Over at Lit Hub, Robert Hahn finds homage to the voice of Nick Carraway in the fiction of Donna Tartt, Lorrie Moore, and Richard Ford, and discusses the lasting allure and the divisiveness of The Great Gatsby:
There is a solution to the mystery of Gatsby’s lasting fame, as believers know, and to my mind that solution is voice. The elixir that transforms the novel’s inert matter into music—that turns its static iconography into poetry—is its first-person narration: the subtle, compounded, compromised voice of Nick Carraway. A voice of hope infused with despair, of belief corroded by doubt. A voice suave and dapper on its surface but roiled and dark in its depths. It is the inviting but evasive voice of a new best friend who draws you into his confidence and promises alluring secrets, only to turn away from you, agitated, distracted, and weary.
