Personally, aside from Russian literature, I now prefer American literature, which I think is underestimated in China. I really like that film adaptation, but what the film expresses is something else, not the same as the novel’s core theme.

My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe(or other countries). One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land. Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle. The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life.

I think this kind of contradiction is expressed most clearly in American literature and is also most worth articulating within the American cultural context. This is because its commodity economy and social transformation have been too successful, and it lacks the kind of historical entanglements that Europe has to dilute these problems. As a result, this sense of emptiness stands out even more sharply and demands a more urgent response.

I don’t know if there are horror films like this, but I once saw something similar in the TV series WandaVision. She creates an illusion in which she and Vision are a standard middle-class couple, well-fed and well-clothed, with the visuals in black and white. This made it feel like a horror story to me. Why? Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension.

Of course, I don’t think that America’s secular success means it has no spiritual world; rather, the former has been so successful that the latter has been greatly neglected. The purpose of American literature should be to depict, under the success of this commodity economy, what people’s inner lives have actually become, and what they ought to pursue. This, to me, is its most distinctive quality.

I'd add in a 4th category: Slavery.

Though no longer pertinent explicitly, the original sin of America is a potent literary force. We still feel it's sting in our African American literature nearly axiomatically. Almost by definition, any southern gothic literature will revolve around the effects of slavery, which includes some of our greatest novels.

Per the Great Gatsby, the story itself is one of the most powerful arcs out there: The Hero arc with a disillusionment ending. It's not exactly a negative change arc for the protagonist (Nick), but it's meant to feel like one. Nick is physically better off than he starts out, but his opinions and feelings about the world at large are negative. He has grown up, fought the dragon, healed the sick king, beaten the bully, encouraged the coward, and gotten the damsel. But Fitzgerald adeptly makes them all hollow. It's a great and quick read. A really tight plot and good prose.

I've read thousands of books. There are good novels everywhere, and no country has the exclusivity of any theme.

> One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land.

Of course, classical European literature didn't focus on the American wilderness. Though the most famous book on this theme is probably Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. And I enjoyed T.E. Lawrence' Seven Pillars of Wisdom which most people know through the film; the Arabian desert was a good place for loneliness in the wilderness.

> Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle.

Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, which is rarely the focus outside of the USA. But searching success through relentless struggle is a frequent theme. For instance, Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir or Maupassant's Bel-ami. These are from two of the most famous classical French authors, but there are many novels about hard-working people that reach success.

> The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life.

As you like Russian literature, I suppose you've read Goncharov's Oblomov and Chekov's theater, especially Uncle Vania. That theme is central in one of the most famous French novel, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The excellent Italian writer Alberto Moravia also has many novels about this, the most famous being Il disprezzo and my favourite being Gli indifferenti. I also like D'Annunzio's Il piacere much more than The Great Gatsby. I would argue that variations of this theme are universal, with old writings like the Bibles's Qohelet and even more Sumer's Gilgamesh.

There are some subtleties in Gatsby that most people miss, and isn't even addressed in the article.

Jay Gatsby (James Gatz) is probably Jewish.

Nick Carraway is probably gay, but at least bisexual.

Both of these traits forced people into lower castes this era in high-status society. To me the lens of the book is repeatedly the failure of "if only I can win them over" slowly becoming the unsatisfying "these people were always assholes." Whether it's parties, a potential spouse, or important friends, the entire concept of class structure is poison. If people are good people, it shouldn't matter how they present themselves... that's just what I've always taken away from it. It seems like a theme that someone with Fitzgerald's background would want to convey, especially someone with that background who enjoined the company of people like Hemingway. And I think that's been a theme of American culture since reconstruction.

You are going to love Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.

As a Chinese-American, in my humble opinion the Great Gatsby is the 1920's version of "On the Road", "American Psycho" and "Liar's Poker". In another words, it is about the American spirit to chase money/success/glamour in spite of the protagonist's preconceived understanding that doing so would end up ultimately futile and empty.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." IMHO, the green light is the dopamine rush of the American spirit.

Your notion of the American inner life that it somehow does exists I agree with but it is imho a far cry from stereotypical notion of inner life of quiet contemplation, familial and communal obligation in the European or Chinese manner. You can look no further than in this forum where people talk about accumulating material wealth whether by pursuing a well-paid tech job at a BigTech company or raising money or bootstrapping as an "indie". And people here will have read great books and understand the notions that "money do not buy happiness" or that "family is everything", but put the same people under your so-called WandaVision test of illusions of two choices - they will, 9/10 times choose a morally compromising job BigCo, business pursuit AdTech or AI Slop that favors material accumulation at the expense of true self-actualization (Gatsby vs. Nick).

IMHO the pursuit of "the green light" for the "orgasmic future" IS the American inner life, whether it be from the pioneers going West, to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn to Jersey Shore/Soprano's, to the rich Chinese Fu-Er-Dai shopping/clubbing fashion in Manhattan to the Indian immigrants going West again to switch job from WiPro to FAANG E6, the pursuit of accumulation and glamour is the inner life, dare I say "it's not even about the money" - but a spiritual pursuit of a lifetime of running to make one feel whole like Gatsby did . And that we can't help ourselves - like "boats against" rolling bubbles and crashes of the American stock markets or TikTok trends, thinking "but this time it's different", but "borne back ceaselessly" into our past selves of emptiness that we were trying to fill up with wealth and social status in the 1st place.

> Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension.

This is exactly the situation I am in. I really really don't know what to do.

> My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe... Another is ... relentless struggle

I feel like Russian literature touches on this.

From the perspective of an otaku, that's an ironic conclusion. The confusion regarding the neglected interiority was a conscious decision by the mainstream in the beginning was it not?

That's perhaps not to say that the otaku lifestyle as is today is preferable, but it always more about the transcendent experiences they were reaching for, an activity labelled childish by their peers. Meaning was never an issue, just actualization.

Also that the "spiritual world" (i.e. religion) in America has been colonized by money, consumption and commodities as well, which has drained all the spirituality from it. Religion in America is as desolate of meaning and sustenance as the American Western Frontier. You have to be a heretic to find spirituality that's worth anything here.

Ancestral Americans really do not have a "spiritual world," in my opinion, as acquisitiveness and power games suffuse even our churches, spiritual movements, and fraternal societies. The emptiness you delineate is very integral to the long-term American experience. As a reaction, addictive and manic personalities are endemic.