In the opening pages of the novel, as caraway struggles to establish his credibility as Narrator (and I write this with capital N), he informs the reader that he is 'inclined to reserve all judgements'
             There are contradictions and perplexities such as these which, when you read the first passage are easily ignored, because of the characteristic suave of his prose. The chronicle, whose nature and purpose is an act of judgement and whose very title is an evaluation – not jay Gatsby, not great Gatsby, but THE GREAT Gatsby...is begun by declaring the limitation to 'reserve all judgements'. The words are barely digested when we find him judging:
             'the abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality (tolerance) when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret grieves of wild, unknown men'
             the tone here is unmistakable – it is a combination of moral censure, self protection and final saving sympathy that marks Nick as an outsider who is nonetheless drawn to the life he is afraid to enter.
             Nick deplores Gatsby's 'appalling sentimentality', his 'universe of ineffable gaudiness'. Yet he occasionally and ultimately accepts with equanimity the massive dishonesty that has characterized Gatsby's entire life.
             This is troubling for the reader in trusting Nick – how can a morally ambiguous man be honest? And more to the point, how can we trust that so called honest man with a revelation as Great as he makes Gatsby out to be, given his shaky grounding and dubious moral standpoint.
             Nick explains, 'gatsby's dream alluded us then, but that's no matter – tomorrow we will run faster'. This acceptance of collaboration with Gatsby symbolizes not the greatness of Gatsby, but the dream itself. Perhaps now we should recons...