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Summary: THE MIND REMENenSENCE
Review: fItZgerald,arald,herald, the future that you can gleem in symbols of far off,HIS GENUIS,REGRET given full amplification in symbolic descrptions of GLITZ EMPTY ECHOES IN PONIFICATIOns. POSTS given anchor on the pages,past each proceeding the other, he was surely on to something, terrible OF THE HAZARDS MINE FIELDS, STUMBLING ACROSS MOON SOAKED PLATEAUS, ode dizzy paves in broken glass, A PRODIGY FLEEIN A PREMATURE past FUTURE TO STEER CLEAR,THAT LURK ON THE SURFACE OF SEEIN THINGS like no one had ever done before.
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Summary: What was I thinking?
Review: I read this book in high school for a class and thought it was one of the most boring pieces of crap I would ever read. I now realize how absolutely wrong I was. In some ways, I think it is impossible for anyone who has not had to make a living to understand so I forgive my past opinions as the inexperienced feelings of an immature mind. This is a book for all of those who work for a living and yet meet with those who are affluent who never have to worry about a thing. I found it enthralling.
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Summary: A Timeless Classic
Review: The Great Gatsby is a timeless classic about love, materialism, adultery and chasing the American Dream. It was written in 1925, but set in 1922. You can see the materialistic attitudes of America in the 20s, in how they were not even able to see that their wealth will be short lived (as we all know what happened in 1929!) Even though this is set in the 1920's New York, the same hopes and desires of the characters still apply today. Despite the length of the book, this is a rich, vibrant novel. One book you'll want to read more than once! Other recent Amazon purchases I recommend: The Fan Man by Kotzwinkle, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez
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Summary: Still...Great!
Review: Every once in a while, it is important to go back and read a classic, to remember what it takes to make a novel memorable. THE GREAT GATSBY is an example of perfection, both in prose and in plot. As such, it is timeless. In this book, author F. Scott Fitzgerald perfectly captures the energy of that moment when the Gilded Age was ending and the Jazz Age was beginning. Set among the estates of Long Island's elegant North Shore, Fitzgerald illustrates why "the rich are different from you and me," a classic line straight out of this novel. Treatises have been written on whether Fitzgerald was the best American author of the 20th Century. Regardless of the conclusion as to whether he was the single best, there is no dispute that he belongs in the pantheon of the writing gods. To read GATSBY is to lose oneself in Fitzgerald's lyricism. So, re-read THE GREAT GATSBY, and enjoy what it takes to make a book truly great.
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Summary: good....but not great
Review: it was a good novel...it drew me into its settings, and it had a good plot, with SOME excellent characters, but i couldn't really connect myself with Gatsby, who was arguably the central character. Daisy's character was a joy to read, and she made me laugh many times. It is an easy book to get into, and gets into the plot quite quickly, keeping a perfect pace and suspensefulness, which is an art in itself. great to read for the simple pleasure of reading, but i didn't draw anything out of it, and it didnt haunt me like great novels do. To me it read like a well written magazine article, a pleasure, but not entirely purposeful.
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Summary: Deserves the classic label!
Review: It was at least four decades ago that I first read "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I must confess it was a greater pleasure this time as an elective, rather than required reading. It is beautifully plotted and full of lyrical writing, intriguing dialogue and extremely rich and fully developed characters. The reader is magically transported into the Jazz Age by first person narrator Nick Carraway. The feature players Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker are involved in a mystery comprising greed, ambition, and a love triangle. It truly is a novel whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Absolutely a classic. Reward yourself by reading or rereading "The Great Gatsby." It is time well spent.
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Summary: Confused
Review: This wasn't a good book in my opinion. It left too much out in the open and I could never fully understand it. It just never caught my attention, until towards the ending. But by then it was too late.
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Summary: A haunting vision of the American dream
Review: Fiztgerald captures the lost American dream in a haunting and also starkly realistic jazz age tale. One can almost see Gatsby as a Prince and Daisy as a sort of Princess, but they are't and nothing is quite right. Everything is just enough off; people's morals, the times, social circles, values, to allow Nick ample room to view and judge the group from a slight distance. Some will tell you to read this book because it stands for the wild jazz age parties of dancing in fountains while drunk in the 1920s. It goes much deeper, into the realm of something more adult and timeless; regret, hope, and the torch of unrequited or poorly timed love. Gatsby is no hero and Daisy is not a pure heroine, neither is Nick noble and wise. These are modern characters almost accidentaly imbedded in ancient fairy tales who seem to effortlessly trapse in and out of the fairy world and the real withtout realizing any difference. The narrator Nick is the only one who lets on a sense that the experience is odd.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone over the age of ten. If you haven't read it since your high school or college reading project, pull it out and read it again for fun and really savor it this time. You will be pleasantly surprised at the simplicity and beauty Fitzgerald wields seemingly so effortlessly, like Mozart. The BBC recently did a movie on it with Mira Sorvino which was ok, but the book is still better. The differene that pops up for those of us on the west boast that also seemse to resonate with Nick is the differene between East coast money and the rest of the country. Take a look at that in comparison to the new money of the northwest in computers and so on and how it is treated in comparison with old money. Class structures still remain, and much of the transitional nature Fitzgerald writes about stands today because of economics, the expendable dollar of the youth culture and more. It is a great book, give it a read.
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Summary: The Great Satire
Review: James Gatz tried, like Franklin, to improve himself, and succeeded, but he was not required to build America. Instead, he became the Great Gatsby, moving like a Homeric Gyad among the party-goers of East and West Egg. His money came from a dubious "gonnegtion" with the wolf (Meyer Wolfsheim, rather than Lanski), to whom he had presented himself in his uniform, covered with medals, because he lacked the cash to buy clothes. Like many an able lad of plain background (North Dakota) Jay encounters the leisured class, particularly the beautiful and popular Daisy (she loves me, she loves me not). Supposed to wait while he went to war (that one again), she marries into Buchanan money and has a daughter. Jay comes back to hover around the green light at the end of her dock and build a life "founded securely on a fairy's wing." We are treated to a catalog of party-goers parallel to the catalog of ships in the Iliad. The denizens of the two Eggs are more fragile than heroic. Jay makes his move for Daisy, who nods back and forth between him and her husband, Tom. The significance of the daughter seems to escape Jay totally (what's it all about, Jay?). Finally, one horribly hot evening, Daisy, driving Jay's car beside Jay, runs down and kills her rival for Tom's affections, Myrtle Wilson. Tom, driving in a subsequent car, tells Wilson, Myrtle's husband, whose car it was. Wilson shoots Jay. Tom never finds out the truth, and Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, walks away from the entire irresponsible crowd. This writing is a fictional story from the mind of the great F. Scott Fitzgerald and is not a document of American society. Perhaps people like his characters have existed, but America is bigger than he. If the shoe doosn't fit, don't wear it!
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Summary: The Great Gatsby
Review: I thought that the book The Great Gatsby was decedent. There were some things I liked about the book but more things I didn't like about the book. It seemed like too much of the same thing happened, with the affairs and then the deaths.
The Characters were one of the things I enjoyed about the book. That was probably the only thing I enjoyed about it. Nick Carraway, he was the narrator, the thing that I didn't like about him was he claims to be objective. Throughout the whole book he isn't objective at all he always seems to judge others. To me Jay Gatsby was my favorite character. He started out poor and left his love to go to Vietnam and then he came back and worked hard to try to get her back. He became a millionaire. He always threw the most amazing parties and he just seemed like the man. All of the other characters I didn't like that much daisy tom Myrtle, and Daisy.
The things that I didn't like about the book were there was too many affairs. I understand that there are a lot of affairs that take place in the real world but I don't think you need to have that many affairs in one book. I also don't like how Nick left Jordan at the end and he just went back because things got too weird and complicated. I also don't like how Gatsby dies at the end and I thought when Myrtle died that was a little cheesy. I mean she died by Gatsby car running over her. I couldn't stand that at all. I also didn't like how Daisy didn't wait for Gatsby; I mean if they were in love you think she would wait for him.
I gave the book a bad review because to me the book didn't seem to keep my interest for a long period of time. I also think that the book just wasn't a type of book I like to read.
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