The Great Gatsby as a literary work

Personally, I found this to be a strange prompt, because I naturally wouldn't question whether or not The Great Gatsby is a literary work. It's written and its fictional; it tells a story, so doesn't that make it a literary work? Is there a specific definition for "literary work" that I'm not aware of?

Google gives me this:

That is pretty open ended. Thefreedictionary.com lists the same definition. I'm not sure how to write a blog post about it. I'm suspicious its a trick, and I'm going to delve into the story and discuss the characters and then not really be saying anything to do with whether or not The Great Gatsby is a literary work.

I suppose The Great Gatsby is certainly creative, maybe ingenious in the way we are getting the story through the eyes of a character who is both an insider and an outsider in this story. Nick is an insider because he spends time with these characters. He is related to Daisy Buchanan. However, he is still an outsider when it comes to their social scene, seeing as he isn't from the city. Our understanding of the other characters is filtered through Nick's opinions of them. Gatsby has this otherworldly quality because Nick is fascinated by him. Tom is an asshole, and while I think I feel this way based on his actions (hitting his wife etc) I have to admit that Nick is biased because Gatsby is in love with Tom's wife.

The reason this would bias Nick is also interesting. The events of the novel have an unusual way of seeming like a big production, even to Nick who is physically present. The pace of the novel moves us along without us getting to know and more than small pieces of the characters. Daisy has a daughter who appears so briefly that when she disappears we forget that she exists. We know almost nothing about Nick, and nothing about these characters beyond what we are explicitly told. It is as if they are in a play. Normally, in a novel, this would be weak characterization, but here it seems very intentional, maybe because attention is drawn to it, or maybe because more is hinted at than we have access to. It is saying something about these people and their lifestyle, that what we can see of them is so carefully crafted and exposed.

This careful construction of the story, the language, and the characters is what makes The Great Gatsby a literary work.