I agree about Gatsby from a narrative perspective — it’s trite, formulaic, and contrived, as are the metaphors and narrative ironies, etc.
However, the writing unto itself can be brilliant. And it’s entirely wasted on generations of high school students who are stuck with silly assignments like “what does the green light represent?” or “how bad are rich people: bad, worse, or worst?”
I have to show students that the novel can be rather funny, the irony within the prose itself is vibrant, and, in fact, one could look upon the entire book as a satire of itself.
I can’t completely hate on it for the reasons you listed.
Fitzgerald’s powers of description cannot be denied. (”Tender is the Night” is fantastic in that regard.) What bothers me is that Gatsby was marketed and *hyped* as The Great American Novel. How such a cynical and depressing story was sold by our military as moral-boosting during the war is beyond me. It went out of print until our gov had to help it out. Now it has a permanent place in top ten lists because no one dares point out that it has no clothes.