Can you trust the narrator?

Reading the Great Gatsby? Well if you have heard a lot of Nicks opinions then, I know this because the book is almost entirely his opinion but the real question is what's your opinion of him?

This is especially important if you are planning to write any essays or papers on the book because whether or not you trust Nick will affect you opinion of almost everything else in the novel.

Okay lets give the guy a chance and say he's honest, he certainly thinks he is infact he thinks hes one of the only honest people he has ever met.  But if that logic is kind of circular, he is honest because he says he is...and we can trust him because he is honest.  We're going to need more evidence, lets look at some Gatsby quotes.

So he calls himself honest is he just saying that to look good.  Well probably not he tells us lots of things that don't him look so good, he mentions his war dodging ancestor, he admits he is boastful about himself, he even calls himself and his father a snob.  So it looks like he is giving us a fair picture about himself, not just all the good bit, and this probably means he will tell the truth about everyone else too.

Looking good so far Nick.  But wait everything is not as it seems.  Under the influence of alcohol everything becomes dim and hazy, including an alarming scene where suddenly Nick is in Mr McKee's bedroom with a semi-naked Mr McKee then just as quick he is in a train station getting the 4am train home, what happened there Nick.  ?

There is also the problem with his “partial” view.  This quote came from his partial view of Gatsby's garden but houses are often used as symbols in the book to represent people and this could point to Nick's inability to judge Gatsby.  

Other characters in the book call Gatsby an ordinary man or a bootlegger but Nick always sees him as some romantic hero.  Is it possible that he has got to close to Gatsby to be able to judge him with the same analytical eye he uses on the other characters.

So with all this information what can we conclude.  Well my own opinion is Nick is a great narrator perfectly placed to see all the main events and quiet enough that people say things they really shouldn't in front of him.  But, and its a big but, when it comes to Gatsby I take what ever he says with a pinch of salt.