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The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.89 · Rating Details · 2,754,045 Ratings · 51,760 Reviews

THE GREAT GATSBY, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national dr ...more

Paperback, 180 pages

Published September 2004 by Scribner (first published 1925)

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Community Reviews

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Dec 24, 2007 Alex rated it it was amazing

The Great Gatsby is your neighbor you're best friends with until you find out he's a drug dealer. It charms you with some of the most elegant English prose ever published, making it difficult to discuss the novel without the urge to stammer awestruck about its beauty. It would be evidence enough to argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald was superhuman, if it wasn't for the fact that we know he also wrote This Side of Paradise.

But despite its magic, the rhetoric is just that, and it is a cruel facade. Be ...more

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May 02, 2010 Nataliya rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-childhood-bookshelves, i-also-saw-the-film, 2013-reads, books-from-childhood-revisited

Oh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with 'some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life', focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it.

Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly.

Just like the Great Houdini - the association the ...more

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Jul 31, 2007 svnh rated it did not like it

Shelves: one-more-time

After six years of these heated and polarized debates, I'm deleting the reviews that sparked them. Thanks for sharing your frustrations, joys, and insights with me, goodreaders. Happy reading!

In love and good faith, always,
Savannah

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Sep 29, 2009 Pollopicu rated it did not like it

This is my least-favorite classic of all time. Probably even my least favorite book, ever.
I didn't have the faintest iota of interest in neither era nor lifestyle of the people in this novela. So why did I read it to begin with? well, because I wanted to give it a chance. I've been surprised by many books, many a times. Thought this could open a new literary door for me.
Most of the novel was incomprehensibly lame. I was never fully introduced to the root of the affair that existed between Gatsb ...more

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Sep 22, 2007 Kemper rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: plain-old-fiction, 100, classic-lit, favorites

Jay Gatsby, you poor doomed bastard. You were ahead of your time. If you would have pulled your scam after the invention of reality TV, you would have been a huge star on a show like The Bachelor and a dozen shameless Daisy-types would have thrown themselves at you.

Mass media and modern fame would have embraced the way you tried to push your way into a social circle you didn’t belong to in an effort to fulfill a fool’s dream as your entire existence became a lie and you desperately sought to re ...more

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Oct 23, 2007 Gina rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Over drinks, I’ve observed—like so many smart alecks—that much of The Great Gatsby’s popularity relies heavily on its shortness. At a sparse 180 pages, Fitzgerald’s masterpiece could be argued to be the “Great American novella.” Gatsby, like so many other short classics, is easily readable, re-readable, and assessable to everyone from the attention-deficient young to mothers juggling a kid, a career, and a long-held desire to catch up on all those books “they should have read but haven’t gotten Over drinks, I’ve observed—like so many smart alecks—that much of The Great Gatsby’s popularity relies heavily on its shortness. At a sparse 180 pages, Fitzgerald’s masterpiece could be argued to be the “Great American novella.” Gatsby, like so many other short classics, is easily readable, re-readable, and assessable to everyone from the attention-deficient young to mothers juggling a kid, a career, and a long-held desire to catch up on all those books “they should have read but haven’t gotten around to yet”.

I’ve now read Gatsby three times, and I admit that on my first reading during (like handfuls of others) my senior year English class, I wasn’t particularly fond of the book; I believe I used the adjective “overrated” on numerous occasions. Daisy Buchanan seemed like a twit of a woman, and I found Jay Gatsby to be pathetically clawing in his attempt to attain her. Nick, my guide, only annoyed me further with his apparent hero-worshiping of a man I found one-dimensional and his adoration for the kind of woman I’ve seen other men purport to be goddesses, but in fact, are dim-witted simpletons with nice figures.

Over my two subsequent readings—pushed along by friends whose judgment I trusted and who swore the book was “so funny and ironic”—I discovered within Fitzgerald’s fable a sardonic social wit and a heavily layered critique of the American Dream: the poor, working (wo)man rising above his or her social situation to discover money conquers all.

Fitzgerald has a discerning ability for sharp critiques of the economically privileged and, like Jane Austin, has an ear for realistic, bantering dialogue. Through Nick’s narration, we see a world that so many Americans dream of (its enviableness only further accentuated by our open disdain for it): a life of endless parties, delicious food, beautiful clothes, and Paris Hilton. Nick who’s paradoxically drawn to his cousin, Daisy’s, and her husband, Tom’s, lifestyle with gloating contempt echoes the contemporary American idolization of an elite lifestyle that none but a select few attain.

We watch Daisy with her voice that “sounds of money” flit about with uncompromising shallowness and vivacious school-girl frivolity, and through her, see so many of the inconsequential remarks and actions others (as well as ourselves) have made for the sheer sake of “having a good time”. In spite of her frivolity and weak disposition, we become, like Gatsby, “overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.”

Through Gatsby’s veneration of Daisy, we not only imagine what so many Americans desire (success), but also we see the goal and glittering fixation of all humanity: beauty. And like many Americans in the throes of Capitalism, Gatsby believes that money can buy beauty as well as love. Fitzgerald articulates this disillusion with haunting force, particularly voiced through Nick’s obsessive repulsion with the extravagant society his social status has allowed him and the sadness he finds while watching a “working man” attempt to enter it.

One critique of The Great Gatsby, which could also be argued as a positive, is the limited scope of action and themes Fitzgerald chooses to encapsulate. We only see the wealthy elite (or people wanting to be the wealthy elite), and only Nick really has any depth of characterization. Unlike a tome, such as War and Peace, Gatsby fails to have numerous interwoven plotlines within a grand historical context. Yes, the Jazz Age is the novel’s backdrop, but Fitzgerald fails to engage in any discussion beyond a summer among the wealthy youth partying into the wee hours of the night in the West Egg. Yet, the control with which Fitzgerald expresses his limited themes makes the novel’s lack of scope forgivable.

Gatsby is short and easily accessible, and I have no doubt these aspects of the novel do lend to its everlasting popularity. At the same time, it should never diminish its truly admirable ability to tease apart some of the most confounding qualities American culture values: money, beauty, youth, hard work, and the ever effusive, love. ...more

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May 02, 2010 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: easton-press, audiobook, classics-americas, literature, love-those-words, 1900-1929

Casual, self-absorbed decadence, the evaporation of social grace, money calling all the shots and memories of the past holding people hostage from the future that lies before them. Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald has nailed it and written one of THE great American novels.

This book was a surprise. I LOVED it and all of the deep contradictions swimming around its heart. At once a scathing indictment on the erosion of the American Dream, but also a bittersweet love letter to the unfailing optimism of the American people. Call it dignified futility…obstinate hopefulness. Whatever you call it, this novel is shiny and gorgeous, written with a sort of breezy pretension that seems to mirror the loose morality of the story. Rarely have I come across a book whose style so perfectly enhances its subject matter.

Set in the eastern United States just after World War I, Fitzgerald shows us an America that has lost its moral compass. This fall from grace is demonstrated through the lives of a handful of cynical “well-to-dos” living lavish but meaningless lives that focus on nothing but the pursuit of their own pleasures and whims.

Standing apart from these happenings (while still being part of them) is our narrator, Nick Carraway. As the one honest and decent person in the story, Nick stands in stark contrast to the other characters. “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” Nick relays the story of the summer he spent in Long Island’s West Egg in a small house sandwiched between the much larger mansions of the area. His time in Long Island is spent with a group that includes his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her rich husband Tom who live in Long Island’s East Egg. At one point in the story, Nick provides the following description of the pair which I do not think can be improved upon:

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

In addition, we have Jordan Baker who is a poster child for the pretty, amoral, self-centered rich girl whose view of the world is jaded and unsentimental. Basically, she’s a bitch.

The most intriguing character by far is Jay Gatsby himself, both for who he is and for how Fitzgerald develops him through the course of the narrative. When we are first introduced to Gatsby, he comes across as a polite, gracious, well-mannered gentleman with a magnetic personality who our narrator takes to immediately.

He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.

However, from that very first encounter, Fitzgerald slowly chips away at the persona and peels back the layers of the “Great” Gatsby until we are left with a flawed and deeply tragic figure that in my opinion ranks among the most memorable in all of classic literature. Nick’s journey in his relationship with Gatsby mirrors our own. “It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”

Through a series of parties, affairs, beatings, drunken escapades, the lives of the characters intermesh with terrible consequences. I don’t want to give away major parts of the story as I think they are best experienced for the first time fresh, but at the heart of Fitzgerald’s morality tale is a tragic love that for me rivaled the emotional devastation I felt at the doomed relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights. In general, Fitzgerald’s world of excessive jubilance and debauchery is a mask that the characters wear to avoid the quiet torments that haunt them whenever they are forced to take stock of their actions. Rather than do this, they simply keep moving. "I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."

In the end, Fitzgerald manages the amazing feat of creating a sad, bleak portrait of America while maintaining a sense of restrained optimism in the future. Both heart-wrenching and strangely comforting at the same time. I guess in the end, this was a book that made me feel a lot and that is all I can ever ask. I’m going to wrap this up with my second favorite quote from the book (my favorite being the one at the very beginning of the review):

And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!

...more

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Oct 15, 2014 Inge rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: put-a-sock-in-it, meh

There was one thing I really liked about The Great Gatsby.

It was short.

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Dec 31, 2007 LooseLips rated it liked it

Recommends it for: the people who live in upstate egg.

Shelves: hmmm, re-reading

The eh Gatsby

Classic. Yes. THE great American novel. Hmph, so I heard. I suppose it should make one more interested, or at least feel more compelled to read something (or re-read as is the case here) when it has "classic" and "everyone else loves it!" stamped all over it. And has a movie made out of it, though what beloved novel hasn't these days? Of course, I originally read FSF's Gatsby because I was expected to for a high school English class. So, even though I was never the type to do homewo The eh Gatsby

Classic. Yes. THE great American novel. Hmph, so I heard. I suppose it should make one more interested, or at least feel more compelled to read something (or re-read as is the case here) when it has "classic" and "everyone else loves it!" stamped all over it. And has a movie made out of it, though what beloved novel hasn't these days? Of course, I originally read FSF's Gatsby because I was expected to for a high school English class. So, even though I was never the type to do homework, I read The Great Gatsby because it had a neat cover, Fitzgerald is fun to say, and, of course, the legend of Zelda.

Unfortunately for Meredyth, my thoughts on Gatsby 10 years ago are pretty similar to the thoughts I have on it today: How pretty. Pretty decedant. How drippy. How zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It's not that I was completely uninterested. It's that my interest was never piqued to the point of really giving a shit. Sure, who doesn't love a hot mysteriously wealthy man with serious heart ache for a serious material girl? What about those rich dudes who may be crooks but no one can figger out how crooked they are exactly because how crooked can you be if you throw such mean hoedowns?!

Oh, and I love a good morally ambiguous-protaganist/narrator-who-hates-parties-and-society-but-just-can't-seem-to-stay-away as much as the next person, but Nick, our hero, just wants to be liked so very much, and unfortunately, he reads like a sap. And when all the other characters are unforgivable bores, I would prefer that my ambiguous, socially mandated narrator manage to keep me awake.

What about those three stars? You ask. Well I can't lie. I do think Fitz had a way with words. I did find that those subtle nuances of the variations in lifestyle during the depression to be very much in effect, and I would be happy to visit any fictional small town called West Egg. Or East Egg for that matter. And I get the kind of crazy he was going for in his more psychopathic character, George Wilson, who, because he was in love, becomes the bastiOn of normalcy even when he is driven to murder and his own suicide.

FSF did manage to be believably compassionate towards his seemingly less insane characters, (who are all on the brink of insanity) (but still made me drowsy). There is definitely a part of me that sees how one could be drawn into the twinkly lit world FSF created, supposedly, out of his own reality, and I have noted his passion for the beauty of the unfolding story, such as it is.

But I was disappointed 10 years ago by the story's inability to convince me it wasn't nap time, its unwillingness to point out the the relevance of the individual over society, and the irrelevance of the world Gatsby inhabits, and I was disappointed again this past week.

In summation, be sure to keep an eye out for this writer. Once he writes something more appealing to the masses he's sure to bust out onto the scene soon. You heard it here first. ...more

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Jul 09, 2007 Jason rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: people who can read

Shelves: favorites

Most Americans are assigned to read this novel in high school. Few American high schoolers have the wherewithal to appreciate this novel in full. I certainly did not. It is on a shortlist of novels that should, every 5 years starting at age 25, return to any American's required reading list.

First things first: The opening of The Great Gatsby -- its first 3-4 pages -- ranks among the best of any novel in the English language, and so too does its ending. Both for their content and for their prose, Most Americans are assigned to read this novel in high school. Few American high schoolers have the wherewithal to appreciate this novel in full. I certainly did not. It is on a shortlist of novels that should, every 5 years starting at age 25, return to any American's required reading list.

First things first: The opening of The Great Gatsby -- its first 3-4 pages -- ranks among the best of any novel in the English language, and so too does its ending. Both for their content and for their prose, the latter of which is stunning and near perfect throughout the novel.

As for that between the novel's opening and conclusion, two things first. (1) History is fairly clear that the term "the American Dream" did not exist at the time Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, and regardless it almost certainly did not exist in the popular consciousness. (2) Few great American novelists after Fitzgerald have not attempted to write "the great American novel". Most of these efforts are absurdly long and often tortured. The Great Gatsby, on the other hand, is relatively short, fluid, and of seemingly effortless yet pristine expression. At a point in history where Fitzgerald's express focus could hardly have been a tale regarding "the American dream" per se or the writing of "the great American novel", Fitzgerald nevertheless crafts the definitive tale of "the American Dream", as well as, his successors' endeavors aside, "the great American novel". Period.

In not so many pages, Fitzgerald paints a brilliantly cogent picture of the potential pleasures, joys, and benefits an individual might deem achievable -- uniquely so -- in an America filled with possibilities. Paired with that picture, Fitzgerald besprinkles The Great Gatsby with the numerous pitfalls and evils that both stand as a barrier to what's imagined achievable in America, and threaten to accompany that which is achieved. Neither the quest for, nor (if possible) the achievement of, the American Dream is a thing untainted. Nor, in Fitzgerald's view, can it be.

Fitzgerald, frankly, writes all that need be written on this subject; whatever his successors' ambitions may be. And he writes it in prose so perfect, so impressive, and so beautiful, I occasionally find myself at a loss to name a novel in the English language constructed with greater skill, and apparent ease thereof.

In short: The Great Gatsby is an inimitable wonder of American fiction. And, for lack of a better word, an "application" of the English language that has few equals. The novel is astounding.
...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Ian "Marvin" Grayejoy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, reviews-5-stars, fitzgerald, read-2013

The True Value of Monopoly Money

Capitalism tends towards monopoly.

No capitalist welcomes a competitor or rival. Having attained wealth, the desire is to retain it, not to concede it; to increase it, not to share it.

A competitor is perceived as a threat, and will be treated like a virus invading an otherwise healthy, but vulnerable, body.

The Great American Dream

"The Great Gatsby" is often described as a paean to the Great American Dream.

This Dream supposedly sustains the average American. It of ...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Jonathan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: personal-favourites, classic-literature, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, historical, classic-challenge-2, popularity-contest-2, books-with-films-2

My essay on The Great Gatsby and reification

What is there to love about The Great Gatsby?

F.Scott Fitzgerald’s writing here leaves only a little to be desired. The characters themselves seem shallow and empty, lacking in morality and you could take all this into consideration and instantly report: ‘well that’s a shallow book if ever I’ve heard of one.’ However it can also be seen that, The Great Gatsby is a scathing social commentary that explores the fruitlessness of pursuing dreams. Particularl My essay on The Great Gatsby and reification

What is there to love about The Great Gatsby?

F.Scott Fitzgerald’s writing here leaves only a little to be desired. The characters themselves seem shallow and empty, lacking in morality and you could take all this into consideration and instantly report: ‘well that’s a shallow book if ever I’ve heard of one.’ However it can also be seen that, The Great Gatsby is a scathing social commentary that explores the fruitlessness of pursuing dreams. Particularly dreams that are nothing more than shadows. To that end The Great Gatsby is a brilliant piece of fiction designed to criticise the lack of morality among its rich and selfish inhabitants who parasitically devour the work of the poor.

One of the most beautiful elements in this novel is the depiction of the Valley of Ashes, which ultimately all the characters pass through regardless of being rich or poor. It is a place of equality and reminds one of the idea of the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’ mentioned by the Psalmist David, and in the novel itself Wilson relates those giant eyes to the eyes of God, a God who sees all that men do. Which is such a brilliant image to present to the reader. It is imagery like this that haunts one far after finishing this novel. Imagery remembered emphatically.

It is also the language of Fitzgerald’s work that draws one in. It may not always be flawless writing but it is vivid and alive. Fitzgerald’s is essentially thoughtful writing. It is the language of quotes that act as prison bars to keep the reader enthralled by the novel.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’”

Of course The Great Gatsby will always be a polarising text due to its characters and the debate about whether it is truly a novel about the American Dream. It is a polarising effect that stems from the allure of the book – the way in which the novel hauntingly hints at something greater while remaining so brilliantly flawed. One certainly cannot fully explain their own fascination with the book, save that it does that rare thing that strong literature should do. It serves, as Franz Kafka said, to be “the axe for the frozen sea within us.” An axe in a forest of frozen dreams – poetically carving up a vision of one man forever haunted by the failings of his own dream.

The rest of this review has been moved over to my website, click right here if you would like to read the rest of the review. ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 Clau R. rated it liked it

Shelves: cover-love, 2015, unique-writing-style

Se me olvidó actualizar la info de este libro en GR, oops. Luego dejo un review por acá, aunque ya expliqué mi sentir en el Wrap up de Los Juegos de Booktube, en el canal.

OH, y no estoy segura del rating que le puse al libro, en estos días pensaré si debo subirlo o bajarlo, sigo muy pensativa al respecto.

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Feb 27, 2012 Huda Yahya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels_novellas, the-american-dream, college-books

ترتبط هذه الرواية في ذهني بذكريات جميلة ودافئة
فلقد درستها في عامي الأول في الكلية
وكنت أقرؤها بلذة خالصة لن يعرفها من يقوم بقرائتها مترجمة

لا أجد رواية تقوم بتجسيد الحلم الأمريكي كهذه الرواية
وعليك أن تقارن فكرة الحلم الأمريكي في بدايتها بفكرة الحلم الإنساني ككل
هذا الشبق العظيم للوصول إلى القمة
الحصول على كل شيء
النجاح العظيم
والحرية المطلقة

فكرة الحلم الأمريكي ترجع جذورها إلى البدايات
لحظة توقيع إعلان الاستقلال
والذي يجعل الرجال جميعهم متساوين في الحقوق
حيث خلقوا جميعاً من ربّ واحد بحقوق مستحقة
لاحظ هنا
ترتبط هذه الرواية في ذهني بذكريات جميلة ودافئة
فلقد درستها في عامي الأول في الكلية
وكنت أقرؤها بلذة خالصة لن يعرفها من يقوم بقرائتها مترجمة

لا أجد رواية تقوم بتجسيد الحلم الأمريكي كهذه الرواية
وعليك أن تقارن فكرة الحلم الأمريكي في بدايتها بفكرة الحلم الإنساني ككل
هذا الشبق العظيم للوصول إلى القمة
الحصول على كل شيء
النجاح العظيم
والحرية المطلقة

فكرة الحلم الأمريكي ترجع جذورها إلى البدايات
لحظة توقيع إعلان الاستقلال
والذي يجعل الرجال جميعهم متساوين في الحقوق
حيث خلقوا جميعاً من ربّ واحد بحقوق مستحقة
لاحظ هنا أن توماس جيفريسون ذكر
All men are created equal
وإن كانت لفظة men
تعني الإنسان في وقت ما إنما استخدام اللفظة عامة جعلها تحتكر الحرية على الذكور
فمازالت المرأة وقتها تعامل على أنها مواطن من الدرجة الثانية
وربما إلى الآن

يرسم فيتزجيرالد أبطاله بعناية
يدقق في تفاصيلاتهم الخاصة
يأخذك في دواخلهم ويداعب ملامحهم بلغته الماكرة الممتعة

~~**~~
ابتسم بتفهّم
بأكثر من مجرّد تفهم
وكانت واحدة من تلك الابتسامات النادرة التي تحمل صبغة طمأنينة أبدية فيها
والتي قد تأتي عبر أربع أو خمس مرات في الحياة
لقد واجهت
أو بدى أنها واجهت
العالم بأكمله في لحظة
ومن ثم ركزت على روحك بمحاباة لا تقاوم في صالحك
لقد تفهّمتكْ قدر ما تريد أنت أن تكون مفهوماً
آمنت بك بالقدر الذي تريد أنت به الإيمان بذاتك
و طمأنتك بأنها تأخذ نفس الانطباع الذي قد تودّ إعطاءه عن نفسك في أقصى طموحاتك
~~**~~

كانت طريقة الكاتب في الوصف هي الآسرة هُنا
فالقصّة ذاتها إن تجرّدت من سردها القيّم ستبقى عادية جداً
وتافهة لدى البعض
رجل فقير يحاول قدر ما يحاول إثراء ذاته للوصول إلى قلب المرأة التي أحبها
والتي تتصف بانتهازية ووقاحة وأنانية تجعلك تود سحقها احياناً

القصة لن تتفهمها جيداً إلا إذا كنت مهتماً ببدايات الحلم الأمريكي
وبدراسة تلك الفترة من عمر أمريكا القصير
فالرواية تدور في عصر الجاز
وتلقي الضوء على أوقات قريبة من بداية الكساد الكبير
و في وقت كان الإتجار بالخمور ممنوعاً
والذي انتشر فيه بيع وشراء الخمر بنهم كبير في السوق السوداء

تنقل الرواية المشاعر الإنسانية في أوجها
تجدها متجسدة في الحروف تكاد تنطق
بطريقة شديدة الخصوصية وبمهارة أدبية عظيمة

القصة أكثر من مجرد شباب وفتيات يعيشون المتعة واللهو
فهي تصور حيرة جيل مجنون بأكمله
يعاني الاغتراب والملل والجهل
يحاول الوصول إلى فكرة مستحيلة
إلى ثراء ومجد وحرية
حتى يتساقطوا واحداً تلو الآخر من التعب وخيبة الأمل
فكل واحد فيهم أراه قد مات في نهاية الرواية بطريقة أو بأخرى
بحيث لم يبقى ممن قد بقى سوى أشباح لم تعد قادرة حتى على التفاهات اليومية التي يغرقون أنفسهم بها

هناك أكثر من فيلم شاهدته عن الرواية
ولم يعجبني أي منهم
ولكنني أنتظر الفيلم الجديد
وأشعر أنه سيكون مختلفاً
وممتعاً

متعة الرواية تقل كثيراً في الترجمة
فالرواية الأمريكية تحتاج لقراءتها كما كتبت وبنفس الروح
و لقد تمتعت بدراستها ،وحصلت على تقدير جيد جدا سنتها
:D
ولذا تبقى في ذهني مرتبطة ببعض قطرات من سعادة
وبأوقات حلوة لا تُنسى ...more

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Aug 01, 2012 karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: littry-fiction, pretty-girls-make-graves, favorites

i love this book. yes, it is a story about vapid and shallow people who live selfish and hedonistic lives and treat other people like playthings, but there is an elegance, a restraint to the prose that manages to discuss, in the same tone, both doomed love and the breakdown of the american dream. and it is masterful. some may say the great american novel.

and so this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULhla...

makes me want to tear my eyes out with my hands and stomp on them forever and ever.

yeah, yo ...more

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Aug 05, 2013 Brian Yahn rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Anyone 17+

Shelves: favorites

Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are two of the most memorable characters in literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald weaves them tragically together in this perfectly plotted masterpiece.

Every scene is unforgettable--so distinct and unique--from the grandest party ever recorded, to the most tense fight ever written, to the most perfectly dark twisted love affair of all time, to the most pathetically sad funeral imaginable.

When people say this is the best book ever written, they're not kidding. It's so good ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Paul Bryant rated it liked it

Shelves: novels

This is an all right-ish kind of novel, I suppose, but I always preferred Fitzgerald’s little-known prequel The Average Gatsby, although some people found the vision of Mervyn Gatsby, Jay’s obscure brother, living a reasonably okayish life as the manager of a carpet and upholstery warehouse in Des Moines a trifle dispiriting. I quite agree that The Bad Gatsby was a shameless self-ripoff which did Fitzgerald no favours. (The threesome scene between Warren Harding, John Dillinger and Gatsby was in ...more

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Mar 06, 2007 Rolls rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everybody and their mother

"The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the zenith of American fiction writing in the last century. I won't say that it is the best American novel I've read but I will say it is probably the most perfect.

Along with J.D. Salinger, Fitzgerald has got to be my favorite writer of fiction. As opposed to Hemingway's bluntness, and Faulkner's artiness, Fitzgerald's prose seems(to paraphrase Michael Chabon) to rain down from style heaven. His style in fact is like the ladies he writes about: cool "The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the zenith of American fiction writing in the last century. I won't say that it is the best American novel I've read but I will say it is probably the most perfect.

Along with J.D. Salinger, Fitzgerald has got to be my favorite writer of fiction. As opposed to Hemingway's bluntness, and Faulkner's artiness, Fitzgerald's prose seems(to paraphrase Michael Chabon) to rain down from style heaven. His style in fact is like the ladies he writes about: cool, lean and absolutely enchanting. He would never dream of overwriting and knows exactly when to hold back for maximum effect. His use of the language is assured and consequently eminently readable. For that alone this should be considered the Mona Lisa of prose.

What is astounding though is how he puts his sparsely elegant style to use giving his characters shade and depth. Fitzgerald is a true student of humanity and his skills of observation are razor sharp. He sums up his characters in sentences that read like aphorisms bulging with truth about the human condition. There's not a page goes by I'm not gasping at the depth of his vision and the economy he uses to express it.

So far I've dwelt on how he wrote and not on what he wrote. People who'd back another nag in the Great American Novel derby knock Fitzgerald's sophomoric (their word not mine) obsession with romance between men and women. They reduce his works to the level of melodramatic tear jerkers. This is a gross simplification of his talents. Yes "Gatsby" focuses on a doomed love affair but it does so to illustrate the errors in thinking that he felt marred his generation.

Gatsby is about the hollowness of the American dream as dreamt in the twenties. Fitzgerald looked around him (and in the mirror)and saw men and women locked in a frenzied and ultimatley doomed race for speed, money and sin. Gatsby and Daisy's love is doomed because their values have been distorted by money and comfort and opulence. They cannot see the depths because they are too easily distracted by shiny surfaces. When Daisy cries as Gatsby shows off his elegantly tailored shirts because she has never seen clothes so beautiful sums up perfectly how for her exteriors matter most. This is at the heart of the tragedy that unfolds before us in this delicious little novel.

There is no denying this is one of the GREAT BOOKS. If you haven't read it do so. I dare you to not fall in love with it. ...more

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Jul 31, 2007 Steve rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There once was a man they called Jay,
A symbol of Jazz Age decay.
And just as Scott held a
Fixation for Zelda,
Jay’s Daisy dream sure made him pay!

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Jun 30, 2011 Henry Avila rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious young man, who gives extravagant parties on Long Island, New York, outside his palatial mansion , in the warm, lazy, summer nights. That he doesn't know the people he invites, not to mention the numerous gatecrashers, might make it a little strange, but this being the roaring 20's, anything goes, rumors abound about Gatsby, bootlegger ? Who cares, as long as the free liquor flows, the great food served, and the beautiful music, continues playing. Finally attending one ...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Cecily rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics, canada-and-usa

I don't know if my appreciation of this should be tempered by the fact I was about three quarters of the way through before I realised I'd read it before (though I think it was many years ago)!

PLOT
It is (mostly) set in Long Island in summer of 1922, amongst the young, idle, amoral rich, playing fast and loose with their own lives and indeed, those of others. All very glamorous, self-centred, and shallow, but the possibility of darker things lurking holds interest and tension.

CHARACTERS
Even if y ...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Marina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: food-for-thought, in-one-word-good, historical-fiction

Great.
Now I'm getting pissed off at classics too. I seem to be upping my game.

How much shallowness can one person stand.
Well, if I feel betrayed, imagine Jay.

Newsflash sweetheart, when a man wants to give you the world, the least you can do is send a flower to his funeral.

I suppose he would have had you not destroyed him.

I've never respected a fictional character more.

And the best part is that now, we don't even have the excuse of a battle between the old wealth and the new rich of the 1920s. Th ...more

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Nov 25, 2014 emma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, owned, classics, recommend, non-ya, beautifully-written, favorite-authors, reread, school, to-review, owned-multiple, 5-stars

Daisy Buchanan Is The Real Hero Of The Great Gatsby: A Thinkpiece

will be dropping my pièce de résistance soon

(this is my attempt at a fun way of saying, "review to come and that review will blow your mind and make you realize that daisy is the best part of this book")

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Oct 25, 2015 Jo Woolfardis rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: septic, masculine, ce20, 2016, bookshelf

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

I am a Classics person, but not a Modern Classics reader. I prefer the Victorian and pre-Victorian Classics and Modern Classics have never really interested me. However, even before I began this Reading Challenge I knew that I needed to change that. I'm still not overly enamoured with Modern Classics (though they tend to be a lot shorter than Victorian Classics are, which can come as a relief) but I Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

I am a Classics person, but not a Modern Classics reader. I prefer the Victorian and pre-Victorian Classics and Modern Classics have never really interested me. However, even before I began this Reading Challenge I knew that I needed to change that. I'm still not overly enamoured with Modern Classics (though they tend to be a lot shorter than Victorian Classics are, which can come as a relief) but I am thoroughly enjoying the journey through the genre.

This book was quite a disappointment and not a surprise at the same time. I knew I wasn't going to love it before I went in to it, though I don't know why. I had no preconceptions of this book: I've never seen the film and I haven't ever read a blurb about it. My copy doesn't have one. I just knew I wouldn't love it.

I didn't think I wouldn't like it, though. I can't really think of any specifics, I just didn't like the plot, the characters or the setting at all. There were some fun moments, some dire moments and just a whole lot of dullness going around. It's hard to really enjoy something if you don't feel any sympathy or empathy with the characters, not even mentioning that ever-present idea that we need to identify with characters, too. I also found that this book wasn't particularly American, or particularly 20s, or particularly anything at all, really. It was just a kind of story with a kind of moral to it.

The one thing I will say about this: F. Scott is a wonderful writer. I kind of thought this before I went in, but I never really knew until I found I was re-reading sentences over and over again just to re-live them. Not what they were saying, or what they were telling, or showing, or portraying, or anything like that, but just the words used and in which order. Sometimes it felt like magic. I will definitely read more F. Scott, but this one really isn't great at all. But that's okay. Most Classics aren't that great, anyway, we just pretend they are most of the time.

Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Shop | Etsy ...more

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Jul 22, 2008 Martine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-fiction, film, north-american, early-twentieth-century

Like many people, I first read The Great Gatsby when I was too young to understand it. I appreciated the beauty of Fitzgerald's prose and his gift for describing scenes, but disliked quite a few of his characters and couldn't fathom why they inspired in each other the degree of devotion and obsession that they seemed to do. I also found the narrator a bit dull and the ending a huge let-down. In short, I was convinced Fitzgerald was a good writer (I actually went on to check out some of his short Like many people, I first read The Great Gatsby when I was too young to understand it. I appreciated the beauty of Fitzgerald's prose and his gift for describing scenes, but disliked quite a few of his characters and couldn't fathom why they inspired in each other the degree of devotion and obsession that they seemed to do. I also found the narrator a bit dull and the ending a huge let-down. In short, I was convinced Fitzgerald was a good writer (I actually went on to check out some of his short stories immediately afterwards), but couldn't see what all the Gatsby fuss was about.

I think I can see it now, having reread the book a couple of times since then. Yes, it's a novel about the American Dream -- a rags-to-riches story about a poor man who re-invents himself as a mysterious millionaire in hopes of winning the heart of the beautiful rich girl he has fancied ever since they were young. But it's also about the shallowness of that dream, and about the corruption inherent in it -- about the lengths to which people will go for success and acceptance, not necessarily in an admirable way. It's about the gap between dreams and reality, between reality and perception, and about how modern, status-obsessed America is increasingly on the perception side of the gap. It's an indictment of materialism, of the thin veneer of wealth which hides the moral decay underneath. And last but not least, it's a story about what makes us who we are. About how we are shaped by our pasts and backgrounds, and how, no matter how far we run and how hard we try to re-invent ourselves, we are what we are, what we always were. It's a depressing message for the would-be self-improvers among us, but a true one, I think.

Of course, the book also works on a shallower level. The Gatsby-Daisy romance is fascinating, even if both of its protagonists ultimately turn out to be rather vapid and deluded. And Gatsby's dream is nothing if not powerful. If it ends up failing, that's because it was based on wrong assumptions -- assumptions arising from ignorance and greed as well as hope. There's a lot of greed and ignorance in the book, and it makes for memorable (albeit heavily flawed) characters. (I actually believe Jordan Baker is the most interesting character in the book. I'd have loved to see a bit more of her, although I guess it's precisely her elusiveness which makes her so fascinating.) For his part, old-fashioned Nick proves to be an excellent narrator, whose 'provincial squeamishness' adds just the right kind of perspective to all the modern goings-on described in the book. Nick may be unspectacular and unreliable, but to my mind, he's one of the best narrators in the history of modern fiction. Now that I've learnt to appreciate the novel, his disappointment and disillusionment will stay with me for ever, as will his sad resignation. (If, in fact, that is what it is. One never knows with this endlessly subtle novel.) ...more

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Sep 10, 2016 Nishat rated it it was amazing

Shelves: delicate-as-poetry, best-books-i-ve-ever-read, favorites, classic

F. Scott Fitzgerald in his intricately patterned novel, spectacularly draws an enigmatic millionaire and his idealistic passion for a beautiful, but insincere woman in an unprecedented flourishing era. Today happiness largely defined by the acquisition of material things, as epitomized by this timeless novel, The Great Gatsby continues to embody the American Dream.

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that famili
...more

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Oct 07, 2008 Robin rated it it was ok

This was a bookclub read that I've not read for many many years. It was of course assigned reading in both high school and college. I remember pouring over all the various aspects of this book and picking it a part like disecting a frog.

Now that I'm older....much older. This reading broght a whole new light on this book for me. And I'm sorry to say....I think this book is HIGHLY overrated.

This book was never a sucess (either critically or via sales) when it was released and I think that it actu ...more

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Oct 22, 2007 Brad rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Car owners

This book becomes far better when you take all of Gatsby's mystery and just think of him as Batman. The whole book falls into place!

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May 02, 2016 orsodimondo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: americana

COSÌ CONTINUIAMO A REMARE, BARCHE CONTRO LA CORRENTE, SOSPINTI SENZA POSA VERSO IL PASSATO
Romanzo che mi è parso molto, molto cinematografico (anche se non credo Fitzgerald avesse ancora incominciato a lavorare a Hollywood quando Gatsby fu pubblicato).
Ma il cinema per gli US (e per noi italiani) è la forma d’arte esportata meglio nel corso del Novecento, quella che si è diffusa di più, è diventata più famosa. Fitzgerald anche in questo seppe cogliere l’aria del tempo (e poi restare eterno come ...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Ariel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

ALL OF YOU GO READ THIS.
ITS WONDERFUL.

It was sadder than I thought it would be.. but it was beautiful. The ambiance is what got me.. the world I was in just AHH SO GOOD.

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topics	posts	views	last activity
50 books to read ...: The Great Gatsby	14	154	Jul 23, 2017 11:43AM
About Daisy	58	233	Jul 20, 2017 06:47AM
Proof Gatsby was Driving	27	180	Jul 19, 2017 05:47PM
Was it right for Jay to die?	28	89	Jul 18, 2017 01:59PM
Goodreads Librari...: Please correct page count	3	16	Jul 18, 2017 07:10AM
Why I tried to love this book and instead ended up hating it.	444	3790	Jul 17, 2017 09:29AM
Proof that Gatsby is Trimalchio	6	29	Jul 01, 2017 02:44PM

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About F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works have been seen as evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he himself allegedly coined. He is regarded as one of the greatest twentieth century writers. Fitzgerald was of the self-styled "Lost Generation," Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfini ...more

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Quotes from The Great Gatsby

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” — 10225 likes

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” — 9009 likes

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