a hundred percent speculating. Um, because

Sara:

think that he thinks that Gatsby did it

Lilly:

You think

Krystle:

by accident. Because, okay, so he, he says he ran over Myrtle, like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car.

Lilly:

Tom says that.

Krystle:

Tom says that about Gatsby.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

and, and Nick says, I didn't have the heart to, you know,

Krystle:

to tell him that it wasn't true, but she, like, he, he can't, he, he can't bring himself to say, no, it was Daisy. So then that leads us to, did Daisy tell him, and Tom is following the, you know, the act of protecting her, or does he genuinely not know? He probably doesn't

Sara:

I can, I can't imagine.

Krystle:

he would fucking kill her back.

Sara:

Yeah. I can't imagine a, him not hurting Daisy if he knew the truth, but also I can't imagine him being so sanguine about it if he knew the

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Lilly:

I, I halfway agree. I don't think he would hurt Daisy because he knows Daisy's, his wife, he's upset that Myrtle is dead. But

Krystle:

no other explanation for her being hurt. If she, he does hurt her.

Lilly:

yeah,

Krystle:

It looks bad for him no matter what.

Lilly:

Yeah, he's so much about appearances, but I don't think he is savvy enough to pull that off if he didn't really believe it

Sara:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Lilly:

I like Tom is not that cunning,

Krystle:

Yeah, I think you're right.

Lilly:

and so that to me

Krystle:

So Daisy, Daisy is just letting him believe that Gatsby was driving

Lilly:

I

Sara:

yeah, I think, I think,

Krystle:

tracks for her. She is really

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

She is.

Sara:

Like I, I don't think that she cares enough about Gatsby to wanna set the record straight with Tom.

Lilly:

Oh, no, she, she is self-serving'cause that's all she has. But we're gonna get to her later,

Krystle:

Okay. Okay,

Lilly:

so here's how I feel about Nick. He doesn't actually do too much active bullshit kind of. Well, Jordan manipulates more than he does, but the problem with Nick, our point of view character, is that he's always kind of playing the victim of like, oh, this is all out of my control. I can't help it.

Krystle:

one starts to wonder if he's an unreliable narrator. And, and the line about him being honest is such a a switch for me that flips immediately.'cause it's like in the real world, if somebody starts talking about being honest, that's a liar. You are talking to a liar. And so when he says it, I'm like, everything you tell me after this must be a lie. Because like, I, it's just part of me. And I, I have no idea if that was the intention from Fitzgerald, or maybe he's around people that say I'm so honest and thinks that that's true. Like, I don't know. So I'm going to acknowledge that this could be my baggage. But I don't know. I don't know Nick.

Lilly:

So much of this book nails human nature that you can't be wrong. Like, first of all, second of all, isn't that after he starts enabling Daisy and Gatsby's affair?

Sara:

No. He talks about how honest he is in like the very, very beginning.

Lilly:

Okay,

Krystle:

No, well, there's a line. The one where I wrote Okay,

Lilly:

line, yeah.

Krystle:

is, is the end of chapter three.

Lilly:

He is like, everyone has a cardinal, the whatever, the opposite of a cardinal sin is a cardinal good thing. And mine is honesty.

Sara:

I am pretty sure that was before the affair though.

Lilly:

but I think it's right before, I think it is introducing the affair, basically.

Sara:

I don't know why I'm looking for physical copy. When I, when I read it as an ebook,

Lilly:

you

Krystle:

checking. So

Sara:

I did read it as an ebook because I didn't wanna buy a copy of it

Krystle:

I, I bought a copy of it and I remember texting you guys going like, should I buy the really fancy one or should I buy the cheap one?

Sara:

and I told you to buy both.

Lilly:

Cardinal

Krystle:

buy both. I bought,

Sara:

have bought both.

Krystle:

I will, I'll circle back and I'll buy a fancy one. But at the time, there was a table with classics for three, for$10, which was like a fucking steal. And I got Zelda Fitzgerald's only book called Save Me the Waltz. Because like they were side by side, which was a very, like, whoever made that table knows the details, right? Because it's like Gatsby and Zelda. Fitzgerald was side by side. I was like, if you like him, maybe read the source material.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

but yeah. It's at the end of chapter three and chapter three is the first time that he, goes to Gatsby's house and it's the first party. So the affair has not happened, and he doesn't know about it yet, but it could be foreshadowing.

Lilly:

Yeah.'cause he knows about it.'cause he's speaking retroactively. Yeah.

Krystle:

And it's such a poignant line.

Lilly:

Everyone suspects himself as of at least one of the cardinal virtues. And this is mine. I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

Krystle:

and I wrote, okay, buddy,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

this is, this is like the only time I regret not having video.'cause I would show it off, show off my handwriting. Okay, buddy. At the bottom of the page. But it's like, and then immediately after that, we start hearing all the rumors about Gatsby and

Lilly:

I

Krystle:

he goes to dinner with Gatsby or Lunch to Gatsby. So it's like, is it foreshadowing or does he honestly think that he's honest? Like, I don't know. And

Lilly:

Nick might think Nick is honest. I don't think Fitzgerald thinks that Nick is honest. Yeah,

Krystle:

Yes. That's, that's the que. Okay.

Sara:

yeah, I, I think Nick absolutely thinks that he is honest. I do not think that Fitzgerald agrees with that self-assessment.

Lilly:

right.

Krystle:

And I love a writer that can pull that off, which

Sara:

Yeah. And it's a really interesting perspective. Like I love that Fitzgerald does, it still doesn't work for me with these characters, but

Lilly:

Oh, but it's so good.

Krystle:

it's a shame. Yeah.

Lilly:

he does that. He introduces all of the drama and the subterfuge Well. Guess not masterful, subterfuge'cause it's pretty obvious what's happening.

Sara:

it's real obvious.

Lilly:

it, Nick is kind of like a, woe is me. I am just a passenger on this wild ride. But he, he is choosing to participate. He could disagree, he could say no thank you. He could say, I can't come to lunch.

Krystle:

there are many lines where he's talking about how much he dislikes all of these people, but he keeps going to the parties. So like, there's something, and he's

Sara:

could get off this

Krystle:

he's very explicitly Yeah.

Lilly:

But

Krystle:

He's very explicitly romancing Jordan, who he says is a compulsive liar. And so it's like,

Sara:

although I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie, I do ship him at Jordan just a little bit.

Lilly:

is that because of the coffee shop

Krystle:

they deserve each other.

Sara:

each other, but also they're the most interesting people in the story.

Lilly:

Oh, most interesting

Krystle:

Oh,

Lilly:

is a statement.

Sara:

It Yes, I know. And I say it very intentionally. I think they're the most interesting people in the story.

Krystle:

I dig it because it's like the complexities of Gatsby are very base.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

It's, I, I love that. I want that. She must love me, therefore I will buy her.

Sara:

yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like it Gatsby.

Krystle:

the organized crime angle that interests the fuck outta me.

Lilly:

Well, how else is a poor boy gonna get enough money to buy a woman?

Krystle:

Prohibition

Sara:

So, so in, in what is explored in this novel, I do think that Gatsby is very straightforward and uninteresting in his pursuit of Daisy. Tom. Of course, he's a racist, abusive piece of shit. He is. He's

Krystle:

Breaks a woman's nose at the beginning of

Lilly:

We're gonna talk about him in a minute. He's later, much later on my journey.

Sara:

so, so he's,

Krystle:

gonna put, I'm gonna put Nick and Jordan together in the middle of most guilty to least guilty because I, I think both of them had the capacity to be helpful and very actively chose not to at every

Sara:

Yes. Yes. But they are at least interesting in, in how they

Krystle:

just, just, just on the prompt that Lily keeps trying to rail us

Lilly:

know. I'm, I'm forcing us into this framework and you can't get out of it,

Sara:

and my, my framework is, is like I just, I just find them interesting.

Krystle:

I would put the man who literally shot another human being at the bottom and I would put Jordan and, and Nick together in the middle because I, I genuinely think they could have stopped this from how bad it got

Lilly:

so just, sorry. Bottom is least guilty. Okay. Okay. Yes.

Krystle:

He has committed no crime. We stand and then Jordan and Nick are like in the middle of like, they could have stopped this. They really could have. And there were multiple opportunities for them to stop this. And they actively choose not to because they, they're doing this. I'm so powerless and I love the drama and, and all of that. And then Tom and

Sara:

they are the reality TV show stars, which is why I find them interesting.

Krystle:

They feed, they feed the, you know, the wood into the fire

Sara:

Yeah. They do. They, they feed the drama. They absolutely feed the drama.

Lilly:

I put Nick as less guilty than Jordan. I feel like Jordan Luxuriated in the meddling a little bit more, which maybe makes her more honest in a weird way. So maybe it should be the other way around. I don't know. But regardless, personally, I have Myrtle in between them.

Krystle:

Oh.

Lilly:

Now this is kind of based on having just watched the movie where Mr. Wilson is definitely abusive. So that definitely colored my ranking. And I,

Sara:

is not, I don't think that he is,

Krystle:

not in

Lilly:

the book. He's not

Sara:

confirmed abusive in the books. Yeah.

Lilly:

that was, that was why I did it. But I am thinking back now, like now that was influenced by adaptations, but she cheats on her husband. That's not great. But that's, at the end of the day, that's all she

Krystle:

kind of, yeah. It's also kind of base in that same way of like, of course she's wooed by opulence in a world that was very

Sara:

what happened to the dog?

Lilly:

Yes, yes.

Sara:

I can't get over that. That's not, that's not Myrtle's fault.

Krystle:

we don't even know the dog's name. Godda

Lilly:

her pursuit of glory or

Krystle:

Dale Terrier, by the way. Which, which was weirdly like, treated as like a bad choice. But I, I thought Dale Terriers were actually quite coveted. Like they're really solid working dogs.

Sara:

Yeah. I thought, I thought they were,

Lilly:

dog and this is all about

Sara:

but I

Krystle:

wanted a police dog and ERs have been used as police dogs.

Sara:

thought they were popular at that time.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

Yeah. it

Sara:

is just,

Krystle:

it was a weird thing that it's like, there's so many things that are of the time, but that one detail was like, I, I'm pretty sure Dale ERs were, were solid popular

Lilly:

Maybe that was just Fitzgerald being opinionated then,

Krystle:

I fucking hate Dale ERs

Sara:

He just doesn't like

Lilly:

the thing, this is not retrospective. He is talking about this is a dog breed I have an opinion about today.

Krystle:

right now.

Sara:

I fucking hate these dogs.

Krystle:

These air nail, god damn

Lilly:

have this dog.

Krystle:

Only women who cheat on their husbands would like an air nail terrier. Wow. Fitzgerald. I thought we were cool, but now I find out we're beefing over air nailers. Yeah. Okay. I I would almost cluster the three of them together because I feel like Myrtle is a victim of Tom because I like, I can't

Sara:

She is absolutely one of Tom's victims

Lilly:

Yeah. Well, literally,

Krystle:

so

Sara:

victim. Yeah.

Krystle:

so bad that you can't even fully invest in the idea of her being in love. She's just been manipulated away

Sara:

well, and also he has so much,

Krystle:

the face.

Sara:

has so much power over her. Like he's from a different social class. He

Krystle:

Physically stronger.

Sara:

He's physically stronger, he's wealthier. He can do whatever he wants to her, and it's not going to be an issue. And we, that's not really explored in the story, but that's kind of the undertone of

Lilly:

a tiny bit in the quote. They were careless people, and that's about both Tom and Daisy. It's

Krystle:

yeah. That was Tom and Daisy. Yeah.

Sara:

and, and like, I, I don't disagree that that quote applies, but I don't think that it, that it explores entirely the nuance of his relationship with Myrtle,

Lilly:

That's true. It's

Krystle:

it's very much a solid, it's a solid line on the second last page, so that doesn't count as being explored.

Sara:

Yeah. and so there, there are these power dynamics that aren't really delved into, and that do. Play a huge part in the exploration of that relationship as it plays out on the page.

Lilly:

agree with you entirely. My counter argument is that this is a novella and so much of it is implied. So much of the

Krystle:

Well, I think also there's, there's a, again,

Lilly:

there.

Krystle:

there's once again a bit of the, of the time tone for Myrtle, because I think of the time, if we think about other women and how they're portrayed of the time, it's always their fault at that time. She, she's the siren, she's the temptress, she's the,

Sara:

She was asking

Krystle:

the Jezebel, she was asking for it. And so there's a little bit of people reading the novel of that time. Might've thought she was awful. But then fast forward a hundred years, we're talking a lot more about the power dynamics in relationships. We are able to see actually that woman was also an abuse victim. And so that makes it, at that point, it becomes a higher level conversation between us and Fitzgerald rather than us in the text, if that makes sense.

Lilly:

I would argue that the text does not decry. Like it does not dispel that she is a victim. It

Krystle:

doesn't like her though. The way

Sara:

yeah, I like, I don't, I don't think,

Lilly:

she has physically described, you're right. If, if

Krystle:

and it in a way that's very crass. Yeah.

Sara:

yeah, like I

Krystle:

one of the only descriptions that sexualizes a female character in a way that feels gross.

Lilly:

Because he only sexualizes male characters before that.

Krystle:

Well, but there's also her sister, who I'm pretty sure is a lesbian, by the way, speaking of progressive stuff in this book.

Lilly:

I, so I am not a

Krystle:

physically, but it doesn't feel crass.

Lilly:

I'm not a scholar. But you, you mentioned like queer culture, and I do actually, my understanding is that the twenties were not bad as far as the counterculture goes.

Krystle:

Yeah, the counterculture was large because suddenly people were okay with breaking laws, and so it opened up a bit of freedom for queerness in a way that before and after didn't exist.

Lilly:

yes. And you have like lavender marriages and all of that kind of thing, so I, I, I don't think Fitzgerald was

Krystle:

I, I think she's gay and I think he's got it on the page. I, I'm, I'm almost positive that she's got it on the page now. Let's see if I can find it. Where she's in her thirties. So this is Myrtle's sister that is only in the one scene. She's in her thirties and unmarried. And that alone is surprisingly progressive because it's not, she's not described as a, a hag. It's like she's in her thirties and she is unmarried and she's so vivacious, which

Lilly:

Fitzgerald said, good for you.

Krystle:

Good for you, honey. But then also she's talking like she's constantly talking about these other women, and she traveled around the world with a, a, a female friend in a way that it's like, she's gay. She's absolutely gay. She is a 30-year-old lesbian living alone, or with another, with another woman. I can't find it. There it is.

Lilly:

Is her name

Krystle:

Yeah. I asked her. Catherine,

Lilly:

yeah.

Krystle:

A slender worldly girl of about 30. And the fact that he's describing a woman of 30 as a girl feels very permissive because I, like I, and I think it's of the times of Roaring twenties where all of a sudden women could just be, you know, party girls into their thirties and it was fine. And then I, I asked her if she lived there and he, she laughs at him for suggesting that she would live somewhere. And she's like, no, I live with another woman. And it's like. She's gay. And at the first line I was like, I'm reading too much into this line. But then there was a couple of lines later where she's talking about traveling the world with a girl, and it's like, oh yeah, okay. I was joking the first time I said she was gay, but now I'm, I'm pretty sure she's gay and I don't remember my point at all, but

Lilly:

I think we're trying to read into the past the 20th century locked

Krystle:

or the 1920s.

Lilly:

Well, I, I was gonna say the 20th century locked down on, on queer stories, and so we're trying to look at the twenties through that lens, but this was a little bit before it happened.

Krystle:

her, her, the way he describes her compared to the way he describes Meryl Myrtle, in the same chapter, she, he's underlining her as a heartbeat because her sister is described as vivacious and she is like overly sexualized in a way that no other female character is, and arguably only Tom is. And so it's like these two sexual freaks deserve each other. But then, you know, like I said, fast forward a hundred years and it's like, no, that, that woman is a gorgeous victim of this selfish, greedy gluttonous man.

Lilly:

Well, and I, I don't want to look at this through the lens of the fifties happened in between, you know?

Krystle:

yeah.'cause he didn't know.

Lilly:

Yeah. He didn't know it was coming.

Krystle:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

It, I, I do think the twenties were I okay. Again, not a scholar, but my understanding is that it, it was not as bad as later decades.

Krystle:

Yeah, it was, I think it's less the queerness and more the sex. They, like it was very sexually loose in the twenties. I watched, I watched a documentary about prohibition and when it was filmed, it, like, I think it was filmed in the nineties and there was a, so there was a man, there were quite a few people interviewing for it who were still like, who were children at the time, or young people at the time. And so this old guy who was, who was around said on camera that it's like, it's not that we had more sex in the twenties, it's that the men of our era discovered the clitoris. And so women had more fun,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

which was like a revelation, right? And so, so there was a, like, there was a sexual liberation in the twenties. And then I'm not sure when the clampdown happened in response. It might've been the forties and the fifties, but then it's like, it, it, so it's, it's less that queerness specifically was a little bit looser. It was all of sexuality was more permissive in the counterculture because everybody was okay with breaking the law because of prohibition. And that spread to their lifestyles entirely.'cause everyone was okay with breaking the law. Everyone was okay with parting. And when we were really drunk and partying, everyone was having sex with everybody else and playing with stuff they didn't know about. And so in that queerness got swallowed up is also, you know,

Lilly:

It's, it's the overall indulgence.

Krystle:

Yeah, exactly.

Lilly:

Because I, I've been to an art exhibit of queer art from the era, like, it, it happened and it existed, but it, it was definitely, I mean, still othered in that way,

Krystle:

Yes. Yeah, it was, it was the, you know, the flappers are degenerates, but then we were all the straits and the queers were all degenerates together rather than only us.

Lilly:

But a, a time where it was, I mean, maybe not acknowledged exactly, but not

Krystle:

It was known. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. It was known and discussed, or not discussed, but very specifically not discussed in order to protect people from the law.'cause nobody cared about the law'cause booze

Lilly:

We've all decided that the law's garbage, so.

Krystle:

and if that one's garbage, there must be a bunch of other garbage ones, basically. Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. okay. So what it, what is our order so far? Okay. It, okay. Our, our first characters are Mr. Wilson, we're saying is least

Krystle:

totally innocent has done no crime.

Sara:

So in, in terms of least guilty to most guilty.

Lilly:

Yes. For our first half, the first half of this conversation we have Mr. Wilson, Nick Myrtle, and Jordan.

Krystle:

yeah. I would agree with that.

Sara:

Yeah. I think that's mostly accurate. Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. Because I mean. Nick is

Krystle:

of them

Sara:

they they all have their problems,

Krystle:

but also none of their problems amount to as much as

Sara:

Yes.

Krystle:

Tom and Daisy.

Lilly:

Yes. Who is absolutely unspoken of until now. Yes. Out of, out of the next three, Tom Gatsby and Daisy, I would say Gatsby is next

Sara:

I

Lilly:

out of the three of them.

Sara:

I think he is less guilty than, than Tom and Daisy which is possibly a statement.

Lilly:

and I, I need to

Krystle:

I would, I would, almost put, I would almost put Myrtle and Gatsby next to each other and like Bump Jordan down a little bit. I would, I would do Nick Jordan Myrtle Gatsby, because they, in effect, are their, their base crime is very similar of, of the covetousness of somebody else's. It's just that Ga Sby did more. He, he's extra.

Sara:

GA Gaby is quite extra

Lilly:

am realizing that I have conflated guilty with shitty, and that is unfair.

Krystle:

Oh, okay. So which one are we?

Lilly:

No, but I, the, the narrative that we have F fallen on, which is the way I phrased it, was

Krystle:

It's shitty. Yeah. I know, but we're saying, but, but actually what we're ranking is shittiness because the man who literally committed the most crime is at the bottom of the list.

Lilly:

yeah. So I, I think we actually should be saying shittiness because if you're guilty of murder, you're guilty. So, Mr. Wilson, the least shitty.

Krystle:

yeah,

Sara:

least shitty, but very guilty.

Lilly:

Yeah. I mean, on the page.

Krystle:

yeah. Like in the court of law, he is got, he is got the biggest crime, but also the man is innocent who's done nothing wrong.

Lilly:

So

Sara:

Not nothing wrong.

Krystle:

nothing wrong.

Lilly:

he was manipulated. Not his fault.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Sara:

But

Krystle:

No, no, I won't hear it. Nothing wrong

Lilly:

why he's least shitty.

Krystle:

and I'm gonna admit 100% that it's probably because he was played by my, my bow Jason Clark. And it has colored me extensively on the character. But

Sara:

not gonna argue it,

Lilly:

Sarah, you need to watch this movie. It's so

Krystle:

yeah, we'll have to do a watch party or something. It's so bad.

Sara:

I am, I am hearing that we are having a bonus episode based on watching this movie.

Krystle:

Deal.

Sara:

Okay.

Krystle:

Deal.

Sara:

I'm gonna hate it, but I'll watch it for the content.

Krystle:

I think it's so visually pretty that you notice even less how shitty everybody is in that same way that the pros,

Lilly:

that's the point. And then you have Lana Del Rai, the shittiest of them all doing a like the main theme song.

Sara:

I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna hate it based on everything that we have talked about,

Krystle:

only an hour and a half, give or take.

Sara:

but at least it's only an hour and a half give and take.

Lilly:

Oh no.

Sara:

And I can drink lots of whiskey. Oh no.

Lilly:

but it's so good. You don't even know.

Sara:

I can drink lots of whiskey during it.

Krystle:

we'll have to do it like literally together of like a watch party so that Sarah can complain at us instead of suffering alone this time. And I think

Sara:

no. Like

Krystle:

my impression of Mr. Wilson on this read is absolutely colored by the fact that he was played by Jason Clark, but also the man does nothing wrong in the book.

Lilly:

honestly, it's fascinating because I would say he's far more shitty in the movie than he is in the book. In, in the recent movie that we're talking about

Krystle:

And it's funny because I don't remember that. So

Sara:

Well, but so, so I, I obviously have not watched the movie, but I feel like that makes sense because I feel like movies tend to kind of one dimensionalize everything. It's, it's hard to have characters that are as multidimensional.

Krystle:

bystanders.

Sara:

Yeah. And, and so it makes sense for a movie you would, you would

Krystle:

You would want

Sara:

want to

Krystle:

for a reason.

Sara:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like you would, you would want to have Myrtle have a reason to cheat.

Krystle:

Except that I, I actually,

Sara:

to have a

Krystle:

find it so much more interesting to, for her not to have a

Sara:

Sure. But that doesn't, that

Krystle:

a

Sara:

make for compelling, you know, television.

Krystle:

Yeah, yeah,

Lilly:

That is, yeah, I just washed this yesterday, so I know it's so good. In the final scene when we're, I guess it's not technically the final scene, but the, the dramatic scene when Gatsby is in the pool in the book, the line is being held for a crime call that we know nothing about. Whereas in the movie

Krystle:

yeah. And it's a, speaking of organized crime, it's a hell of a crime call. Like what? What Jay? Or what? Not Jay. Nick hears this like, smells like organized crime.

Lilly:

Mm-hmm. But this is even before that during, during the, what ends up being the shooting in

Krystle:

He is waiting for Daisy in the movie, isn't he?

Lilly:

Yeah. In the movie, he's waiting for Daisy and someone calls and they're asking for Gatsby and he's so happy and he gets shot and then we find out that it was Nick calling to ask what was happening. And so in Gatsby's final moments, he thought Daisy cared about him, but it was actually Nick who cared about him.

Krystle:

that's really good tv, but also

Sara:

I, I hate it.

Krystle:

Yeah,

Sara:

hate it.

Lilly:

it's, heartbreaking. Whereas in the book, he is waiting for Daisy to call. He is waiting for Nick to call. But he actually has the line open for some crime shit that we don't

Krystle:

in Chicago, somebody in Chicago, which is obviously Al Capone.

Sara:

Yeah. it just,

Lilly:

His other boyfriend.

Krystle:

Dear, dear listener, it's obviously not Al Capone. I am totally inserting myself into this book, but

Sara:

it is obviously Al Capone,

Krystle:

enjoyment is

Sara:

but that, that just, that just feels, don't know, not, not interesting to the state of the character. I don't like

Krystle:

The the movie

Lilly:

or

Sara:

the movie version.

Krystle:

Oh, yeah. It, it makes it too

Sara:

too neat.

Lilly:

It's cinema.

Sara:

Yeah. Like that's too cinema.

Lilly:

No one loves Gatsby the way Nick does said the movie.

Sara:

Yeah, exactly.

Krystle:

also said the book, because Nick's literally the only one who gives a shit about his funeral

Sara:

It, it's, but I don't get the sense, like, and I was reading like the introduction to the story where she is like, Nick is so in love with Gatsby, and that's not the sense that I got necessarily from the text. Like, yeah, Nick cares about him, but he's not like,

Krystle:

He likes him a lot.

Sara:

yeah, he likes him a lot, but he is, he's not like madly in love with him. So I was, I don't know. I just, that's, it was incongruous with my reading.

Krystle:

and Nick also very explicitly says, I, I like him, but also I hate him at at some point he very explicitly says it before anything bad happens to him that it's like, or maybe it was after.

Lilly:

Well, everything he says is from after, but,

Krystle:

That's true.

Lilly:

It's,

Krystle:

he says it at some point that it's like, I hated him as much as I, I loved him, but less explicitly than,

Lilly:

I read into the narrative in that I have opinions about Fitzgerald. I don't think Fitzgerald intended for Nick to be romantic towards Gatsby. I actually do not think that at

Sara:

And that was, that was absolutely the impression that I got from the Forward, which was really not what I got from the text at all.

Krystle:

No, it, it, to me, Gatsby is like, from what Nick is saying, he's like, I hate this entire social class, but this one guy is all right. And, and, and in a way that like, I like hanging out with him and, and his desperation to find somebody else who loved Gatsby more at, at the last chapter, very clearly speaks of like, he, he's acknowledging that I'm not important. This relationship was not important enough for it to be the important relationship in this man's life. And he's so desperate to find somebody who, who, who liked Gaby more than he did, but he can't. And that's not because he loved Gatsby a lot, it's because Gatsby's life left him empty because nobody made deep connections with him

Lilly:

he respected the man and wanted someone to care about him and was upset.

Krystle:

he's he's aware that he doesn't care about him enough.

Lilly:

He was upset that he was the only one.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

And sure. Dad showed up, but even dad was kind of, uh, uh, syco. Not sycophant, but just

Krystle:

He had this idealized version, but he didn't know his son at all.

Lilly:

mm-hmm.

Krystle:

And also it's very clear that Gatsby had no relationship with his father or his mother or his parents. Like he, he's like, he sliced himself away from his family. Very deliberately.

Lilly:

But he took care of them, which I mean, good for him, but, okay. Out of our three more guilty characters,

Krystle:

I put

Sara:

which, who, who, who were those?

Lilly:

So we're talking about Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, and that is the order in which I think that they descend into Guiltiness Gatsby. Fuck boy.

Krystle:

yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck boy. But, but didn't wanna be is the problem.

Lilly:

He was trying so hard.

Krystle:

because, because the, the, the big conflict is him saying you never love Tom. And Daisy being like,

Lilly:

Of course I

Krystle:

the brakes, buddy. Pump, pump the brakes. I can't say that. And the way he just falls apart over it, instead of being, to being able to accept that at one moment she loved him.

Lilly:

this fantasy in his head and could never handle reality not matching

Krystle:

yeah.

Lilly:

which

Krystle:

Tom or Nick tells us he's gonna do that before it happens. So, but I mean, Tom has to be the number one most guilty by,

Lilly:

obviously

Krystle:

by the narrowest margin because Daisy literally killed somebody and didn't seem to care it.

Lilly:

I disagree. Okay.

Krystle:

Okay.

Lilly:

The

Sara:

We will hear your argument.

Lilly:

acknowledges her lack of agency as much power as Daisy has. She has no power over herself.

Sara:

She still, she still did not have to hit a person while she was driving.

Lilly:

yeah. No, she's guilty. She's on the guilty spectrum, but we're talking about levels of guiltiness.

Krystle:

yeah, I think it's like if you take out one instance out, I would've even put her near the bottom of the list of not guilty, except that she did, she handled that one thing so poorly that it's, it colors everything about her, if that makes sense.

Lilly:

I think we're supposed to understand that this has happened before. Not necessarily her killing someone, but Daisy and Tom are rich fucks who blaze through other people's lives doing whatever they

Sara:

have, they have fucked stuff up before

Lilly:

Yes.

Krystle:

Tom has, I don't know about Daisy

Sara:

I would, but

Krystle:

because they, they leave, they leave Chicago because Tom had so many affairs that they basically left that city in shame. But there nothing is said about Daisy having ever done anything wrong. And in fact, Tom is so shocked by the idea of her having an affair that he goes off the deep end. So it, like, it almost sounds like she is neutral.

Sara:

But counterpoint, like, could you not imagine a world where she has done a bunch of bad shit too? they're, they're so rich. Things don't like thing.

Krystle:

They're

Sara:

just does not Yeah. Things don't stick to them.

Lilly:

don't, we don't have to

Krystle:

we're not given anything that she is done

Lilly:

We don't have to imagine it. We know that Nick is a biased narrator and Nick loves Daisy.

Krystle:

That too. And Jordan is also biased, so we, we actually, there's no way to know what she has or hasn't done

Lilly:

I don't, I don't actually think she has had an affair before this, but I think she has

Sara:

she

Lilly:

an ass.

Sara:

she could have had an affair before this, and we just don't know.

Lilly:

it's more that we are, we are looking into this marriage and

Krystle:

everybody everybody in this book loves Daisy. Tom loves her in his really disgusting way. Gatsby loves her. So anytime he talks about her, she's wonderful. She's a nice girl, a nice girl. Jordan loves her in her own way and is trying to help her, but also not, and Nick likes her. Nick really likes her.

Sara:

Nick likes her.

Lilly:

Nick is absolutely in love with her. I mean, she calls him out at every stage

Krystle:

yeah, a couple of times. Yeah.

Lilly:

and they are second cousins. It's not that weird.

Sara:

still a little

Krystle:

they don't know each other very well. Well, it's less the cousins and more they don't know because it's like if they, if they grew up like as tight-knit family, then it would be weirder to me. But like, it was just like, oh, I happen to be living close to this cousin that I don't know very well. And then they're like, oh, like,'cause he never met her child and all of this other stuff. Speaking of, where's that fucking

Sara:

I don't know. I still, I still think it's a little weird, but

Krystle:

It's weird. It's weird on like a blood quantum level, but also like, they don't know each other, so if they yeah.

Lilly:

her jokes about like, you brought flowers to meet me. Oh no. You do love me. We're so funny. I actually really like Daisy. Is that my, like, deep confession of this episode? I really like Daisy.

Sara:

mean, she's not a bad person necessarily.

Krystle:

I, I stand by the fact that except that she handled the death of Myrtle badly. She never really does anything wrong in this book.

Sara:

I mean, she does kill Myrtle.

Lilly:

Does she?

Krystle:

that, well, that's what I mean.

Lilly:

She

Krystle:

It's not clear. It's not clear if that was an accident or if it was on purpose. Which

Sara:

but it doesn't, doesn't matter if it's an accident

Krystle:

It does matter. if it was an, if it was an accident, she was driving recklessly and some person happened to get in her way

Sara:

but the end result is

Krystle:

because she was, because she was driving recklessly. So the crime there is driving recklessly and leaving the scene, which fits her social class being reckless and causing somebody else a problem and leaving. And yes, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say that's bad. I'm not trying to defend that, but there's a question in my head,

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

right? She, the crime is driving recklessly, it's reckless manslaughter. Right? The question in my head is, does she know what her husband's mistress looks like? And did she see her coming and did she hit her on purpose? If I remember correctly, the movie makes it look like she did it on purpose. But

Sara:

So

Krystle:

fresher

Sara:

as, as someone who has only read the books or book, you know, singular, there's, there's not multiple

Lilly:

The barely book even.

Sara:

Yeah. The, the novella, I've not watched the movies. I didn't get the impression that it was something that was premeditated and that she did because she knew what she was doing.

Krystle:

Yeah. So reckless manslaughter

Sara:

I do, I do think that it was just, she hit, someone didn't realize who, who she was hitting and ditched, which is a terrible

Krystle:

Which is terrible. Absolutely.

Sara:

Like, I'm not,

Lilly:

It's even more tragic because Myrtle was trying to implore Tom for help because she was being kidnapped by her

Krystle:

By her husband.

Lilly:

yeah. And this is why Myrtle is

Sara:

yeah. But, but I also don't think, like,

Krystle:

well, but it's also why to me, Tom is way more culpable to than Daisy ever is because it's like, but for that one tragic moment, she hasn't in the narrative done anything wrong. And Tom caused all of these dominoes,

Sara:

Yeah.

Krystle:

And so it, it sucks that she was driving very recklessly. And it sucks that she left the scene of an accident. And those are indicative of her social status I think of like, somebody else will take care of this and that sucks. I'm not, I'm not saying it doesn't, but were it not for Tom setting all this up, none of this would've happened. And, and Daisy, even Daisy's bad choice is she's still a victim of Tom

Lilly:

But that

Krystle:

in that domino line.

Lilly:

that is exactly what this book is setting up, is that Daisy gets to fuck up and her rich ass husband is going to fix it every

Krystle:

card and she knows it. So she knows it and it's clear that she knows it, that he's gonna take care of it.

Sara:

Yeah. It doesn't

Lilly:

was never gonna leave. He was, she was never gonna leave Tom

Sara:

she wasn't. She was never gonna leave. Tom.

Lilly:

and Gatsby.

Krystle:

to have an affair like he did, which like, literally fair.

Lilly:

Yeah. And then Gatsby pushed too hard

Krystle:

Yeah. She says it. You ask for too much.

Lilly:

Yeah. And Nick says it. Everyone says it. You're asking for too much. I think even Jordan says it. Everyone says it like, dude, this isn't affair. What are you doing? Ugh.

Krystle:

Yeah. Oh, you want too much? She cried to Gasby. I love you now. Isn't that enough? And then he has like this little baby tantrum and it's

Sara:

all of these people are shitty people. Why do I care about them? I hate them all.

Lilly:

Looping back

Krystle:

Because the pros, Sarah, because

Sara:

No, I still hate them all.

Lilly:

beautiful.

Krystle:

the human experience too of like, it's so believable. Like the level of opulence that they hit. Of course, they're fucking un hinge. Like there's nothing

Sara:

It's

Krystle:

to reality. Yes. It's

Sara:

who has to, who has to deal with this of, I mean, like, yes, yes, it is believable, but I

Lilly:

Yeah. If you, if you are that rich, yeah. Yeah. That's a thing, right? Like who At that time, Fitzgerald was criticizing a class of people who were kind of considered gods.

Krystle:

Well, they're in New York, right? So there's like these all, there's these hints of the Roosevelts in the text. So he is talking about the political class specifically in a way,

Sara:

yeah, like he, he's doing really interesting political cri criticism and the fact that I hate this

Krystle:

and social criticism

Sara:

and social criticism and the fact that I hate this book doesn't detract from that. I just,

Krystle:

also the people suck.

Lilly:

And it's beautiful though. Like, think about it. Let's, let's drag them down to our level. You are just as trashy as us and how dare you pretend

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

And he said that at the time, it, this was not a retrospective book.

Sara:

I just, but I hate them all. just fucking, I just fucking hate them all. Sure,

Lilly:

Hey,

Sara:

I'm, I,

Lilly:

these glorious people? You should hate them for

Sara:

I am experiencing this.

Krystle:

yeah, it's, it's the, the ability to derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from hating them that Sarah lacks.'cause she's a better person than we are.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Well, I don't know about that,

Lilly:

Oh, well we won't

Krystle:

it Sarah. Take it. Take the compliment.

Lilly:

maybe Carrie, and I'll do tenders the night without you.

Sara:

Yeah. Okay. You, you two can do it without me. That's fine. That's fine.

Krystle:

I actually, I would from the, from just the line that you said up at the top, it's like deal

Sara:

The hor, the horrible thing is that I would do it for the podcast. I'd hate all of it.

Lilly:

I mean, let's consider for a

Krystle:

the

Sara:

The content. Yeah.

Lilly:

Fitzgerald was a young man trying to fit into this culture, and Zelda was this alcoholic, unhinged woman, and they just

Krystle:

Well,

Sara:

no, no, no, no. But listen, listen to

Krystle:

in this house.

Sara:

to me. What you can consider is there is a fan fiction called Tender is Our Night that I would, that I enjoy, and that would be what I think about every time we read the book.

Lilly:

Fair also that was, that was from Fitzgerald's perspective, I should say. Like obviously Zelda has been much maligned because everything we know about her, or at least the common knowledge, is through Fitzgerald's perspective, which is very biased.

Sara:

Obviously

Krystle:

the very important discussion of Zelda though, on the topic of Zelda. There's a, an Amazon Prime like series just called Zelda, and it's got Christina Ricci as Zelda. It's really, it's really good. It's like better than it has any rate to be. And my, my small beef with Amazon is that it was canceled after the first season. Like that was like, I think it was, I, I think I watched that several years ago before I read Gatsby.

Sara:

Okay, but Amazon just fucking cancel stuff. I'm,

Krystle:

it's, it's kind of what they do.

Sara:

Still not over their cancellation of wheel of time.

Lilly:

Really, that's what you're complaining about

Sara:

Yes. That's what I'm complaining about. That is what I'm complaining

Krystle:

it's her fandom. She's allowed, but

Sara:

It's not my fandom, it's my friend's fandom. But

Krystle:

it's no, I'm mad about Zel with god damn it, it's told from Zelda's point of view. so it's, it's definitely.

Lilly:

I think that's a really good thing to bring up because everything that we see is through Fitzgerald's perspective, and his perspective is as, as you rightly called me out, is like my wife is unhinged and we see that in Tender is the night

Krystle:

motherfucker? What did you do?

Lilly:

Yeah. A, a therapist who marries his patient and it's so clearly biased

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah. And exactly. And, and so I don't know what their source

Lilly:

so much of his shit too,

Krystle:

Yeah. Like he took it out of her letters to him, like she was writing letters to him while he was away, and he took lines, like literally, according to the show, he took lines literally from her letters and stuff. And so that's why, um, save the Waltz was like hers and she took it back from him, but it didn't do as well as any of his stuff because he'd already slander her or whatever. And so where Zelda stands in this, in this house and I really liked the show. Like if, if you're into the, the 1920s vibe, I would absolutely recommend the show. I have no idea what their source material is. I don't know how accurate it is. Like just the disclaimer, it, it's still a show. It might be a hundred percent fiction, but it was really good. And it was an interesting conversation with the time of how women were treated and what they were expected to do and how that might impact their mental health. So it was, it was a good show.

Lilly:

But then you think

Krystle:

I now I don't remember. Yeah. And so da, I see Daisy through that similar lens of like,

Lilly:

As you absolutely should, because Fitzgerald is so autobiographical. Daisy is definitely his version of Zelda. And if you think about like,

Krystle:

literally.'cause it's like she's the southern bell that the, that he marries or that Gaby falls in love with while he's a penniless soldier. It's like, that's pretty well word for word. So all of these things of like, these are her flaws. If you see that through the lens of she's a victim of the men in her life, then it, I, I become a lot more forgiving of her shittiness. Although with the total caveat that it's like money, people with money get to be more shitty in a way that it's like, that sucks. Fuck you.

Lilly:

That is why I have Gatsby above Daisy as far as the okay. So I, I think we're talking about it in different directions. I think Gatsby is less guilty than Daisy Gatsby

Krystle:

you know what? I

Lilly:

is. He's

Krystle:

his weird possessiveness, his weird possessiveness over her of like, she's mine and I just have to show her. Probably doesn't help her at all.

Lilly:

But

Krystle:

I think you're right.

Lilly:

He,

Krystle:

These two men fighting over her drives her off the edge.

Lilly:

he's more self-destructive than anything,

Krystle:

Guilty on a crime level

Lilly:

Okay. Shitty, less shitty. It, it's all vague. He's

Krystle:

The, the word guilty. Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. No. Obviously he does more crime,

Sara:

So much crime.

Krystle:

Well, but that, that almost doesn't count. Like, just on the narrative perspective of who contributed to this awful situation most.

Lilly:

exactly. And that's so guilty in a personal sense. Who fucked this up more? Gatsby. So his issues were, in my opinion, mostly self-sabotaging. He becomes obsessed with this

Krystle:

But also really selfish.

Lilly:

Oh,

Krystle:

I don't think it's exclusively self-sabotaging. I think it's super selfish of him to like decide that you never loved him is such a strong statement. And it's so delusional, like to, to never allow the possibility that this woman that you haven't seen for five years has a mind of his own. Of her own is like, buddy easy. Poke the brakes for a sec.

Lilly:

I loved that moment where Tom was like, you've been together for five years. And Gatsby said, no. Like, we just got back together recently. And that was the moment, that was the moment where Tom was like, oh, okay. This is fine. I got this.

Krystle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can go in the car with him, darling.

Lilly:

am, I am not threatened anymore.

Krystle:

Yeah. Uh,

Lilly:

But Gatsby lives his entire life to attain a version of himself that includes this one woman. And it doesn't, it does not pan out, obviously.

Krystle:

And the narrative tells us that it's not gonna pan out. I found it earlier when I was flipping through, but like there's this moment where Nick sees it in Gatsby's eyes that it's like, this isn't, this isn't. Clicking into place as well as I thought it was going to. And

Lilly:

Mm-hmm.

Krystle:

it's such a huge moment of foreshadowing, like, you've over dreamed her, I think is what he says. I can't find it now.

Lilly:

He, he has created a version of Daisy in his head.

Krystle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it doesn't survive meeting her for the first time, I don't think. Or is it the second time?

Lilly:

And I think that's what Tom, well, not even, because they, they have an affair. And Gatsby is happy with this version of Daisy that is excited for the fantasy,

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

she's never gonna leave her husband for him.

Krystle:

yeah. I would almost put Gatsby and Tom over Daisy of Shittiness and guilt. Yeah. Even though I like Gatsby as a character, I feel like them fighting over her is, is so gross. And so like you, you're, you're telling us, you're telling yourself and you're telling us that you love her, but the way he can't even allow for her to have a life in those five years tells me really quickly what kind of partner he would be. Even if she does leave, like the car accident doesn't happen. She leaves Tom for Gatsby the way he's jealous over a five year span that he wasn't even with her, tells me he's gonna be a shit husband anyway. He's gonna be jealous of every single guy that she makes eye contact with from now on. And so it's like, you're also a piece of shit, my friend. Let like

Lilly:

Yeah.

Krystle:

get off your little high horse here. Tom sucks, but you suck too. And.

Lilly:

Isn't that the moment in, in the confrontation between Gatsby and Tom, where Daisy goes, oh, no, I I thought I had to like, even if she was never gonna make the choice, she still thought they were

Krystle:

She still had the hope of like an affair that she was gonna go on, just like Tom's affair go on and on. And she was like, I can't even pull a decent guy. What is this shit? I'm fucking done with

Lilly:

And turns out he's just as

Krystle:

Sarah, dear listeners, Sarah just rolled her eyes so much. It was delicious.

Sara:

I just think that like, my God, no.

Lilly:

Okay. Here

Krystle:

They suck.

Lilly:

here

Sara:

suck. They suck so bad.

Lilly:

here is my defensive daisy.

Sara:

She doesn't deserve it.

Lilly:

She is the worst. First of all, we agree. She is the worst. Yes. But she has no agency. And in that way it is sympathetic, if you

Krystle:

Even, Even, Tom sending her and Gatsby off in Gatsby's car, she didn't have any choice.

Lilly:

no,

Krystle:

She, she, she still drove like a fucking maniac for no reason, but

Lilly:

her life has been orchestrated by other people in a way that I think is maybe more understood by the era. I have to argue.

Krystle:

yeah. Of like the, the chattel property.

Lilly:

yeah. That's, that's not an experience that I have, choosing my spouse and who I date.

Krystle:

Yeah.

Lilly:

And so while she sucks, and I'm not gonna argue that she does not suck, there is the line. I mean, it's, it's the line that everyone pulls on, but she found out that her child is a daughter and she wishes

Krystle:

yeah. And

Lilly:

is a beautiful

Krystle:

she's a fool. cause it's the only way to be. Okay.

Lilly:

yeah. And I think that is the moment where you think Daisy knows more than she really lets on, because how could she live as a smart person in her situation?

Krystle:

Oh, well she knows about Tom's affair too. Like there's a fight, there's an almost fight during those phone calls'cause she knows who's calling.

Lilly:

And, and it's, if, if she didn't do everything else, it would be heartbreaking.

Krystle:

Yeah. But also she's an asshole on top of it

Lilly:

She's also an entitled rich bitch. So I don't feel that bad for her. But her life is hard in the sense that Tom started cheating on her. They said after they got back from their honeymoon. Three months. Three months after

Krystle:

that the line? It almost immediately? Yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah. Or at least that's when it was first exposed.

Krystle:

Yeah. He just never stopped, basically.

Lilly:

So I mean, she's not living the ideal life. It might be cushy, but it's not ideal. And that is why I think she is less shitty than Tom.

Krystle:

Oh, absolutely. I would. I

Lilly:

shitty.

Krystle:

Tom is most shitty. And then Gatsby and then Daisy, and then the Little Chaos Tree of Wilson. Or not Wilson, Jordan, Nick and Myrtle are kind of like clustered together as these victim, half participant of this train wreck. And then. Our unsung hero the best man. I wanna sit on his porch with him and just people watch and, and we'll just, we'll have a little bottle of whiskey and it's gonna be fine.

Lilly:

The thing is,

Krystle:

He can forget

Lilly:

with him. They like people watching together. It would be lovely.

Krystle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lilly:

Has anyone written Mr. Wilson, Nick fan fiction? Probably. I

Krystle:

I am gonna,

Lilly:

Sarah, you look like you have an opinion and I would love to hear it.

Sara:

I don't have an opinion. I just wanna go to bed.

Lilly:

Alright, fair enough. Well.

Krystle:

you don't have an opinion, you just have whiskey.

Sara:

Yeah, basically

Lilly:

Tom is the worst, and we can all agree on

Sara:

we we do agree on that.

Lilly:

Well, Kay, thank you so much for joining us. This has been my favorite conversation.

Sara:

is, it, it is always it is always a delight to have you on the podcast.

Krystle:

I gotta, I gotta invite myself on more. We're

Sara:

Yes, yes, you do.

Lilly:

yeah.

Sara:

You are always,

Krystle:

on for the watch party. I

Sara:

you are always welcome to invite yourself onto the podcast, like genuinely we love having you on

Krystle:

One day I'll find a book that you and I both like

Sara:

it. Sure, it might happen one day, but until then, you're still welcome all of the time.

Lilly:

speaking of where can our listeners find you on the internet and what are you up to right now?

Sara:

Yeah,

Krystle:

What am I up to?

Sara:

Nice segue.

Krystle:

I am, I'm obviously working on Book three Legacy of Ash Stone. I'm also working on the really gorgeous deluxe edition of Bright

Sara:

You had a very successful Kickstarter.

Krystle:

yeah, I did, I I was so, I was so blown away by the reception for it that like, I'm still a little bit shell shocked. Like, I cannot believe this many

Sara:

I supported you

Krystle:

and I'm so grateful. Yeah, I know. And, and I'm so grateful. And also the art is gonna be so bananas.

Sara:

also. You owe me, You owe me, books because I have paid, paid for books.

Krystle:

That's why I said I have to send you, so, so that's in the works. It's still like if you didn't back, the kickstart of the pledge box is still open. You can buy a copy of the books or the art or whatever.

Sara:

it looks like it's just absolutely beautiful.

Krystle:

Jeff brown is doing a custom cityscape. Jack Shepherd is doing a custom map and Zoe Badini of Alchemy of Saara was doing like all the character portraits and I'm so astounded by my ability to work with these people, like, they're so good. And it's like, how did I get here?

Sara:

It's almost like you're a really talented author in and in and of yourself.

Krystle:

do not consent.

Lilly:

illegal.

Sara:

I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I'm sorry.

Krystle:

Yeah. So, but then also as I discussed with this episode, I'm working on like this really freaky prohibition era gangster novel. where

Sara:

gonna be really cool.

Krystle:

the magic is filled by psychedelic mushrooms.

Sara:

It's gonna be really cool.

Lilly:

know I'm here for that shit. I'm, I'm so ready. Oh boy.

Krystle:

for it. And also there's dragons. So like, every time I pitch this novel, everybody, everybody just lights up and it's like, man, I gotta fucking write it.

Sara:

We're so here for it.

Krystle:

someday, someday it'll be done and ready. I'm really excited for it. what else? So mostly, fortunately, my name is unique enough that if you go to any social platform and type in Krystle Matar, you'll find me. And if you find somebody else, they deserve a medal. so, that's Instagram threads, blue sky, mostly that, and I do the dripping bucket with Michael R. Fletcher. We're on hiatus at the moment, but hopefully we'll be back after summer's over and the kids are back in school. So, that's it. I got it. I got everything.

Lilly:

Well, we'll link to all of that in the description and thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute blessed.

Sara:

We love to have you on. We don't have you on often enough. It's always a light.

Krystle:

I mean, you know, I feel very welcomed by the fact that even non-confrontational Sarah is like, it's okay, we can disagree on a book. Just come back.

Sara:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Lilly:

Come disagree with us! We're on BlueSky and Instagram at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com or leave a comment on YouTube.

Sara:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

We also have a Patreon, where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Sara:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!