Rating: 
Summary: "Gatsby" Glitters
Review: Delivering no comforting message or feeling of warmth, The Great Gatsby glitters and dances off the smooth and lively words of F. Scott Fitzgerald. "It is a shocking book," wrote Walter Yust, "one that reveals incredible grossness, thoughtlessness, polite corruption, without leaving the reader with a sense of depression, without being insidiously provocative." The book is captivating; when the story becomes calm and relaxed, the words themselves remain thrilling as they impel the pages to keep turning. Set in the 1920's, The Great Gatsby explores the life of the wealthy and hopeful J. Gatsby as he pursues his love, Mrs. Daisy Buchanan. Through the narrative of the gentle and level-headed Nick Carraway, we learn to love Gatsby and to loathe those who cause his downfall. Money, love, selfishness, infidelity and misdirected passions are woven together to form a net that ensnares the larger part of the book's characters. "Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men" (pgs. 6,7). Yet, through many understated, despicable acts, there is a light of goodness and hope: Gatsby's hope. It is seen shining brighter than the great and twinkling lights of Gatsby's summer parties. "It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found before in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again" (pg. 6). Fitzgerald magnifies the underlying ideas of the novel in each of Daisy's tears and every splashing drop from Gatsby's fountains. When gathered together, the droplets reflect Fitzgerald's own life of money and misfortune as his own wife caused him heartache over an extra-marital affair. Furthermore, Fitzgerald also battled against the troubles of living a lavish life without an incredibly stable income. As the story can be paralleled to Fitzgerald's own life - Gatsby can be paralleled to the ideals of America in the 1920's; a generous visionary with a goal and, also, hopeful enough to pursue his goal. "Gatsby believed [in] the future that year by year recedes before us... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (pg. 189). As time went on, the world around Gatsby changed, and, outwardly, Gatsby changed right along with it. But, inwardly, Gatsby longed for and strived to regain his past, just as so many people of the twenties were torn between the past and the present. The Great Gatsby shows a hero like we have never seen before. A hero who unconsciously battled against an evil force: corruption caused by money. He also, consciously, fought for the sake of his heart as he tried to regain the love of his past. Despite his valiant efforts on both battle fields, Gatsby is trampled over by the effects of the thoughtless, calloused actions of others. With the book thus ending, Gatsby can still be called nothing short of heroic.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not the best..
Review: I approached this book with a determination to receive something unique and pungent. The Great Gatsby is such a famous book of the excessive 1920's, and an interminglement of love, betrayal, suspense, death and other seedie aspects of human life. While some portions of the book are very rich in word choice and give some credit to the books overrated status as an American classic, the book, on the overall, in terms of the plot, is decent at the very most. The climax is written is a disorienting and confusing mess of words and leaves the reader unsatisfied. After finishing the book I felt cheated at not receiving the elation others have received from this book. In short, a very richly written unexciting slice of Americana in the roaring 20's.
Rating: 
Summary: Some cheese with that whine?
Review: It seems that complaining is the national pastime, and this book is no exception. It would apear that Mr. Fitzgerald was somewhat unhappy, and decided to tell the world, along the way gving the rest of us something else to complain about. The critisisms of the American dream, and of rich people are true certainly, but hey, we already knew that. He seems to veiw love in a distant manner, as if it never works out for anybody. Self pity is such a wonderful thing, isn't it. So, if your feeling the least bit perky, just pick up a copy, and soon, if it doesn't put you to sleep, you'll find yourself in a dreary funk.
Rating: 
Summary: The most overrated novel ever
Review: I really, honestly do not understand why this book is supposed to be a classic. True, it's a fairly nice love story, but there have been many better love stories written. The characters all seemed very one-dimensional to me, and the story was fairly dull. It's not a *bad* novel, but I cannot fathom why on Earth the Modern Library would rank in #2 on their top 100 list. I wouldn't have put it in the top 100. Or the top 1000, for that matter.If you want to read classic American lit, don't read the Great Gatsby - read Twain or Steinbeck or Salinger. Their worst books are probably better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: A great book, if you like this sort of thing!
Review: The Great Gatsby is a classic novel which almost everyone has heard of. It is often read in English classes and sometimes read on one's own. If you like novels from this time period, the 1920's, this book is one you must read. But if you are like me and prefer modern novels, let me suggest not reading it. The plot is quite simple, a man who has finally made his fortune is attempting to win back the love of his former conquest who married to her station while he was on duty in the army. This man will do anything to impress his boyhood love and goes as far as moving close to her and living an extravagant life with many parties in the hopes she will come to one. She avoids him, either wittingly or unwittingly, and he is forced to seek help from her cousin, a mutual acquaintance. He ends up getting in the middle and it is all a big mess, but you will have to read the book to find out how it ends. Fitzgerald shows the time period very well in the materialistic and secular sense. The plot is very well thought out and the use of foreshadowing and symbolism is very evident as one reads. It is a good book to read if you are interested in the time period or in romances of the bizarre sort. Unfortunately, if neither of these things catch your eye, it isn't a great book to bother with. It is tedious and slow reading. If you prefer more action, or perhaps more of a mystery, let me suggest a modern book. Or if you simply like to read in plainer language with a faster flow, read something else. If you are planning on reading this for a class, read it. It is educational in the sense that one learns a good deal about the 1920's and symbolism from it. But otherwise, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Superior Writing
Review: This is American literature at its best! Sorry, no time to say anymore. But if you're thinking about reading it, DO IT NOW! Or buy it as a gift for someone who has not read it or for someone who has but doesn't own it! Anything! It's just one of my favorite books so buy it!
Rating:
Summary: The Great Waste of Time
Review: When I was going to high school, I determined that no matter how good or how poor the book, I would always read the English novel assigned to us twice. I was assigned F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" in grade 11. And after reading it over, I concluded that if Mr. Fitzgerald's personality was reflected in his characters, it is quite understandable that Zelda Fitzgerald ended up in an asylum (sp?). That book was the poorest excuse for literature I ever had the displeasure of reading. I did read it twice, but each time, I was disgusted with it. The characters in the story were worthless wastes of human flesh. Daisy was a ditz, Gatsby himself was a possessive stalker and everyone else didn't have enough brains to realize that they were all being used!! Tom, Daisy's idiot husband, actually took Nick to meet Tom's mistress! How much more stupid is that? Yes, I'm sure everyone with a brain cell wants his wife's family to know he's having an affair. And his mistress, well, all she wanted was to seem important, when everyone knew she wasn't. Nick was used by everyone, but he did nothing about it. Tom used him, Daisy used him and even Gatsby used him. And all the while, he thought Gatsby was God. He worshiped him. I wrote my report on the novel and passed it into my professor. I wish I still had a copy of it, because I would post it here. Unfortuneatly, I do not. In the end, I would recommend this book only to the person who likes to read about stupid people sleeping with each other just to seem important. Or as a cure for insomnia (sp?). I was greatly disgusted with this novel, but that's just my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: The Great Gatsby has been reknowned for some time as one of the greatest pieces of American fiction. And, after reading the short but incredible novel, I will have to agree with this assertion. The story is vivid and colourful, and the narration truly engages the reader and makes him/her feel that s/he is living the story. You will feel the pain of long lost love, the shallowness of the urban-socialite community, and respect and admiration for an incredibly well written novel. The novel is fairly short, which is one of the strengths of the novel, as it is not verbose or overdrawn. Concise and moving, a must read for those who appreciate great prose and situational novels...
Rating:
Summary: This book would be better swept into the past.
Review: I was astounded that one other person rated this book as lowly as I did--I thought that all sense had completely drained out of the world. Walking into a room of pseudo-intellectuals and proclaiming "Gatsby sucks!" isn't the best idea these days, it seems. But crimony. Read the thing. I've read the thing. I don't understand what the big deal is about. This isn't good prose. It's self-help. It's also pretty insulting. How agonizingly elementary does symbolism have to be before a reader realizes that the author has taken him for a fool? Fitzgerald writes with all the subtlety of a locomotive. He sounds like he's trying way too hard, and in the end, what was intended as verbal sweep and style reads as tackiness. "Gatsby" is the work of a bad juggler--it would have been so much better if he'd tried fewer balls. (If you want to see a man drop twenty metaphors on a page and actually get away with it, thanks to God-given writing genius, read Shakespeare or Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men.") What we have here is a book that for some strange reason has been ranked for all time with "The Sun Also Rises," "The Sound and the Fury," and "The Grapes of Wrath." I think it's enough to acknowledge that Hemingway, Faulkner, and Steinbeck weren't the only American writers of their day--there was also a lightweight pretender named F. Scott--and move on. Gertrude Stein was around in those days, too, and Hemingway couldn't stand her, either. One star--actually make that one green light.
Rating:
Summary: Some good things can come from high school English
Review: Like most high school students I read this in English class. Like most students I dreaded it (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, what's the difference?) This was one of the first books to open my eyes to use of almost perfect prose while telling a story of less than perfect people. It helped that I had an instructor who led us on a hunt for the symbols within the story. She expalined the use of the symbols whether they were conciously put there by the author or whether they are a manifestation of societal mores and structure. The basic story line is that a poor boy falls in love with a rich girl. The poor boy goes off to make his fortune, the rich girl marries someone else. The poor boy comes back rich and finds the unhappily married girl. Chaos ensues. At first he is one of the "in" crowd. But Jay Gatsby still seems like the man trying to buy his way into high society. His attempt to woo Daisy from her philandering husband ends in tragedy for one of the "little people" in the story. As usual the old monied beautiful people are untouched by the petty problems of the rest of world, even if they are the cause. The entire story wrapped in beautiful prose as if to emphasize that with the proper wrapping even the ugliest present can look beautiful. The light of hope only blinks off once the contents are fully revealed.
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