第二遍看这本书，读的是英文版，没看过中文版，因此直接感受到的是作者的文笔。我喜欢的不仅是菲茨杰拉德优美的文字，还有字里行间看似“轻描淡写”的直叙。这种叙述看似理性，但又被某种情愫裹挟，既带有与现实的抽离感，又带有在洪流中不得不前进的无奈感。
这种似进似退的模糊，恰是我喜欢的朦胧。而在文学作品中要表现朦胧，其实非常考验作者的功力——要么因为模棱两可而受到读者攻击，要么因为氛围烘托得太好而受到好评。我想菲茨杰拉德一定是后者。
《了不起的盖茨比》背景是在美国，尽管大萧条前的美国对我来说太遥远，仅凭文字我想象不出那时的人有多浮躁，也想象不出享乐主义究竟有多夸张。但将近100年后的今天，生活在一个发展很快的城市中的平凡的我，却能理解当时的环境。因为我也时常和Nick一样，保持着与现实看似亲近（能融于日常的人事物），又保持着有隔阂（不愿意被别人影响）的心理距离。
大概因为我也是平凡的一个人，所以才有和书中平凡的Nick的心境共鸣。然而也因为Gatsby、Daisy、Tom、Jordan等一干人物，不仅代表了当时年代的主流人格，也能穿越时代来到每个时代，他们可能存在于任何时期、任何有人类存在的时期。所以，小说中任何人物的喜怒哀乐，也可能出现在当代小说，更甚至出现于当代人的生活中。
自我反问与观照是必要的。文学作品若是能给满足这两点，便是好的作品，我觉得《了不起的盖茨比》这本书在反问和关照上给我的启示是巨大的。
而极力推荐本书的村上春树，也因喜爱而将其翻译为日本版，可见其喜爱程度。我想，除了喜爱菲茨杰拉德的文笔之外，村上春树或许对书中的某些角色和心境也有所共鸣，才能痴迷到如此地步吧。这种迷恋或许在很多年后还能存在。
第一遍读完全书总觉得很伤感，因为当时看到的是：人的出生和死亡无法选择。第二遍读的时候我想到的是：总有一些人有选择的勇气，也总有一些人能达成选择后的结果。
我相信人是可以改变的，也可以通过阅读来启发自己。
【部分摘录】
I began to like New York ,the racy,adventurous feel of it at night ,and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corner of hidden streets,and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes , and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk,wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
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.
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