Old Books, New Readers discussion

Hello everyone!

This week's reading is about, Book 2: Chapters 1-12

Feel free to post your thoughts here.

So now we know what's up with Nicole. With this knowledge, I'm intrigued to see what the presence of Rosemary is going to do to the Divers' relationship. Cheating never leads to anything good, but in this case, the consequences could be even more disastrous!

I must say Fitzgerald did an excellent job of painting how a person with Schizophrenia actually talks. I actually teach a college Psych class and I picked up the book again during lunch break right after having just given a lecture of Schizophrenia, and that's when I got to the part where Nicole's letters to Dick are. It was a neat coincidence.

Michelle, I agree F. Scott paints a clear picture of schizophrenia....he had experience first hand with Zelda Sayre, his wife. She died in an "asylum." The death was rather cruel, in that the facility caught fire and she was not able to escape....she was locked in a room awaiting ECT.

John wrote: "Michelle, I agree F. Scott paints a clear picture of schizophrenia....he had experience first hand with Zelda Sayre, his wife. She died in an "asylum." The death was rather cruel, in that the facil..."

what a tragic way to die :(

I cannot make sense of this

""on the sauve model that heels the Republican party in the border States"

I looked this up first time I read the book (before google returned a bunch of presidential race articles) and still couldn't make any sense on this statement.




PS. First time I picked up this book I put it down around here... I feel like I need to start a third time cause I am lost on this Schizophrenia link.. spoiler alerts?

I haven't finished this section yet, but I found it interesting when Dick compared Nicole's look as "...reminiscent of the frame of a promising colt...". Personally, I consider that an insult. Don't get me wrong, horses are beautiful animals, but to say a person looks like a horse isn't a good thing. :O I guess in Fitzgerald's time it was a good thing.

I didn't have much sense of what was going on in book two until (view spoiler)[we learned about Nicole's relationship with her father, with the back drop of Dick's work and the constant theme of Freud (hide spoiler)]

That was really an aha moment that brought everything together for me. Particularly the way I was educated about (view spoiler)[ Freud was by stefan molyneux who points out the conspiracy that changed Freud's work.. I'll try to link back his content to this later, but in short, Freud was discovering that the patients he was working with were abused by their parents, the parents didn't like the accusations and pressured for alternate readings, which is why eventually Freud changed his opinion to one of 'oh they can't all be abused they must be imagining it... and they're imagining it because they really have Oedipus desires over their parents.' (hide spoiler)]

I don't want to get too off topic (as much as I could rant about peaceful parenting) but had to point out how interesting it is to see that developed through this little window in time.

It is really shocking to see in such a popular novel how the doctor just ignores the patients trauma or working towards fixing it in favor of pedophile.. what's even worse is realizing these imaginary solutions to ignored problem became the foundation we continue to build on.

Hmmm... Frederick, that was definitely interesting. I've never studied Freud. The only psychology class I took was biologically based (we studied the brain and all the different chemicals that make it work and what happens when the chemicals are unbalanced). I wonder if Fitzgerald was commenting about parenting. See, I was gonna comment on something Fitzgerald said in chapter 11, about Rosemary's mom. After reading your comment, it also could be taken as a commentary on parenting. :)

I found this quote very interesting...

"Women are necessarily capable of almost anything in their struggle for survival and can scarcely be convicted of such manmade crimes as 'cruelty.' So long as the shuffle of love and pain went within proper walls Mrs. Speers could view it with as much detachment and humor as a eunuch. She had not even allowed for the possibility of Rosemary's being damaged-or was she certain that she couldn't be?"

The first sentence was what originally caught my attention. It's so untrue! Women are definitely capable of cruelty, just as much as men are. The next sentences seem to point to Mrs. Speers being a detached type of parent...not really caring if Rosemary is hurt in an affair with a married man. Just as another lesson in life, or something like that.

Maybe I'm reading more into it than was meant... ;) :)

I had to go back over that line a couple times too.

Without getting too deep into gender traits this is a very unique time in women's history. Nicole has been brought up in a different world from her mom.

1920 women get the vote around the time the events in this book start. She could be projecting a lot onto her daughter. Since they are of fine wealth that has never been a restriction but here it seems like she is exploring all the possibilities for her daughter.

I think a stronger influence on the scene is how men are associated with the independent lone wolf type.

Men would rather be independent along the lines of building up their wealth while not burning bridges to the community where as women are maternally drawn to a group for protection, they both do not wish to risk ostracism so the women exerts her influence over the group where she is more capable and men tend towards exploring and producing more being less risk averse.

Basically men are hunter women are gatherers?
It takes a village?

This is like how women(and Liberals) in politics operate it seems that cold assessment of detachment is in line with the current thinking of well lets hope the ends justify our means.

It is very ironic though how claiming to be incapable of "mamade" crimes of cruelty she portrays that onto her daughter. There is probably a connection to be made about projecting and criminal psychology I can't link right now.

There was a lot going on for and with women around this time there was Murderesses Row and that society I had mentioned earlier.

Murderesses Row is what I thought of when I saw that quote Nicole mentioned: Women are necessarily capable of almost anything in their struggle for survival and can scarcely be convicted of such manmade crimes as 'cruelty.'

Advances/Rebellion for and by Women in the 20s here: http://www.american-historama.org/191...

Luella, thanks for the historama link.....interesting.

Kimberly wrote: "I haven't finished this section yet, but I found it interesting when Dick compared Nicole's look as "...reminiscent of the frame of a promising colt...". Personally, I consider that an insult..."

Nicole's family's wealth was from horse trading, so maybe there's a parallel there.

Another interesting parallel is that Nicole and her father had an abusive relationship, and Rosemary's jump to stardom was a movie called "Daddy's Girl". Sparknotes says this in the summary when the group see the movie together, "Everyone enjoys it, despite--or perhaps because of--the frank suggestion of sexuality between Rosemary's character and the father." Kinda creepy.

Daniel wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "I haven't finished this section yet, but I found it interesting when Dick compared Nicole's look as "...reminiscent of the frame of a promising colt...". Personally, I consider tha..."

Ew I missed that...

Luella wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "I haven't finished this section yet, but I found it interesting when Dick compared Nicole's look as "...reminiscent of the frame of a promising colt...". Personally,..."

Sorry ladies but it seems that has hardly gone out of style. I could pull a whole list of Top 40 songs from the past few years that praise a large derriere reminiscent of the frame of a promising colt.