Interesting to consider why it's always on the list - I always loved this book but I can't place exactly why beyond maybe we're taught to love it and at that age you believe it. Would be interesting to revisit it now and see if it holds up for me. It's so surface-oriented it makes for beautifully sheened movies. I think the teens might connect with the tangential outsider status of the narrator (and even Gatsby), and there's some ready-made symbols for the kids to endlessly play with: like The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, forever burned on my brain.
It sounds like you got more out of it than I did at that age! I wonder if it also had something to do with growing up in Colorado -- New York City and Long Island might as well have been a foreign country for me. I'm really glad a re-read it now with a lot more reading and writing under my belt. If nothing else writers should study it as an example of how a deliberate use of point of view and certain narrative techniques can drive the effect they're trying to achieve.
Interesting to consider why it's always on the list - I always loved this book but I can't place exactly why beyond maybe we're taught to love it and at that age you believe it. Would be interesting to revisit it now and see if it holds up for me. It's so surface-oriented it makes for beautifully sheened movies. I think the teens might connect with the tangential outsider status of the narrator (and even Gatsby), and there's some ready-made symbols for the kids to endlessly play with: like The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, forever burned on my brain.
It sounds like you got more out of it than I did at that age! I wonder if it also had something to do with growing up in Colorado -- New York City and Long Island might as well have been a foreign country for me. I'm really glad a re-read it now with a lot more reading and writing under my belt. If nothing else writers should study it as an example of how a deliberate use of point of view and certain narrative techniques can drive the effect they're trying to achieve.