It’s not the subject it’s what you do with it. Besides Gatsby is about a lot more than the ‘rise and fall’ narrative. What fiction is ‘necessary reading’ these days?
There’s lots of stuff I wish kids WOULD read, but I’d never push it the way English teachers do, because the first thing they do is suck all the joy out of a book by making you pay attention to the wrong stuff.
So, Gatsby is “necessary reading”? For what exactly? I mean, I suppose, for American Literature majors in college sure, but it doesn’t seem all that necessary for the rest of us.