In a journal for another class (Spirituality for Church Leaders) I once wrote that you don't have to publish anything, write continuously, or even write a lot to be a writer. To be a writer means that you see the world in words, and most importantly, when something happens in the world that you need to process, you write about it. Because you need to write, you can't understand it until you do, not in its full form.
Infomercial for Whit's class: Sometimes different things are highlighted the more you write about or talk about an experience, you remember things, or at certain details become more or less important. You may choose to leave things out or alter things depending on your audience. Perhaps you are not writing for a particular audience at all, but are simply writing for yourself. You might leave things out of your narrative in order to protect yourself from whatever they symbolize or evoke.
Therefore I don't think Nick is lying as the narrator. In some sense, I don't even think he knows he's a narrator. Fitzgerald is writing stories for an audience, but Nick doesn't claim to be an author. He initially set out to be one, but then he changed his mind and went into bonds, retaining the nickname "Shakespeare ".
My reading is more than likely informed by the recent film adaptation of the book. In the movie, we meet Nick in a sanatorium, where he is encouraged by his doctors to use his writing talent to write about whatever he wants. However, by being given a view of the doctor's notes via cinematic conventions, (which state that Nick is morbidly alcoholic, clinically depressed, anxious, and has fits of anger) we are led to believe that this is probably a therapeutic tool.
In writing about this experience of knowing Gatsby for months, a narrative emerges that is somewhat flawed, as all memory is flawed. Nick's understanding is colored by his relationships with the other characters, by his perceptions and assumptions, by time and distance from the events, by his own involvement, by alcohol, and his own need for safety in telling the story. In some of the omissions and falsehoods, I see a hint of self-preservation, and an attempt preserve identity and dignity. Part of this is the reason behind the Fifth Amendment.
The other thing I see in the story which is important to remember is the lack of fairytale ending for any of these characters. Daisy is traumatized because of a long separation, and because she assumed that Jay would not come home, and then she is forced to marry Tom. There is a huge chasm between rich and poor, with almost no middle class. All of Gatsby social mobility is based on lies he felt he had to create to escape the trauma of being dirt poor. Jordan is only loved for being a (scandal ridden and infrequently victorious) tennis star; Tom is only known as 'Buchanan: The Polo Player'; Daisy and Pammy are supposed to be rich, beautiful, and foolish. Myrtle is fat and silly, married to a rundown oblivious mechanic who's been swindled in every way by an unequal business partner. Nick doesn't think his true vocation is worthwhile. All of these lives are in some sense traumatic.
With respect to events, the war has just ended, with death and dying everywhere. He has been surrounded all summer, and one could argue all his life, with people who think they are gods, or sons of God, or play at being better than everyone else. He has witnessed an argument for racial superiority, an assault on Myrtle, a jealous husband enraged, a manslaughter, (in which a pedestrian he knew was killed instantly, in a graphic way: "ripped her open"), a loving cover up (complete with confession), a framing for murder, a grief filled retaliation (inflicted on an innocent man), and a suicide. I can relate to how this would be difficult to tell. During a traumatic event, the brain shuts down anything that does not preserve life. Therefore, some of the details become confused, including the order of events and exactly who did what. In the telling and retelling of the story, sometimes it might seem that whoever was driving was not literally driving, or that people are more honest than they seem, or that Myrtle wasn't having an affair, etc. these may be coping mechanisms, but then maybe they're just simple lack of oxygen to the brain. Nick isn't a liar. Nobody's a liar. It's all just a coping strategy, the whole book is a coping strategy. For the trauma of the ending, for the trauma of life in the Jazz Age. (Unfortunately, many victims of trauma are called liars because they can't get their stories straight. Or people think they're hiding something).
I'm interested in Kierkegaard's philosophy of how the ascetic move to the moral stage. He says we find God because we fall into despair (true, sometimes). Nick has certainly fallen into despair, but I would argue that young Mr. Carraway has not found God. And I definitely don't think he is writing to God. Instead, he writes about the events of his 30th birthday in an effort to ensure that he does not fall past God into something he cannot remedy. Suicide cannot be remedied in this life, and there are some who say it cannot be even in the afterlife. But above all, I believe Nick reason for writing is to "get somebody for [Gatsby]", as a final memorial to his friend, even if the only friend he "gets" is himself. Or, in the imagination of that Baz Luhrmann, the doctor.
By the way, I don't think Meyer Wolfsheim is in despair, I think form his self protection
is selfish. He wants to run away from or
let go of everyone after they die. I
think true despair is wanting to hold onto someone past everything else, and
then realizing you can't. Like Gatsby
and his father, I know some things are too beautiful to let go of, even when
it's obvious they're long gone.
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