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So We Read On How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures Maureen Corrigan 9780316230070 Books

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So We Read On How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures Maureen Corrigan 9780316230070 Books

Wonderful work! It made me review Gatsby yet again. While I disagree with some of her conclusions (Welcome to America! I like the Catholic school's assesment, being a Catholic schoolteacher myself), I found her insights into Fitzgerald's life and its effect upon his reading to be enjoyable and insightful. Very glad I purchased this! I will use it many times in the future while teaching my students.


Tags : So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures [Maureen Corrigan] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div><b>Named an Editors Choice by The New York Times and a Best Book of 2014 by Library Journal,Maureen Corrigan,So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures,Little, Brown and Company,0316230073,American - General,Books & Reading,LITERARY CRITICISM American General.,LITERARY CRITICISM Ancient & Classical.,LITERARY CRITICISM Books & Reading.,Ancient and Classical,BOOKS AND READING,FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT (FRANCIS Scott), 1896-1940,GENERAL,General Adult,LITERARY CRITICISM American General,LITERARY CRITICISM Ancient & Classical,LITERARY CRITICISM Books & Reading,Literary Criticism,Literary CriticismAmerican - General,Literary CriticismAncient and Classical,Literary studies: classical, early & medieval,Literature - Classics Criticism,Literature - Criticism,Non-Fiction,United States,bisacsh

So We Read On How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures Maureen Corrigan 9780316230070 Books Reviews

Fascinated as I am by all things Gatsby, Maureen Corrigan's SO WE READ ON was a captivating, insightful and promissory read for the first four of its six chapters. And then something happened in the final two chapters that ground the wonderful read to a virtual standstill. One could liken the first four chapters of the book to the Titanic - reading them was like taking a voluptuous voyage - and then the final chapters become tantamount to the collision with the iceberg. The voyage into the world of Fitzgerald and his masterpiece virtually end and give way, instead, to endless minutiae about the authoress' old schools and teachers and the history of the Armed Services Editions and needless details of her and Abby's adventures in the Library of Congress and then there is a laundry list of books and sources no more thrilling to wade through than the list of revelers and party-guests detailed in the most skipped-over passage in Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY. It is tragic, this sudden halt to the pleasurable proceedings. SO WE READ ON is a very good book that, sadly, doesn't make it to its final destination.

I said earlier that the book was a promissory read. But just as Gatsby's dream did not come to fruition in the end, so to did a number of topics Maureen Corrigan hinted at in her text fail to materialize. Many times mentioned are the Gatsby films and a Gatsby ballet. But other than some detail with regards to the Alan Ladd version, nothing of substance whatsoever is developed regarding the Redford and DiCaprio versions - and there's not even a whisper about the 2000 A&E version. The wonder of it all is...why is there no discussion of any substance with regards to the cinematic Gatsby? The movies - most assuredly the Redford and DiCaprio versions - have had a powerful impact on the endurance of THE GREAT GATSBY. Just as the novel has had a great impact on cinema as well. One example, not mentioned in this book, would be Gatsby's 'green light' which surely shed some of its illumination on Charles Foster Kane's Rosebud. So given that "Why It Endures" is part of this book's subtitle, I'd much rather have read some analysis from Maureen Corrigan as to how film adds to that endurance rather than, for example, the overly detailed history of the ASE. Likewise with the often-mentioned but never discussed ballet. I really did not want to have to google it - but since, for whatever reason, nothing of it was to be found in this book, I did, indeed, resort to google.

SO WE READ ON is definitely a rewarding and worthwhile read. But be forewarned iceberg ahead! "So we beat on..."
My book group read this in conjunction with The Great Gatsby. Corrigan's enthusiasm for her topic comes across the pages, leading me to imagine that she is a wonderful lecturer. The numerous details, history, and explanations of TGG enrich and enlighten readers of TGG. I would recommend this book to anyone reading TGG. However, Corrigan failed to convince myself or my friends that TGG is deserving of its acclaim. Clearly, she is a Gatsby groupie but her enthusiasm remains puzzling.
What are best about the book are the author's authentic and moderately humorous voice and her unstoppable enthusiasm for her subject. Add to that a well-honed literary style, a zest for a good story, and a fascinating set of historical facts about one of America's favorite books, and it is hard to miss. I was so enthusiastic about it that I made an effort to meet the author and tell her this in person.
As an English teacher and as a long-time fan of Fitzgerald, I enjoyed and appreciated both Corrigan's very accessible scholarship/criticism and her more personal observations and experiences. What was presented and considered was sometimes new and exciting to me (such as Sylvia Plath's copy of Gatsby at the University of South Carolina), some was old----facts that any Fitz fan would already know (such as her mention of the "Gatsby cluster") and people in the author's life with whom we are all familiar Max Perkins, Edmund Wilson, Ring Lardner, Sheila Graham and "frenemy" Ernest Hemingway. And I am not nearly so surprised as Corrigan about the absence of Fitzgerald's literary canon on many college and university syllabi. James Joyce and William Faulkner and Herman Melville still get their own seminar courses because they were, in my opinion, better and deeper writers. How can one compare The Great Gatsby to Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury and Moby-Dick? Beyond this, I found myself in alignment with much of what Corrigan said.

I'll have to admit, though, that I was initially put off by Corrigan's intrusiveness (in the form of her own little journeys as a "literary voyeur." I felt like skipping pages of the book here and there. She continually inserts herself into the text and discusses her trips to the Library of Congress and to her old high school in Queens, and she tells us of her having lunch with some people who are of little interest to us. And yet, ultimately, this is what I most appreciated by the time I was finished with her book----which is neither literary criticism in the traditional sense nor autobiography/essay. Let's face it, we all get tired of the same approach to Fitzgerald. We get tired of the same repeated facts about the author's life, his work and his marriage to Zelda. I liked Corrigan's book because it's so personal and because it so lovingly appreciates what Fitzgerald tried so valiantly to be and to become---and because it reveals a love of the English language that all English teachers carry with them---a deep appreciation of the written (and spoken) word, including the way Fitzgerald appreciated it, working and re-working his text tirelessly and painstakingly. Corrigan is absolutely right some of us will never fail to be profoundly impacted by the phrases and images of The Great Gatsby---yes, and those final five pages!
Not to mention some of the responses to the novel that every English teacher has probably heard, including the one about Gatsby being a stalker!

In short, this is not a difficult read. It's not complicated or complex or even very deep. But it is very informative and entertaining---and its heart is definitely in the right place. Corrigan certainly admires the novel's beauty and its lyricism, but she does not neglect the very important core idea that the book is really about the reality of class in America---and that it condemns---not celebrates--- mass consumerism.
Now I must read The Great Gatsby again, more than once if Maureen Corrigan is to be believed. And she does make a compelling case. Is it the perfect, best ever novel? I liked it a lot the twice I read it, but did not rate it that highly. However this is one of Corrigan's major points no one appreciates it fully on first or even second reading. The very beauty and accessibility of Fitzgeralds prose can fill the reader's vision, excluding attention to the structural elements and layers of symbolism that Corrigan so elegantly lays out.
Wonderful work! It made me review Gatsby yet again. While I disagree with some of her conclusions (Welcome to America! I like the Catholic school's assesment, being a Catholic schoolteacher myself), I found her insights into Fitzgerald's life and its effect upon his reading to be enjoyable and insightful. Very glad I purchased this! I will use it many times in the future while teaching my students.