The Great Gatsby

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Summary: Will we ever figure out Gatsby?
Review: In the wonderful book, The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the suspense never ends. The character the book is revolved around is a man named Gatsby. In the first part of the book Gatsby does not take the role of a main character. No one knows much about this man Gatsby except that he owns a house on the Long Island Sound and hosts many parties. Gatsby is a very rich man. He has servants take care of his house and himself. He also owns an enormous house with a pool. Sometimes Gatsby even takes people up in his hydroplane. When referring to a hydroplane he means a seaplane. Gatsby claims that he is rich because of a large inheritance from his family out west. Gatsby is also a self made millionaire. He also states that he made some of the money in the oil and drug business. Gatsby is a mystery that many people gossip about. Many people say that he supposedly went the Oxford while others disagreed and said he lied about that. Other rumors that circled around the neighborhood are that he was a soldier and killed some Germans. What Gatsby did is for you to find out? Gatsby's true character finally comes out during the book. He becomes good friends with the main character Carraways in the book who eventually finds his true character. In my opinion, Gatsby is a very discreet person not sharing any of his secrets with anybody. Gatsby meets this woman Daisy who is married to Buchanan. This is where the story unfolds.

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Summary: Great Gatsby Review
Review: I really liked this book. It was a very intriguining novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Though at times I found it somewhat difficult to follow, and found myself re-reading paragraphs to better understand it. At first I believed the theme to be that of a love story, but further reading brought me to find the main theme, which was the American dream in the 1920's. The dream was to become wealthy and socially excepted by a higher class, even if it meant going against your morals. I think I like this novel because I can relate the dream of the 1920's to be very similar to that of today. This connection helped me to stay interested and better understand what the theme was about.
My favorite character was Nick Carraway even though he had no desire to achieve this dream. He possessed a very strong character and did not give in to the immoral things his neighbors did, which separated him from the rest. Nick was the middle man and it was interesting to see how he learned of everyone's affairs, even his cousin's, which he had a hand in setting up. He was also the narrator, so his ideas and views influenced the reader's feelings about the story, as we saw the account from his point of view. This is the first novel that I have ever read where the main character was not in the beginning or end of the story. Nick was the person who was important in the beginning and end of the book, though he was not the main character. This approach was very appealing and pretty amazing. Jay Gatsby was another character that I found interesting. He was the main character of the story and was who the novel revolved around. He was a young man who made his millions illegally and only did it to win his long-life love back. And that is why at first I believed the theme to be about love.
The ending of the novel was very attention grabbing. I would have never guessed it to end that way. I think the ending was the best part. It really showed the American dream and how immoral people can be to one another. The ending really made me think about my dreams and how I should be careful in all things I do and that I should always stick to my morals.

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Summary: The greatest single piece of fiction ever written!
Review: As a thirteen year old boy growing up in a small town in Kansas this book changed my life.

Reading it again as a lit major in college I got even more out of it.

Now, as an adult my original copy is one of my most read, most treasured possesions.

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Summary: Serene but too many logarithms
Review: I recommend, as an alternative, "The South Beach Diet."

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Summary: Wonderful Layers of Meaning!
Review: The wonderful thing about this story is the layers it presents you... Its a love story, a social commentary, a fantasy, a surreal journey, a religious experience, a murderous tale of deceit, an exploration of daily life in the twenties, the societies on the coasts of America... Every time you read this tale you'll find so much more you never noticed, so mure more to enrich it. Its probably due to the fact that Fitzgerald "re-wrote" the story so many times in the form of short stories before he went with this "final draft" of the idea. Its a WONDERFUL wonderful book!!

A note on this particular edition, the editor's notes and introduction are very helpful into seeing Fitzgerald's mood while writing it, and I found it very helpful when I had to write a literary analysis of the story for a college class...

Rating:
Summary: Very good, recommended
Review: The Great Gatsby starts off as kind of a boring book, book but it ends up being a good book. The story starts off slowly, but has a lot of plot to make you want to keep reading. The story is interesting because the whole picture comes together as you read. The story is a bit complicated if you skim through it, so it is a book you have to read in its entirety in order to understand the stories plot twists and to understand the characters. The characters way of speaking gives the book its early 1900's feel, and the clothes they wear also help. The book is in a way a love story, and is the focus, but there is a lot more than just the focus on Gatsby wanting to be with Daisy. There are the relationships between Daisy and Tom, Tom and Myrtle, and the relationship between Myrtle and George. These relationships create examples of the characters are, conflict, and plot in the story are shown through dioulouge and situations. Example for showing that Tom was a violent person was when Myrtle shouted the name of his wife,
"Daisy, Daisy, Daisy!" Tom hits Myrtle in the face and breaks her nose.

Why I recommend this book be because it is an interesting story. It's interesting in the way that truth slowly surfaces throughout the book. The story about Gatsby and who he really is makes you want to keep reading, and also to see if he achieves his goal. The book successfully covers how Gatsby uses the American Dream, power and money, to try and achieve his goal of winning back Daisy. The way Gatsby gets his power and money, bootlegging alcohol, fits in perfect due to the time period that the story takes place because there is a prohibition going on.

One thing I didn't like about the book is that the book is very detailed, especially about the characheters. I found it difficult to come back to the book after not reading it for a week. I went back several times to remember the story and recent developments. Other than that one minor difficulty the book is very good and is recommended.

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Summary: The American Dream
Review: The Great Gatsby is the classic novel known as the American Dream. I thought that in some ways it represented what everyone in the United States wants. I thought that in the beginning it was really really boring but in the secone half of the book it became a little bit more interesting. I think that overall it was an okay book but I don't think that I would ever read it again.

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Summary: I've never cared for it, but...
Review: I question whether I should even write a review of a book I dislike which most people, even most of my friends, seem to adore. What it comes down to, for me, is that all the characters, even the best of them (namely Gatsby) are amoral, and the worst of them are vile. I ended up reading this book for school twice. The first time, in high school, I finished it and thought, "I must be missing something," so I bought and read through the Cliffs Notes, and then said, "Well yes, I knew all that, but so what?" In college I was assigned to read it a second time, and that time I got more substance out of it. The book will never be one of my favorites, though. I just haven't got enough cynicism in my soul (at least not yet, anyway) to look into a moral vaccuum and find much enlightenment there.

Perhaps I should read it a third time; it's a short book, after all. I'm older now, and I do get the point in a way I couldn't have then--Gatsby falls in love not with a real woman, but with his own dream vision of her, and confrontation with the real thing shatters him. (Then again, Don Quixote did the exact same thing without making me dislike him.) The equating in Gatsby's mind of love with money is also worth understanding as a very American hang-up, but it does just make him seem pathetic. And yes, I know that's the point.

I also concede that one reason I disliked it was the sheer glut of tragedies I was forced to read in school. I find that I have more patience for unhappy endings in fiction now that they're not being forced on me. (Heck, I read Dostoevsky for fun, now). But unhappy endings need not be the same thing as nihilism. Gatsby's universe is a highly nihilistic one, a world so far gone that even the saddest ideals seem priceless simply for being ideals.

Perhaps it's the kind of cynicism the book represents--it's not "grumpy old man" cynicism like Vonnegut or Twain, which at least feels earned and honest. No, this is youthful "look how worldly I am" cynicism, the sort that drives us as kids to write bad poetry and wear lots of black. Perhaps that's inevitable--the characters ARE all young, and the book is about decadence.

It may also be the humorlessness of the book that sets it aside from Vonnegut and Twain. I enjoyed de Laclos's "Dangerous Liasons," where the protagonists are both insidiously evil, but at least the cynicism there is laced with black humor. Gatsby carries an unrelenting air of "I'm writing something important, dammit!"

It's not my cup of tea. You're free to like it. Most folks do.

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Summary: The Greatness of Gatsby
Review: Told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby is the story of Jay Gatsby's doomed obsession with Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy, married woman who had been his lover before the war.

I rather liked the details that made the Jazz Age really come alive in this book. And I absolutely loved the perspective character, Nick; Fitzgerald sets up at the very beginning that Nick is an observant character who is careful with his judgement and remains true to this characterization throughout the story.

However, I gave it just four stars because it took quite a while for me to get into the story, which isn't very long to begin with (my copy is only 115 pages). But I did enjoy it and was impressed that such a charismatic story could be told in just over a hundred pages. Nick Carraway alone is enough to make me want to reread this book; I just loved his personality and his perceptiveness.

Plus, the ending came as a surprise to me. I won't give it away, but it's definitely an unexpected twist

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: F Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated and vivid Jazz Age tale describes the rise and fall of a charismatic character and the society around him. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Heart of Darkness. Both are first person narrations of the downfall of fabulous, ambitious social outsiders. And "Gatsby" points to the heart of darkness in American life, not only in the shady and criminal wellsprings of Jay Gatsby's wealth - and, by implication, perhaps, all wealth - but also in the coldness and cruel indifference of the privileged classes in the social hierarchy.
The story touches on many traditional American themes. The loss of innocence and the seduction of the new world by the wicked old one - roles often assumed by America and Europe - are here played out here in the second-favorite context of heartland versus New York, as the young sons and daughters of the Midwest are drawn into the web of the old, worldly, moneyed, Jewish metropolis. As the narrator, Nick Carraway, observes, not only does he hail from around Minnesota, but so do the other major characters - Jordan Baker, the Buchanans and Gatsby (and indeed Fitzgerald himself). Fitzgerald's America is different from today's. Whiter, much more parochial and homogenous, and smaller - Carraway uses the terms west and midwest interchangeably, whereas today west means LA not Chicago. Yet it is still familiar and its concerns regarding the struggle for success, the discovery that its attainment need not mean happiness, and the fickleness of social approval are as pressing today as they were then. The role of money is not as primary as that of acceptance and prestige, and certainly less important than in many 19th century European novels where it is a true nexus. Here - as in the lives of the super-rich today - it is mainly just a way of keeping score. The themes of remaking oneself, of moving and making a new start, and the gap between one's newly constructed self and one's enduring personal reality are likewise as topical (and American) as ever. The lurid denouement also has a flavour which is all too familiar today and is reminiscent of any number of recent classic American violent scandals among the newly rich - cases like Harris-Tarnower, the Menendez brothers, OJ or Ted Ammon.
Obviously, many of these issues were of direct personal import to Fitzgerald himself, yet "Gatsby" is a truly mature work without a trace of autobiographical flavour. Fluidly and assuredly written, it has stood the proverbial test of time, while many contemporary and later works have begun to date or are entirely forgotten. The epigram at the start is perhaps one of the funniest to preface any major piece of fiction (although Fitzgerald - or his editor - chose well in not using it in the title). Yet for all its merits, "Gatsby" is a slighter work than its reputation suggests: a novella, perhaps, but it has the feel of a short story. The Great American Novel it is not, but certainly a classic.