  Pat,  I agree with you that Gatsby is a success as a story critical of the society during the 20s,  but the only analogy I can make to the book is that of a turkey that is served for Thanksgiving dinner,  it doesn't have its feathers and it doesn't look as beautiful as it did when it was alive but it's still a bird,  so is this book,  it has a story but it lacks the " feathers"  -  it lacks commentary and reflections of the author;  it's just a story with a very interesting plot and a straight- forward message of society being corrupted and fake.  And it's true that maybe the story doesn't need the extraneous ornaments but it's just much more engaging to see what the author himself has to say about the story,
 it creates a conversation as you read the book between you and Fitzgerald.  Rob,  sorry but I didn't find AILD yet,  so I started on Their eyes were watching God,  but I will get to it as soon as I find the book.  You should start though on Fountainhead,  that book is really hard to read,  partly because it has so much philosophy and such a complicated plot in it.  But you definitely should read it,  I really need someone to discuss it with:  Discussing Catcher in the Rye today helped a lot,  there were a lot of things that I haven't even realized as I read the book,  such as for example the fact that Holden ends up in a mental hospital or that he is crazy all along in the story.
 As I read the book I had this feeling that he was a bit strange,  but because the book was written as his own personal thoughts I just took it for normal that his mind wondered all over,  I sort of think we all have that in our mind where we think of random thinks during the day once in a while.  I also heard a lot of criticism of the character,  but I still believe that he is a really nice person that has just come to a state of dissatisfaction with the society around him;  he does exaggerate a lot and he seems to be critical of everyone and everything he sees,  but it sounds like it all comes from bitterness and depression of his character.
 Maybe he wants to be a catcher in the rye because he knows that there is no one else to catch him if he were to jump off a cliff.  It's strange how the more I think about him the more depressed I become myself.  Ducks are lucky,  they can just fly away whenever it gets too cold .
