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Summary: The Great Gatsby -- The First Techno Novel
Review: The story is a trifle, the characters are waxworks, the ideas are second-hand -- so why is Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby the most stunning, the most precious, the most indispensable of all novels? One word -- beauty. The Great Gatsby is like a gorgeous, glittering dream that evaporates upon waking. Its slipperiness leaves you frustrated yet somehow content, aware you've just tasted of an alien world -- an unrecapturable vision all the more inspiring for its transience. What separates Gatsby from other great novels is Fitzgerald's selflessness -- unlike Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, or almost any other author you care to mention, he isn't just out to strut his stuff: he wants to GIVE you something. The grandeur of the world as seen through a child's eyes, and then lost, is all restored in 170 slim pages, through imagery painted with a fairy's wand, and sentences that seem lit up in celestial neon. I'm being hyperbolic with my praise here because, for once, my inborn cynicism has met its Waterloo. The Great Gatsby is one of a very few treasures whose charms have not shrivelled up with age -- not just the book's age, but my own. The sad truth is, back in junior high when I first read Gatsby, I thought it was simple-minded, decidedly modest in scope and ambition, and woefully inferior to its reputation. I then went on to prostrate myself before the temples of Shakespeare, Doestoevsky, Martin Amis, Celine, and other authors who met my demand for what I thought was sophistication. But something has been stripped away. While all those old idols are now musty and faint, The Great Gatsby, simple and unpretentious, continues to grow. What astonishes me most about the book is its futuristic imagery, so far ahead of its time that Gatsby may very well be the definitive end-of-the-millenium novel every modern author is scurrying to write. The pulsing green light across the Sound, the islands in the shape of eggs, and, especially, the looming, sinister eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg -- these are mythic, unforgettable images that Fitzgerald tattoos across the back of your eyelids. They transcend literature, transcend even film, to become like a fantasy of a film playing in a great director's head, but which the camera is just too clumsy to capture ( the 1974 film of The Great Gatsby is certainly painful proof of this, though Jack Clayton is no great director -- this book deserves nothing less than the Jean-Luc Godard who made Pierrot Le Fou ). I still agree with my teenage self that Fitzgerald is a shallow thinker -- but I'm smart enough now to realize shallow thinkers often make the best artists. The world may always be with us, and heavily, but transfigured through Fitzgerald's eyes, that same world is slight, measureless, and, despite all our best efforts to grasp it, ever so slightly out of reach -- a low-flying cloud.
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Summary: Over-rated
Review: I believe THE GREAT GATSBY (that did not sell well in its day) is not Fitzgerald's best book. I think it has endured in academia because liberal professors like how it "damns" the American Dream. Gatsby tries to realize the American Dream by going from a poor boy to a rich man, and moving into high society. But he fails. (He never started down the American Dream trail anyway. Gatsby makes his money illegally, which is NOT the American Dream). Academics love when the American Dream is "shown" to be a house of cards. Then we can all embrace socialism. Fitzgerald actually wrote better short stories (especially "Absolution," which, ironically, was originally a childhood scene for THE GREAT GATSBY, but cut out). And Fitzgerald's contemporary, John O'Hara, said about Fitzgerald's later novel TENDER IS THE NIGHT: "Compared with TENDER IS THE NIGHT, THE GREAT GATSBY is greasy kid stuff." And O'Hara was absolutely right. TENDER IS THE NIGHT is a much better novel. Ernest Hemingway even thought TENDER IS THE NIGHT was Fitzgerald's best novel. GATSBY ain't bad, but if you want to read the best of Fitzgerald, check his other work out first.
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Summary: " LA DEBOCHE" OF THE 1920's
Review: This novel has a certain magnetism, a certain style that the author used to beautify and immortalise the mundane aspects of life and glorify them forever in our memory; aesthetic language is the manuscript of this amazing opus..
In this case, it is a sweet lullaby that came from the 1920's, a most singular era potrayed to us through the eyes of a virtuous writter, F.Scott.Fitzgerald; He gave life to an era and wings to its cast, creating a world full of surreal parties, dusty limbos and glamourus automobiles. Yet it is surely through the special appeal of its language that the novel makes its first claim on our interest; for it it is a highly poetic novel, with strong, powerful, touching evocations that make our senses submerge and transmigrate into a perpetual limbo.The novel is strung together by motifs that appear and return, lingering in our mind for future innuendos
In a society, accidents happen and are taken for granted, but as they multiply in the book, they reveal a whole new meaning in which cars are merely futile excuses for careless driving with no moral or ethical directions at all.Irresponsability is the essence, the fuel on which this nemesis drives on, running over anything without any regret but expecting that someone ( the white trash ) will always clean after them. It is as if the 1920's were just pleasent cocktail waves impregnated with the mezmerising sounds of jazz, catalysed in the anarchy of charleston's mood
This were the parties Gatsby hosted, were all the USA intoxicated themserlves with champagne and sinecures, merely to sober up and presence the reality of the hangover
Gatsby merely intended to extend the curfew, in order not to face the reality of his anguish, the slow trepidation of time's forgotten realm, showing itself as an incubus that would end the dream....his dream Gatsby wanted to trascend time, and to him time appeared submissive to his wealth and power, as he tried to recreate the past, the american dream, holding the clock's wrath aimlessly and in vain against his hopes, desires and aspirations, leading to his destruction while the others,"the foul dust that floated on the wake of his dreams" lingers on forever, covering meaningless actions in a meaningless world
But soon the 20's would sail etheraly into the past with all its cast viciously darkened by the definite crash
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Summary: Unmatched
Review: A short book, a simple story, but Fitzgerald does things with the English language that few human beings have ever been able to do. This novel floats ethereally through the mind and settles in a place where it refuses to be dislodged. It is a pity that it is on almost every high school reading list because it is worth much more than the simple distaste that comes from most required reading. And what might be simple can also be classic. This is one of those books that resonates stronger and stronger with each succesive re-read. The movie (despite Robert Redford's presence) does the book absolutely no justice.
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Summary: An incredible novel and a lesson in characterization.
Review: The Great Gatsby is certainly a period piece that pays tribute to the excess of the 1920s. But more importantly, Fitzgerald's writing style is an excellent model for fiction writers looking for examples on charcter development. The author's descriptions are vivid, enticing, brutally honest, and, as far as I'm concerned, flawless. A beautifully tragic book and a must-read for any serious scholar of American literature.
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Summary: A book for all times.
Review: The setting of The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald plays an important role in the development of the novel. The unique way that Fitzgerald never refers to a specific year or era leaves it up for you to decide when you would like the novel to occur. Most people assume that the 1920's would be the most likely time period for the book to take place, but it is just as easy to say it took place in 1990. The way Fitzgerald did this leaves the book for the reader to enjoy as he or she so likes. Fitzgerald did, however, describe some of the setting. The West Egg and East Egg are perfect examples of this. He does not go into great depth to describe the shapes, colors, and proportions of these locations, but rather the characters surrounding them. During most of the book the characters you follow show you the atmosphere they are in, again leaving it up to the reader to chose how these places look. Fitzgerald's writing technique leaves it open for the reader to use their imagination more than any other book I have ever read. Usually when comparing a movie from a book I can think in my mind what I thought was similar and different. However, this book made it hard for me to disagree or agree with any of the scenes in the movie because Fitzgerald left it so wide open. Overall I think it was the best way to do it!
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Summary: Tragic love story that defined the Jazz age and era 20's
Review: The Great Gatsby was a great novel and one that everyone who has read this, will remember. I truly believed that it defined and era of our country. The extravagant parties and tea times. Gatsby's tragic flaw although was the fact that he loved Daisy and fell in love with her once again, too easily. Daisy, I feel had no respect for Gatsby, especially after his death. Not going to your lovers funeral is the worst flaw anyone can possess. I feel sorry for Gatsby and hope that this never happens to anyone close to me. Everyone who said and acted like they were his friends truly weren't. I also feel very sorry for Nick Carrawy because he has to witness a great man st and alone and still be happy in the process. Gatsby's book also describes the era of the 20's very well. He has been known to define the Jazz age and th era. Affer doing some basic work on the 20's, it shows that it really does describe alot of the time period. Gatsby's place in life was not showed through his work. His life suffered more hard work than Gatsby ever could. I think that through his works he tried to portray his life in a way that he wish it would have went.
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Summary: A book with frighteningly transparent characters.
Review: Fitzgerald looks into the hearts of his characters with such accuracy that you actually taste their pain when their glass shells are smashed. By the same token, you may never look at yourself in the same way again. An easy read, but a worthy one.
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Summary: The Roaring Twenties!
Review: This book not only tells the story of _The Great Gatsby_, but shows "Generation X" what it was like to live in the famous "Roaring Twenties." Fitzgerald is a genius and has the best descriptions! Symbolism is prevelant throughout the book, so read carefully! The characters show the shallowness of people, and the idea that money buys everything...even love is hinted at throughout the novel. A definite must read. For those who read it at a young age, read it over again, you won't regret it. I read it sophomore year and I also thought it was a "soap opera," but now _The Great Gatsby_ is my favorite book.
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Summary: Not the "Great Gatsby" but the "disillusioned" one!
Review: The Great Gatsby is probably one of the best novels of its time in the sense that it depicts the disillusionment of the Jazz Age to a tee! Gatsby's love for Daisy is not "love" in the sense that you or I know, but a kind of sick perversion or more aptly put - the inability for him to come to terms with his past. The need to have money and the need to be known in the Jazz Age is forever present in the book, and, from what we know of Gatsby's past, is something that Gatsby strove for his entire life. The reason his love affair with Daisy failed was because he had nothing! Love was not enough for Daisy in the relationship, and *her" disillusionment was with her need for material possessions: money, cars, fancy dresses, fabulous parties, etc. I find the role of Nick in the entire novel to be somewhat strange since I think that it would have been a good story without his presence, and my favorite part of the book is when he realizes it is his birthday - as if that is something one can forget. Gatsby's death at the end is envitable since I think the book comes full circle. Gatsby is violently awakened, and, perhaps, never realizes his disillusionment. I think though the end of the book reinforces this sense of disillusionment with the American dream when Nick sums up his encounter with Daisy and her husband. They apparently carry on as if nothing had happened, Dasiy doesn't leave Tom, and Gatsby's "role" as a martyr is ignored. Not even the death of Daisy's former love could bring her out of her disillusioned state. Of course there are many other themes - the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby, the mysterious glasses which recurs throughout the novel and many more... All in all...a very good book historically, sociologically, and psychologically. I've read it at least four times and will probably read it many more times!
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