What is Gatsby's view of the past? what does nick mean when he says that gatsby wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had...

In all honesty, if you are actively reading the Great Gatsby, and allowing yourself to become captivated by it, you should have no matters in question as regards to the recovery of the past. It is one of the most vital themes of the novel. Basically, this "past recovery" pertains to his compelling inner drive that makes Gatsby base his life on the central goal of getting Daisy back, but not JUST back, back as she was five years ago, with the dissumulation that the five years nor Tom Bucannon ever existed.
Gatsby had, in his mind (possibly even without direct comprehension), had made Daisy into nothing short of a Goddess, pure, without any defect or imperfection.
Sadly, dispite the reader's natural internal urge to want things to all be ok, things obviously turn bad for Gatsby. One cannot base their life on the past, it is nonredeemable. Sadly, besides Nick (who warns him in Chapter VI, as mentioned by luannw), Daisy has to brutally come out and directly say it to his face, not alone, but in front of the entire group (INCLUDING HER HUSBAND!): "Oh you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now- isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. One word summary of my feelings here: OUCH. The poor distraught man believed he could recover her, until minutes before his end, when he acknowledged that his heart that he had put out for her five years ago, was crushed completely that sweltering day before, leaving him with nothing.