Do You Think Jay Gatsby Is Number One?

READ GATSBY--DISCUSS GATSBY Here

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This online space supports Vigo County’s Big Read program (go here) and many across the country (go here). Read Gatsby–Discuss Gatsby provides a place on the internet for the online discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. However you found your way here, you are a reader and you are welcome.
Please pass the word along on Read Gatsby--Discuss Gatsby. The more readers who participate the livelier the discussion and more we all learn.
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100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900
From Book magazine, March/April 2002

1 - Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
2 - Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
3 - Humbert Humbert, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
4 - Leopold Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
5 - Rabbit Angstrom, Rabbit, Run, John Updike, 1960
6 - Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
7 - Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
8 - Molly Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
9 - Stephen Dedalus, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916
10 - Lily Bart, The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905
&
100 - Augie March, The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow 1953

Fitzgerald was always writing up lists and Americans today are crazy for lists. Is it that lists–“Antique Automobiles” to “Zoo Animals, Favorites”–provide us with a sense of control or direction? Each day we shovel great quantities of information into our consciousness and too often end up with something resembling a pile of gravel. Beset by stony facts without context, flayling about in a sandbox of statistics, we gratefully reach for the help offered by a nicely ordered list of Bests, Worsts, Must Sees and the ever popular, Most Populars. What a relief to turn the trouble of sorting and ordering those mountains of datum so easily plucked from magazines and websites over to authority-- X, Y and Z-dot-com.

The above list, 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900, can serve as Example A.

But think a little about 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900. (I’ve mercifully left out 11 to 99 -- full list here.) It tells us very little of interest and importance unless you have read or plan to read at least a few of these books. Otherwise, it’s like waving a 100 Best New Zealand Wines list in front of me. I have neither the nose, the taste buds nor the all important experience to gravely nod, yes, #76 on the list of 100 Kiwi vintages is clearly superior to #77.

As part of The Big Read, as a reader of The Great Gatsby, you have the nose, the taste and now the experience to respond to the following questions:

Does Jay Gatsby deserve the "I'm Number One" spot on this Best Characters list? Why or why not? Cast a vote on this and let other readers know what you think.
--Gary W. Daily