Judging a Book by Its Cover

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

This quote is from 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it's not an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most classic American novels to date. (Plus, my copy is published by Penguin Classics. Yay!)
Moreover, this quote is posted up in my English classroom, so it must be important, you know?

Gatsby is a fairly young, rich individual who opens a party in his house every weekend. People don't know much about Gatsby, however, leading to inevitable human curiosities and funky rumors about him.

On the other hand, there's Nick, the narrator of the book, who wants to find out more about Gatsby (who happens to be his next door neighbor) and starts by going to one of the spectacular parties himself.
Of course, there's excessive party rocking going on.
In the party, Gatsby is nowhere to be seen, but Nick does come upon a random, presumably drunk, weird dude in the library (dubbed Owl Eyes), rambling about the books in the library.

"They're real."
"The books?"
"Absolutely real - have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard... It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too—didn’t cut the pages." (p.47)

Oh, yes, that is great. They're real books.
But wait! There's more!

There's clearly some symbolism/figurative-stuff floating around here and there. Although it seems as if Owl Eyes here is drunk and doesn't know what he's talking about, what he says actually makes perfect sense.
Gatsby is rich and has all these parties, but this outward side that is shown, does it match with what lay inside the man? We can infer from this part of the novel that Gatsby is hiding something indeed, and that all his parties might just be a facade to hide the 'durable cardboard' inside.
People generally see Gatsby as the type of person that would not have 'real books', but rather books only to show off the covers to show off, to impress someone *coughDAISYcough*.


Why is he hiding? Why won't he show who he really is? Why doesn't he want to reveal himself?

Gatsby, I think, represents humans pretty well. He has his goods and bads. He has things he wants to show-off and his things he want to keep under the bed. How about you think about it for a while: are you what you are on your cover?


On a side note, if you haven't read The Great Gatsby, I recommend you to read it. Just saying.

"So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past."
LOL