Rating: 
Summary: Fitzgerald, the best writer of the twentieth century
Review: Before I commence my review, let me first interpret the final verse of this wonderfully written book:"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." If you read the context, it is referring to Gatsby's dream of the future, of reaching Daisy and the green light that she represented. This passage simply means that he is a boat riding against the malevolent currents of the future and how they are unrelenting and implacable, never capitulating to his endeavors, and so he is endlessly pushed back to his inescapable past. This is my simple and terse exegesis of this passage. If I am wrong, then so be it, but I consider it a very plausible explanation given the themes of the story and the immediate context in which we find the sentence. Now that that's out of the way, I will voice my opinion on Fitzgerald's magnum opus. I will spare you the details on the story since you can read the synopsis above. Fitzgerald's style and phraseology leave some baffled and sometimes vexed, but it's these two controversial elements that make his works so magical - not just Gatsby, but also The Beautiful and Damned and his other novels. In Fitzgerald's era I do not believe he is matched in his brilliance. While his stories may not be as creative and ingenious as Hemingway's, the talent and artistic prowess of Scott is palpably, in my view, far greater than Steinbeck or Hemingway. There are few, if any, endearing characters in The Great Gatsby. I almost commiserate and lament Gatsby's ( spoiler ahead! ) demise, but really he is a rather shallow man at best, with a hint of loyalty and dignity. Nick is too insipid and lifeless for me to care one way or another. Daisy and Tom are nearly rehashes of Anthony and Gloria Patch and are utterly pathetic and contemptuous people, stereotypically xenophobic and parochial in their outlook of the world. Then we are simply left with majestic prose and prolific use of vocabulary. I cannot tell you how many words I have learned from Fitzgerald's books, not so much this particular novel, but especially The Beautiful and Damned. Regardless of the profusion of imagery abundant in the text, the book never gets tedious or garrulous; itself the book is only 170 or so pages long - calibrate this with The Beautiful and Damned and Tender is the Night, two books which ARE verbose and overdone, in my view. Overall I would rank this book as the best tale told by the most proficient and deft writer of the twentieth century. I shudder to consider what might have been if he used his skills to the full and actually wrote more ambitious works in the vein of Hemingway. I do not regard The Great Gatsby as a work as complex - and somewhat convoluted - as The English Patient, for example, but Scott's talent is so astronomically high that he overcomes his lack of creativity and is able to tell the same stories over and over again with infinite variety - this, in my opinion, is the apotheosis of the great writer. Ingenuity is merely a part of it and perhaps Scott doesn't compare to his compatriots in this regard, but I've not read anyone as capable with the English language as he was.
Rating: 
Summary: Gatsby will hit you when you are least expecting
Review: deep and insightful, full of intellegent analogies and representations. i read Gatsby the begining of my junior year in high school and-didnt really like it. i wrote papers on it, and dissected the ...poor novel. now-months later-it finally hits me: Gatsby is a book to be read and enjoyed! not dissected and torn appart. all the quotes and passages that i liked so much came rushing back to me... i understood what fitz may have been writing about! i though and though and thought about Gatsby and realized that i did not just Like the book-i [really] LOVED IT!
Rating:
Summary: A Novel That's Richly Beautiful From Start to Finish!
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is a specific portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties, yet tells the quintessential American story of a man rising from rags to riches only to find that whatever benefits his wealth affords, it cannot grant him the privileges of class and status. The central character is Jay Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker of an undetermined occupation known mostly for the lavish parties he throws every weekend at his mansion but suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other clandestine activities. However, the narrator is Nick Carraway, a young mid-westerner from a prominent family who came to New York to enter the bond business. Carraway is involved in all of the events of the novel, yet does not play a significant active role; he is only a passive observer...
Rating: 
Summary: Falls Flat
Review: I don't know if its just me, but I did not like this book too much. It feels empty- missing something almost. Perhaps it is Nick. He seems to be without a personality. He's just there. The story might as well be told in third person for crying out loud. I like protagonists with personality. Also, the author is quite sexist and racist and that is unacceptable. I did give it two stars becuase to the author's credit, it was a tidy little book and not a sprawing mess. But then, it was too tidy and neat. After finishing it, I thought, "so what?" It did not particularly dazzle me and enlighten me, and I was not entertained. It is, all in all, a hollow book.
Rating:
Summary: Is "Gatsby" great? No. Is it good? Very much so.
Review: I finished reading "The Great Gatsby" two days ago, an endeavor that took me more than a week to complete. Not that the novel is voluminous; in fact it's a rather slight 172 pages. It took me that long because for the most part I was bored silly. I didn't care a whit about the characters, and that's all there really is to the book: a bunch of vapid characters. You'd think that a book so highly acclaimed for so long would have at least some semblance of story to hang its hat on. Alas, it is not so. And Fitzgerald's prose, and I know I'm in the minority opinion here, never reached me. Many times I caught him trying too hard, reaching for poetry but landing short on dogged doggerel. That being said, after 48 hours of contemplation, I realize that I really do like the book. Mostly. Why? First of all, it features a finely realized paradoxical title character. Gatsby (both the character and the novel, as it turns out) isn't so great. Is the title ironic? He doesn't appear for the first fifty or so pages, and then when he does he's introduced through a misunderstanding: it turns out he was sitting right there all along! He's a cipher, filled to the brim by the gossip and stories told about him during the parties in his own house. But nobody, save for narrator Nick and delicate Daisy, really gets to know him. The reader does, and finds him to be a prissy and pretentious fakir, prone to calling everyone "Old Sport" without ever meaning that term as an endearment. Not great at all, I'd say. The book's second saving grace is that it ends on a spectacular note. The last thirty pages or so hold some of the best writing I've ever read. While the novel opens with a constant barrage of strangers welcomely crashing the elaborate parties that Gatsby gives every night, the novel ends with a scenario exactly opposite to that. I'll leave it to your reading to discovery what that might mean. Without giving away any of the content of these chapters, I will say that they are filled with tangible pathos, visceral emotion, spare but vivid prose, and heartbreaking reality. It makes me wish that Fitzgerald had focused his pen more on these poignant moments than on the abject flightiness that dominates the book's first three quarters. He does show throughout that he is more than capable of this. His flair for dramatic moments sporadically rears its head. There's a moment when Tom suddenly breaks Mrs. Wilson's nose. It comes out of nowhere for the reader, but upon reflection, it doesn't feel contrived. It's one of Fitzgerald's strengths that I wish he'd have utilized more often. His other strength, and the third of the book's great features, is the way he uses his narrator. Nick Carraway at one point says, "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." It's a curious statement for a narrator to make. "Believe me," he appears to be saying. "All of this is true." It's the unreliable narrator (his recollections may or may not be clouded by his affection for Gatsby) protesting against his inherent unreliability. Nick is beneath, in terms of class, the people he socializes with, which makes him less self-involved and more perceptive of others. At one point he suddenly remembers that today is his 30th birthday! Imagine this story told through the eyes of that uber-solipsist Daisy Buchanan? Or, for that matter, the self-deluded Gatsby himself? We'd never have gotten past the narrator's own eyelids. Nick goes much further than that, and is very effective in his role. And so is, as it turns out, Fitzgerald.
Rating:
Summary: Is "Gatsby" great? No. Is it good? Very much so.
Review: I finished reading "The Great Gatsby" two days ago, an endeavor that took me more than a week to complete. Not that the novel is voluminous; in fact it's a rather slight 172 pages. It took me that long because for the most part I was bored silly. I didn't care a whit about the characters, and that's all there really is to the book: a bunch of vapid characters. You'd think that a book so highly acclaimed for so long would have at least some semblance of story to hang its hat on. Alas, it is not so. And Fitzgerald's prose, and I know I'm in the minority opinion here, never reached me. Many times I caught him trying too hard, reaching for poetry but landing short on dogged doggerel. That being said, after 48 hours of contemplation, I realize that I really do like the book. Mostly. Why? First of all, it features a finely realized paradoxical title character. Gatsby (both the character and the novel, as it turns out) isn't so great. Is the title ironic? He doesn't appear for the first fifty or so pages, and then when he does he's introduced through a misunderstanding: it turns out he was sitting right there all along! He's a cipher, filled to the brim by the gossip and stories told about him during the parties in his own house. But nobody, save for narrator Nick and delicate Daisy, really gets to know him. The reader does, and finds him to be a prissy and pretentious fakir, prone to calling everyone "Old Sport" without ever meaning that term as an endearment. Not great at all, I'd say. The book's second saving grace is that it ends on a spectacular note. The last thirty pages or so hold some of the best writing I've ever read. While the novel opens with a constant barrage of strangers welcomely crashing the elaborate parties that Gatsby gives every night, the novel ends with a scenario exactly opposite to that. I'll leave it to your reading to discovery what that might mean. Without giving away any of the content of these chapters, I will say that they are filled with tangible pathos, visceral emotion, spare but vivid prose, and heartbreaking reality. It makes me wish that Fitzgerald had focused his pen more on these poignant moments than on the abject flightiness that dominates the book's first three quarters. He does show throughout that he is more than capable of this. His flair for dramatic moments sporadically rears its head. There's a moment when Tom suddenly breaks Mrs. Wilson's nose. It comes out of nowhere for the reader, but upon reflection, it doesn't feel contrived. It's one of Fitzgerald's strengths that I wish he'd have utilized more often. His other strength, and the third of the book's great features, is the way he uses his narrator. Nick Carraway at one point says, "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." It's a curious statement for a narrator to make. "Believe me," he appears to be saying. "All of this is true." It's the unreliable narrator (his recollections may or may not be clouded by his affection for Gatsby) protesting against his inherent unreliability. Nick is beneath, in terms of class, the people he socializes with, which makes him less self-involved and more perceptive of others. At one point he suddenly remembers that today is his 30th birthday! Imagine this story told through the eyes of that uber-solipsist Daisy Buchanan? Or, for that matter, the self-deluded Gatsby himself? We'd never have gotten past the narrator's own eyelids. Nick goes much further than that, and is very effective in his role. And so is, as it turns out, Fitzgerald.
Rating:
Summary: the best i read
Review: i know i probabnly didnt read alot but i was assgiened this book. its complexity is so thrilling. i truly recommmend it!
its something that each of us has to ponder about ourselves becuz truly...
we are what we crate ourselves.
if u read this book ull know what im talking about.
Rating:
Summary: great is the word
Review: I read this in high school and remember wishing the book would end quickly. That was fifteen years ago. By some whim, I picked it up again...and wished it would never end. Maybe it's a sign of maturity. God willing.
Fitzgerald's writing style is so fluent and enjoyable that you want to read his words aloud. I began to read Tender is the Night after being so enthralled with The Great Gatsby, and though it still had the same poetic flow of words, the story seemed to crawl unbearably (I didn't get past page 75). The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece though. The more books I read, the more I realize that there are no "great authors," only authors with moments of greatness. The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald's great moment.
Rating:
Summary: The Great Gatsby, a bore of a book
Review: If I wanted excitement I should have chosen to read the Horse Whisperer. F. Scott Fitztgeralds boring book The Great Gatsby wasn't a book that had me wondering what was on the next page. It had me wondering what time Toutched By An Angel was on T.V. That crazy obsessed man who can't get a life needs to chase around some crazy girl. What a great idea for a book. The crazy guy is Jay Gatsby who needs to watch a stupid green light at night to know where his true love lives. He lives on an island named for an egg. I got so sick of dumb Daisy and her indecisiveness on which idiot to be be with. The lady is some kind of drunk who is very stuck up and not able to cope with life. Jay Gatzby just up and decided to change his life to become somebody he wasn't. Jay Gatsby started this metamorphisis by changing his name from Jay Gatz. This guy thrived on the belief he could once again have the love of his life. Even though she was a really bad person and all, Jay was infatuated with this woman. She is so messed up she starts hooking up with Jay and she is a married woman. Not only is she cheating but so is her horrible husband. I do not like this book because these are really boring people and need to be put on differnt sides of the earth. They all need mental help. Now I will go for a thrill and read War and Peace.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Novel
Review: Nick Carraway is an unsuspecting Long Island-dweller living in a small house that is in between mansions. Through two old friends, Tom Buchanan and his wife, Daisy, he learns that one of his neighbors is the rich, flamboyant Jay Gatsby, who soon invites him to one of the late night parties on his property. At this party, he befriends Gatsby and soon becomes entangled in his story. He finds that Gatsby's money was earned through illegal methods, and sees his friend's impractical character. Finally, he watches as Gatsby is confronted by his past in the form of Daisy Buchanan.
I would recommend this book to everyone, although some slight racism and sexism common at the time the novel was written may discourage sensitive readers. The literary style and word usage is incredible, and the book's plotting is superb. The Great Gatsby realistically portrays both the best and the worst of human attributes and allows any reader to identify with the characters, no matter how far-fetched this might seem. F. Scott Fitzgerald's book is the epitome of American literary accomplishment and a must read.
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