How the Time Flies

After reading the bulk of The Great Gatsby, I felt as if Nick had been in the company of Mr. Gatsby for at least a year.  I was shocked to learn that it had barely been three months.  Nick gets tangled into this world.  At one point, he is able to name nearly every person attending one of Gatsby's party which could only result from celebrating many parties with Gatsby.  He is completely taken from his reality and placed into another man's reality.  He becomes a key player in a game that he did not even know existed until he met Gatsby.  At one point, he completely loses touch with all sense of time when he says, "'...I just remembered that today's my birthday'" (Fitzgerald, 135).  Once one gets tangled up in this fantasy-like world, it is hard to bring oneself back to reality.  For Nick, the only realistic way of doing this was to move back home.  He finds tranquility in that he will not return to the East side suggesting how deceptive it may have been.