El Gran Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, for all it's supposed to be about the American Dream, is really a good old-fashioned romance, with a Shakespearean pile of bodies at the end, a Great War, unsavory bootleggers, and several love affairs. Fitzgerald writes the characters so that you hate them all a little bit (Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air. "My dear," she told her sister in a high, mincing shot, "Most of these fellas will cheat you every time." [p. 31-32]) Writing a romance with characters that are not likable gives this book its tone - a sort of regretful, impersonal tragedy. I'm always sorry at the end, but I'm never quite sure who I'm sorry for.

Eh. It was okay. Not sure that I would read this one again though; maybe in a few years when I can look at it through the eyes of a non-student rather than as a student forced to read it and talk about how "wonderfully moving" it was.

After reading this much acclaimed American classic, I was baffled. "What is so great about the Great Gatsby?" I've given this question much thought and I still don't have the answer.I honestly believe this short book lacks the bones and elements of a classic and even on the last page I was waiting for the 'light bulb' moment. In fact, this novel reminded me of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' for its simplicity and classification as an American classic that I failed to understand.I know my opinion isn't popular in the literary world, but if you read this book and believe it worthy to be called a classic, I'd love to hear your opinions, so leave me a comment.

My opinion about this book is highly ambiguous. I really liked reading it and enjoyed the story but I still feel like I didn't get some important point.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to re-read this book in a few years to renew my opinion.

I re-read this today after disliking it in high school. What a different experience! I highly encourage anyone who read this when they were young to revisit it later in life (and when you don't have a high school English teacher forcing it on you). Fitzgerald's insights into classism, narcissism, wealth, and the American dream are spot-on for today's culture, and his prose is just marvelous. I'm typically a very quick reader but this book is meant to be savored, scene by scene, line by line.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I AM THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THIS REVIEW, and also the owner of CCLaP; I did not reprint this article illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classic" books for the first time, then write reports on whether I think they deserve the labelBook #3: "The Great Gatsby," by F Scott FitzgeraldThe story in a nutshell:Considered by many to be the best American novel ever written, The Great Gatsby is set in the years immediately following World War I (known as the Great War to his generation, in that World War II hadn't happened yet); it was an era known as the "Jazz Age," from a term that Fitzgerald himself coined in an earlier novel, a time of great moral confusion and upheaval around the world. And in fact, that's an important thing to know going into this novel, that it is as much an examination of a period in history as it is the unique story of certain fictional characters; the main reason to read the book, in fact, is to not only follow along with the potboilerish plot on display, but to indeed understand an entire generation of Americans and how they got to the point that they did. Because the fact is that the Great War left an entire generation in numb shock after it was over; turns out that no one quite realized the kind of carnage that could be caused by adding Industrial-Age machines to organized warfare, not to mention the millions upon millions of fresh victims who could be easily shipped to the front now via modernized rail, leaving a nihilistic shell of a generation behind in its blood-soaked wake. The youth that emerged from that war were very quick to discard the Victorian/Edwardian morality and mannerisms of previous generations, simply from seeing what it got them all; instead, this generation was the first to embrace free jazz, experimental poetry, pornography and more, done through a haze of illegal booze and drugs and with none of them really expecting to live past the age of 40.It's among such a backdrop, then, that we meet a series of individuals from the Jazz Age, all of them connected in one way or another to a ritzy section of New York borough Long Island: there is Jordan, for example, the haughty pro golfer who's also a pathological liar; Daisy, a preternaturally jaded young wife and alcoholic; Tom, her blustery and frat-boyish husband; Myrtle, the swarthy mechanic's wife who Tom is having an affair with; Nick, the middle-class midwesterner everyman narrator of our tale; and a lot more, emphasizing Fitzgerald's point that such people tend to become interchangeable when met under the blurry lights of an endless series of cocktail parties. All of these people, however, hinge around the mystery man in the center, the charming and attractive Jay Gatsby (Nick's next-door neighbor, through a strange series of circumstances), who has so many rumors swirling about him that they are like an industry unto themselves: that he is a bootlegger, that he is a war profiteer, that he is a relative of the deposed Kaiser, that he was a secret agent, that he actually lives on a giant yacht that never pulls ashore.What's the real story? And why does Gatsby go to so much trouble to cloud the issue? Well, to understand that is to understand an entire mysterious generation, Fitzgerald argues here, an entire group of people currently having a hard time defining themselves; are they the harbingers of a clean, Modernist future, or the amoral slaughterers that the Great War showed them they could be? And the answer in The Great Gatsby seems to be a little of both; just witness the various ways you end up rooting for the various characters in question, even as you cringe at the various awful, awful things they're all capable of. The storyline of the manuscript itself is slight and preposterous, which of course is Fitzgerald's entire symbolic point; that his entire generation is a slight and preposterous one, a million shell-shocked people in their twenties who want nothing more than to get blotto and talk about meaningless trivialities. That they can't do this, that the sadness and anger and melancholy of past events keep slipping into their lives at unexpected moments, is what haunted Fitzgerald's generation in general, the point that the author is ultimately trying to make here.The argument for it being a classic:Fans of The Great Gatsby argue that the book is the absolute perfect combination of the three things most important in a novel, not coincidentally the same three criteria by which I base CCLaP's reviews: it is a strong and well-paced story, featuring complex and deeply-drawn characters, written in an engaging and highly readable style. (It was because of this exact book, after all, that we even got the overused term "Great American Novel.") But not only that, its fans say, but it also tells two completely different kinds of stories at once too; not only a very intimate and unique story about an intriguing set of individuals, but also a grand story about an entire generation, something left behind by Fitzgerald so that those like us will always remember what those years were like. And not only that, your high-school English teacher would argue, but it contains things like a fine attention to color-based symbolism, and other barely perceptible things that snooty academes care about, which of course is what precisely ruins The Great Gatsby for a certain amount of people in each generation as well.The argument against:Not much, to tell you the truth; in fact, this is why I wanted this to be one of the first books reviewed in this essay series, so that I'd have an example of an inarguable classic that I can then compare future books in the series to. If you can find me a serious and well-thought-out argument online for why this book shouldn't be considered a classic, you let me know and I'd be happy to go check it out with an open mind.My verdict:Not only do I whole-heartedly agree with all of the above, I'll go so far as to say I was shocked by just how good this novel turned out to still be, given its eternally crappy reputation among a certain amount of permanently pissed-off former American Lit students. And that's the thing, that you really owe it to yourself to approach this book away from a traditional academic environment, and to simply sit down and read it for pleasure like you would any other novel; to forget about the symbolism, stop hunting for the freaking color of every dress, and simply get caught up in the pace and rhythm of what Fitzgerald is trying to say here. If you do, you'll see that in actuality The Great Gatsby creates the blueprint for virtually every story and film that's come afterwards regarding the jaded, morally ambiguous subset of any generation, from the Beats in the '50s to the hippies of the '60s, to the slackers of the '90s and now the skaters of the 'aughts. Any tale you come across these days featuring a likable everyman peeking in on decadence and casual criminality is likely to be derivative in one way or another to Gatsby, and you do yourself a favor by reading the original and seeing how it was done by the master.Is it a classic? Oh my, yes

Couldn't get enthused about this one. Seemed a fairly shallow story about some pretty shallow people. Guess Fitzgerald is not my cup of tea.

This is a great daily devotional that will take you through the Bible in a year and provide gems of insight each day.

Good

I always struggle to review classic literature. I am not naive or arrogant enough to imagine I will have any amazing incite based on a single reading and no real study.

My first reaction, on finishing the book, was that I really didn't get what the fuss was about. I know this is a famous book, a top 100 book, a classic book that everyone should have read at some stage in their lives (I was first exposed to it in high school English, but I didn't really read it then). So when the book ended I felt like it lacked anything epic or grand or amazing, anything to make it worthy of this lofty position.

But days later the book began to unpack itself. As the weeks went on I would think about the novel and my understanding grew. I began to notice things that were not clear while I was reading. I have spent a lot of time mulling of the characters in the book. Who they were and why they behaved the way they did.

So spoiler alert. It is a book that saddened me the more I began to understand it. Here was a self-made man who had it all, but longed for a woman he had fallen in love with years ago. He gets her, he steals her away from a loveless marriage and they appear happy together. But the more I understand the characters the more I realise that she was not worthy of him. She was vapid, she loved being loved, but she did not love Gatsby with the same passion that he loved her. Very sad. This idea has played in my mind for weeks.

I spent a lot of effort over the years resisting doing what I was supposed to do, especially if everyone else appeared to be doing it. Which is how and why I've avoided reading The Great Gatsby over so many years. I do know from experience that what experience you bring to the reading of a book influences how you perceive and receive it. This is true with this book as there are parts of the story that seem to resonate with some of my own experiences and for me enhanced my appreciation for the novel. If I had read this back in high school and collegel when it seemed like everyone else was reading it (under the combined influence of the film and literature teachers and professors) I don't think I would have received it the same way. I did find it well and cleanly written, the prose never jarring but also propelling the story forward with nice touches of color and atmosphere in supporting roles - and I found it also remarkable just how much weight the moviemakers have compelled these 180 pages to bear when translated into a movie script.

The film just came out. We know this, because although Australian tax payers funded 40% of Baz Luhrman's lurid adaptation(despite the story being yet another one set in and around New York, USA), Australians have had to wait another full month to see the damn thing, after not only Americans but the rest of the world.

I saw a graph about why Australians must wait so long to see films, even those heavily subsidised by Australians -- something to do with economics -- which I don't believe anybody really understands -- and I was ranting thusly at book club, until it came out that I hadn't read the book anyway, so.

So a copy was dug up, brought around to the house and placed into my palms. I had no choice but to read it, and why? Why are we supposed to care about these rich, young, beautiful people? Do we not give such characters more attention than they deserve, in real life and otherwise? I don't get it.

I'm sure other people get it. It's a classic, after all, in America. I don't care to get it. The Jazz Age version of The Bold and the Beautiful... Or so I suspect, though I haven't actually seen that show either.

But there, I've read it now. Stet my rant.

Finishing this book, I had the exact same sentiment I had upon watching the 1980s animated classic film Heavy Metal: "Well, I guess it was OK, but I don't see what all the fuss is about."However, upon reading the history and criticisms of The Great Gatsby (Heavy Metal) I started to develop a newfound appreciation for the themes and everything that went into making the book (film). While it isn't a fantastic book (film), I find that my initial impression was far too harsh, and thinking back on it I can definitely say it was an enjoyable, fulfilling, and deep (OK, maybe moreso Gatsby) read (watch).

A book tailor-made for English classes, and I can't help but think of it on those terms. The language is lovely and interesting, there are any number of historical allusions to be unpacked, and the plot is both complex enough to offer many points of discussion and simple enough for everyone to participate. I enjoyed it, I'm very glad I finally read it, and it remains an important cultural reference.

After reading it again, I must say I appreciated this classic much much more with a second reading.It certainly helped that I could use the Robert Redford adaptation of the film as well as the upcoming Leo DiCaprio version to help me visualize the book.I have also recently read Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night", and in terms of plot at least, that is to me the better read; but in terms of poignancy, characterization and tragic romance "Great Gatsby' is without a doubt the winner. But needless to say, both books are absolutely wonderful and I cannot wait to read more of Fitzgerald's works!!!

Nick Carraway, the first-person narrator of this novel, gets to know Jay Gatsby in the Roaring Twenties. The latter is very rich and throws glamorous parties on his grandiose estate to which he invites his neighbour Nick.The title drops already a hint: The Great Jay Gatsby is a magician and everything in his life is an illusion: Before he went to war Gatsby, then known as James Gatz, fell deeply in love with Daisy. But as he was away, she married another man and had a daughter. When Gatsby returned after the war, he still clanged to the dream of a married life with Daisy. Everything in his life is build up around that dream – he even seems to have accumulated his wealth only to make it real.Fitzgerald’s novel is about make-believe worlds and chimeras, about appearance and reality. A very interesting scene is when a guest notices in amazement that the books in Gatsby’s library are actually real. The novel disproves the American Dream and shows that money can neither buy love nor true friends. Money may talk, but not everybody listens.Unfortunately I got a quite bad translation. When I compared a part of the book with an English version online, the latter one was way easier and more enjoyable to read. Honestly, I was underwhelmed by the book when it comes to the story. And I don’t think that it will stick in my memory for long. But I’m glad that I can finally tick it off my to-read-list.

I have been putting off writing about the book, as I am not sure I can articulate my feelings about it. In fact Im not sure what my feelings even are about it. I do know I enjoyed reading it and kept wanting to pick it up, and I was glad when a slightly exciting story line developed. The hoo-ha with the car accident finally brought out some interest in the characters for me.So, yes, they float about in their own little rich worlds. People have been critical of the novel for this reason alone, but that's life isnt it? Some people do have that luxury, and it doesnt make their feelings or experiences any less valid. It just limits who can relate to them. I liked reading about their petty worries and relationship dramas, it took me away from my life and into someone's completely different.And written in a very appealing way.The first time I read this book was half my life ago, so this was like the first time for me. And I think there'll be more readings in it yet.

I have been reading all of the Matthew Hervey books as they have been published, and this is one of the best yet. These are a slightly easier read than Patrick O'Brian, but no less evocative for it.

The Great Gatsby is a rather beautiful book. It's shrouded in melancholy, but written with beautiful language. I really didn't know whether I'd like this book, as I knew the characters were rather shallow individuals. Nevertheless, I can see why it has lasted the test of time. It will hold a place on my bookshelf.

The illusion of wealth is the central theme in "The Great Gatsby". We see the world through young men, who are coming of age in America when fortunes are being made and lifestyles are created around that wealth. Sadly, we see lives constructed of lies and dreams, which cannot be realized. Or once a life is constructed within the fragile framework of imagery, cannot withstand the truth which is desperate to reveal itself.

Beautifully written and incredibly thought provoking. Fitzgerald's prose is truly unparalleled.

It is definitely not the "Greatest Novel of All Time", however it is entertaining and written amazingly. 4 stars for story, 5 for writing = 4.5 stars

Sometimes I wonder why we have teenagers read classics, which is a funny thing for me to wonder because I am, 99% of the time, wholeheartedly in favor of having everybody of every age read classics. I think it's important to shape people's minds around good, complex writing. Without any evidence to support this idea, I think it helps people become better thinkers and to be more discerning in their analysis of culture and life in general, and helps them see their lives as part of a larger story. It's a way of traveling without spending a ton of cash or waiting for the invention of a time machine.But sometimes, I wonder if it's counter-productive to introduce these books too early.When I read The Great Gatsby in high school, I didn't see the appeal at all. I thought it was kind of pitiful that this guy was pining after this vacuous woman who lived across the bay, but that's all I really caught from the book. The characters were old (ancient...like, thirty), and I just couldn't relate to them at all.Twenty-odd years later, my read on this book is much different. I found it a beautifully written, very depressing story.It's amazing to think that Fitzgerald was a contemporary of James Joyce and that he read Ulysses while he was writing The Great Gatsby because the styles are so different. Joyce and Fitzgerald do similar things with the intersection of reality and imagination, and in both books there are no clear good guys, but where Joyce gives the reader every single little thing that crosses his characters' minds and leaves us to psychoanalyze them, Fitzgerald gives us a narrator who admittedly gives us only a few months' slice of his own limited perspective---and then leaves us to psychoanalyze both the narrator and all of the other characters.This time around, I read parts of Kathleen Parkinson's critical study of the novel (confusingly also titled The Great Gatsby) to aid in a deeper reading of the book. Dovetailing on an idea of hers about the interplay between the imagination and reality, I find myself fixated on the idea that the American Dream is fueled by people constantly striving for what they see in their imaginations rather than being content with what they have in their real lives.There is a scene towards the end of the book where Carraway looks out over Long Island and imagines it the way Dutch settlers might have seen it, both for what it was and for what it represented to them. Since moving to New England, I ask myself often, when the people we now know as Pilgrims figured out that they had accidentally landed far north of Virginia, which is where they'd intended to go, why didn't they continue on south? After they spent their first devastating winter on the Massachusetts coast, why didn't they say, "Nah. This isn't what I'm looking for," and try to find a more hospitable climate with fields that weren't filled with rocks?After reading Gatsby again, I wonder if what kept the settlers in Massachusetts was the fact that the vision they had for what could be was more real to them than the reality of disease, freezing temperatures, and starvation, just as Gatsby's imagined possible life with Daisy is more real to him than any of the material things he's amassed.Of course not everyone stayed in New England. While many stayed to reshape the landscape into what they envisioned, many others---when the vision they had refused to mesh with reality---headed west into the interior of the continent.A line of Nick's that addresses this westward expansion struck me, too: "perhaps we [those who'd grown up in the West] possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life."I wonder if, once the descendants of the European settlers moved west, the dream changed to such an extent that they couldn't go home to the East again any more than they could feel at home in Europe. This relates to another something I've been wondering---why even though I can consciously recognize all manner of negatives with living in the West, I can't seem to feel at home living in the East. Of course, I'm not great at feeling at home anywhere. I'm always imagining a different perspective, a different culture, a different view from my window that I'd have somewhere else. Is this persistent discomfort a failure of my imagination (or my accepting reality), or is it just the way that the American Dream has manifested itself in me?These are all things I didn't have the perspective to think about when I was fifteen years old, and it left me feeling so cold about Fitzgerald, I took more than 20 years to come back to the book. But I did come back to it. So maybe it wasn't counter-productive to assign it to me in high school after all.

It was okay, a nice short story. The problem is that it is only engaging at some times, the rest of the time it was a bit boring. And it is pretty short, which is a bonus, since if it was too long it would've been annoying.
I have to say this, I hated Tom soooooooooooo much! I felt sorry for Nick. Jordan is a cold-hearted snob, and Daisy is just very spoiled and selfish. Gatsby has a weird destiny, but somehow he chose it to be so. All in all, Fitzgerald offers a long list of characters without much depth into their persona. It isn't my cup of tea, and I think it's overrated as a book.

This book is a favorite of mine. I always love Fitzgerald's depiction of life in the Jazz Age, and this novel is definitely his best. The characters are real and sympathetic, and Nick Carraway is an excellent vehicle for the reader. Gatsby's story truly is a tragic one, captured in a nicely understated way over the course of this novel.

Ein Werk voller Bedeutung. Fitzgeralds wohl bekanntestes Werk scheint fast schon die Wirtschaftskrise der 30er vorherzusehen. Das Buch liest sich schnell und angenehm, auch wenn die Charaktere nicht sympathisch sind, aber das müssen sie auch nicht sein, um in einer träumerischen Sprache den Horror der Achtlosigkeit zu beschreiben, die die Reichen dieser Welt befällt. Allerdings zieht sich das Werk, obwohl es recht kurz ist, an manchen Stellen.

Mediocre at best. Does Gatsby ever have an original thought or idea in his head? Not likely! This has always been touted as a classic. One must ask, WHY?

I feel like The Great Gatsby should be more of a play rather than a novel. Some of the emotions and dialogue could be confusing or a little bland, especially from the women characters (but even more so Daisy), I get that is their personality but while reading it it didn't seem like a character flaw, just odd writing. I enjoyed the plot surrounding Daisy, Tom, Gatsby and the Wilson's, what I liked even more was that it was told from a different persons point of view so you kind of felt the frustration Nick was going through while all of this was going on even though he wasn't a big part of it he was still around it and drawn in against his will. The book is fairly short but I felt it kind of moved slow and had parts that were just filler but it makes sense why they are in the story towards the end. Overall The Great Gatsby was a good read, I felt it is a bit overrated with how much hype it gets and would much rather of read it in a play format.

since i think it's required in the vast majority of American classrooms, i read this right along with everyone else somewhen in high school, and utterly hated it.

wow, what a difference 2 decades makes.

the prose is just lovely, and Fitzgerald had a marvelous talent at metaphor (descriptive and lush, without being too damn clever for its own good). it's a relatively simple story of love and yearning for things you can't have (or never could), and i guess my teenager brain wasn't emotionally mature enough for subtle glances across the room and quiet desperation.

Simply gorgeous. God, what Fitzie does with words.