Pls answer great gatsby question

What is the authors purpose in writing this paragraph

Even the insistent cough of the woman next to him wasn't enough to draw his eyes away from the tiny type of the ancient book its pages were brittle and felt like they could crumble at the slightest disturbance he noticed the musty odor if each page as he carefully it over.

Start writing a narrative by summarizing thebeginning, middle, and end in the spacesprovided. for this step, tell the events in the orderthey actually happened. use past tense. i get really bad writer's block,