4. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

The podcast features a lecture on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," focusing on the experimental nature of the novel and the concept of counter-realism. The speaker analyzes the terminology of "vagueness" introduced by Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald's editor, and proposes "counter-realism" as a synonym for fakeness in the novel. The lecture explores how Fitzgerald captures motion, blurs the boundaries between animate and inanimate objects, and uses high-tech comedy and tragedy. The speaker examines specific passages, such as the description of the Buchanan mansion and the Valley of Ashes, to illustrate these points, and also discusses the role of technology, particularly cars and telephones, in shaping the novel's themes and character portrayals, including an unexpected undercurrent of race.