Respond: What is the experience of reading The Great Gatsby as a graphic novel so far? I’m interested in the ways your reading might be different than previous readings or what changes/stays the same in reading the novel through the graphic novel.

It definitely feels different to read a book in graphic novel format; You’re sort of forced to view the work in one particular light, chosen and created by the illustrator. Furthermore, as the text has been adapted to the format, the novel seems to be filtered through two separate lenses and interpretations. As you read the author’s adaptation and interpretation of the original novel, the illustrator offers his interpretation of the author’s interpretation of the original novel and builds a new world through illustration. This experience, of course, relates deeply to our discussion about para texts. As I mentioned in my previous journal, I’ve actually never read The Great Gatsby all the way through before, but rather in bits and pieces. This has left me unsure of just how altered my reading experience is. It will be interesting to work on our next project and digest the novel’s original text in audio format. This is another example of a para text, but I wonder if the experience may still offer me a more distilled and truthful interpretation of the novel.