The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Finally started and finished reading what seemed ridiculously boring and laden with excessive descriptive words that is The Great Gatsby during the days in India, only because the nights there were more boring than the book. It doesn't help that the poor reader in me couldn't see what was great at all about Gatsby at the end of the novel. That is, until I read the introduction written by Tony Tanner, whoever he is. 

And yea, The Great Gatsby was great. (Damn I hate the word 'great' now, the way Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye hates the word 'grand'.) The fact that the entire story is narrated by yet another character, the deliberate reduction of direct speech given to Gatsby, the way Nick Carraway dismisses the shady truth of Jay Gatsby - damn the book was genius. All those excessive descriptions I hated were genius. Particularly loved this:

"'If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,' said Gatsby. 'You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock.' 

Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to him, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted things had diminished by one.” 

Other parts I liked: 

"He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes too, he stared at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real." 

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I do regret not having read it earlier.

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Stumbled onto these videos by John Green by chance after I came home. Yes, more second-hand analysis was helpful for me to see how great the book was.

On a separate note, HOW AWESOME IS THIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL? Why have I never known about it before! Damn I could have used all those information that is presented in the most interesting way with amazing graphics for perhaps GP. Perhaps. I'm psyched about the next episode on The Catcher in the Rye already, mostly because it happens to be a book among the very few books I have ever read.