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The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.91 · Rating details · 3,356,851 ratings · 60,667 reviews

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN: 0743273567 (ISBN13: 9780743273565)

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 is of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his new love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long ...more

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Paperback, US / CAN, 180 pages

Published September 2004 by Scribner (first published 1926)

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3.91 ·

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· 3,356,851 ratings · 60,667 reviews

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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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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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Sep 29, 2009 Pollopicu rated it did not like it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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

Shelves: plain-old-fiction, 100, famous-books, 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 15, 2014 Inge rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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

It was short.

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

Shelves: owned, classics, reviewed, recommend, comments, reread, school, favorites, beautifully-written, owned-multiple

DAISY BUCHANAN IS A GIFT TO READERS EVERYWHERE AND THE HERO OF THE GREAT GATSBY, FOR SURE, NO QUESTIONS, FIGHT ME IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU THINK YOU’RE BOLD: A Thinkpiece by Me

https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...

I’ve known that Daisy effin’ rocks since I first read this book. (Fun fact: my first read of this took place in the back of the family minivan when I was 13, on a roadtrip to, like, Disney World or something. While thoughts of princesses and mouse-shaped ice cream bars danced in my sib ...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 03, 2018 Sean Barrs the Bookdragon rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: modernist-movement, 3-star-reads, 2018-10-book-challenge

This is a good book, though it is so ridiculously overrated.

There are so many great books out there that will never get the attention they deserve. They will be forgotten and their wisdom heard by only a select few who are willing to go looking for it. So it annoys me when books like this are acclaimed by critics and readers alike as the best pieces of fiction in existence (when they are not.) There’s so much more out there!

Anyway, rant over. The thing I like most about The Great Gatsby is the This is a good book, though it is so ridiculously overrated.

There are so many great books out there that will never get the attention they deserve. They will be forgotten and their wisdom heard by only a select few who are willing to go looking for it. So it annoys me when books like this are acclaimed by critics and readers alike as the best pieces of fiction in existence (when they are not.) There’s so much more out there!

Anyway, rant over. The thing I like most about The Great Gatsby is the language, the subtlety’s and the suggestions, the things that are not directly said but are said nevertheless. It’s a true feat of writing and at times it reminded me of a stage piece. The dialogue does not give the answers, but it is the character’s actions and movements (so fantastically narrated) that give the game away: it reveals their internal worlds.

As such this is a book that can easily be skimmed over. The plot is basic and relatively unengaging and consequently I think an inattentive reader has a lot to miss here. It’s all about illusions and false appearances just like real life. The way people perceive us is not how we truly are and sometimes individuals actively work towards creating a desired appearance for the outside world. It’s easily done with enough time, effort and money. What Gatsby creates for the outside is a dream, an ideal life that looks perfect.

However, scratch the surface and it is so very, very, clear that not everything is perfect. His supposed “happiness” is hollow and dictated by the whims of society. It is fickle, egotistical and driven by status and all the silly little symbols that go with it. His success is what society demands success to be; thus, he positions himself into a place where he can chase his true dream. In doing so Gatsby shows us that not everything is as simple as it appears, and that society driven by such monetary values is a dangerous thing because everybody is so detached from what really matters in life. (The object of his affections, for example.)

I enjoyed The Great Gatsby though I certainly did not love it. Its popularity baffles me to a degree, I can think of books from the same era that deserve far more attention. Still, I enjoyed reading it and I’m glad I finally did so. ...more

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May 02, 2010 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics-americas, literature, easton-press, audiobook, 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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Sep 24, 2018 Miranda Reads rated it it was ok

Shelves: audiobook, che-103-suggested-reads-fall-2018

2.5 Stars

1) Always google who you are going to fall in love with.

Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

2) For the love of God, make a 401K

They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.

3) Never swallow a thesaurus.

I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

Jay Gatsby is rich - the kind of exorbitant rich that ...more

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Apr 12, 2016 Luca Ambrosino rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: wishlist-others

English (The Great Gatsby) / Italiano

«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.”»

The Great Gatsby, the book that most of all I postponed the reading. There was something in the title that didn't excite me, that didn't pass the smell. I was wrong.

The narrator, Nick Carra

...more

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Dec 31, 2007 LooseLips rated it liked it

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

Shelves: re-reading, hmmm

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 12, 2009 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-book, novel, fiction, classic, 20th-century, literature

699. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadenc 699. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. Characters: Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, Meyer Wolfsheim, George Wilson.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه سپتامبر سال 2002 میلادی
عنوان: گتسبی بزرگ؛ اثر: اف. اسکات فیتزجرالد (فیتس جرالد)؛ مترجم: کریم امامی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، انتشارات نیلوفر، 1379؛ در 288 ص
نخستین بار با عنوان: طلا و خاکستر گتسبی بزرگ؛ با ترجمه کریم امامی در تهران توسط انتشارات فرانکلین در سال 1344 در 204 ص منتشر شده است
مترجمین دیگر این اثر بزرگوار خانمها و آقایان: فهیمه رحمتی؛ نفیسه رنجبران؛ مهدی سجودی مقدم؛ عباس کرمی فر؛ فاطمه جمالی؛ محمدصادق سبط الشیخ؛ رضا رضایی؛ مهدی افشار؛ معصومه عسگری؛ هستند
نقل از متن: «آنگاه کلاه طلائی بر سر بگذار، اگر برمیانگیزدش، اگر توان بالا جستنت هست، به خاطرش نیز به جست و خیز درآی، تا بدانجا که فریاد برآورد: عاشق، ای عاشق بالا جهنده ی کلاه طلائی، مرا تو باید». پایان نقل.؛ انگار هر کتاب نامدار را، که در این مورد در عنوانش نیز، واژه «بزرگ» خودنمایی میکند، بیشتر باور داریم. پیشتر، چندبار خوانده بودم، دوستی نگارگر، در دو واژه، همین نویسنده را ستوده بودند، آن دو واژه چشمم را گرفت، و اینبار آخر، که کتاب را برداشتم، ساعت سه صبح روز سیزدهم مهرماه 1392 هجری خورشیدی بود، که به انتهای راه خوانشش رسیدم، و بسیار هم خوش بگذشت، اینبار مدهوش شخصیت پردازیها، و صحنه آرائیها شده بودم، سخن شخصیتها یادم میماند، تند و تند میخواندم، تا به جاهایی برسم، که نگارنده، با واژه ی «دی زی»، صحنه را بیاراید، میدانم که باز هم خواهم خواند. ا. شربیانی ...more

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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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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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Jun 12, 2012 jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

‘i was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.’

im going to a 1920s themed party tonight and so, naturally (being the bookworm that i am), im gonna do a quick re-read to give me all those gatsby-esque vibes! all the glitzy glamour, flashy fashion, and daring dreams will definitely get me in the mood!

i first read this in 10th grade english class and it will always be a very dear book to me. it was the first classic i read that i felt like ...more

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Jul 31, 2017 Jennifer Masterson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, audio, classics

I just spent three days being read to by Jake Gyllenhaal and it was absolutely wonderful! I took Jake with me for long Summer walks, to the grocery store, Trader Joe's, and let me not forget the ten minutes I spent driving around the parking lot of Target, not for a better parking space, but to listen to Jake read "The Great Gatsby" to me! My only regret is that this fabulous experience is over. Sigh...

I've read the book and watched both versions of the movie but this is by far my favorite exper ...more

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

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

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 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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Aug 11, 2012 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, books-with-films-2, personal-favourites, classic-challenge-2, classic-literature, historical, popularity-contest-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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Sep 13, 2017 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads, classics, historical-fiction, owned-books, fiction

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

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Feb 13, 2018 İntellecta rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

„Der große Gatsby" is a truly brilliant and dazzling masterpiece. The book is written in such a way you cant stop reading it, because the language and presentation are stylistic and atmospheric. But you should read this book carefully. I am enthusiastic about the verbosity of this writer. Overall, the characters were very successful and unique. This story was definitely a highlight for me. Its story and a character which I absolutely like. Almost quietly and calmly, he brings us closer to the mi ...more

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

Shelves: bookshelf, ce20, 2016, masculine, septic

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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Aug 01, 2012 karen rated it it was amazing

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

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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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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Aug 02, 2011 Lyn rated it really liked it

As clear a portrait of a generation as has ever been put to pen, and Fitzgerald has done even better by making much of the qualities of this novel timeless, shining a bright light on all that it right, and much that is wrong, with our society and our culture.

Complex, multi-layered, this is also subtle and simple - but subtle like a jazz movement, intricate in its performance and difficult to grasp all at once.

*** 2019 Reread - I watched the 2013 film and needed to revisit this wonderful book.

Wh ...more

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About F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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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