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The Great Gatsby: What does “non-olfactory money” mean?

"Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world."Non-olfactory money would literally mean "money that can't smell".But, what is it's figurative meaning?Thank you!

4 Answers

The city is being described at it's most idealistic, as if from the eyes of someone just seeing it for the first time, seeing only the shining possibilities of it and none of the ugly realities. So you could functionally interpret "non-olfactory" here to mean without the stink of corruption and greed or other tainted realities.Poetically, in a city "built with a wish," non-olfactory money would be a gleaming investment from a pure heart.... Show More
For the best answers, search on this site shorturl.im/DCxJJBeez in the trap is an old phrase meaning you got everything and then some. Nicki uses it to mean, she's got more women hitting on her than most rappers, and more money than us poor fools. She has got beez in the trap, she's got more than those 100 muthas will evah have.... Show More

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