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Sean Barrs The Ultra Vegan's Reviews > The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
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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.
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.
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Reading Progress
May 3, 2018
–
Started Reading
May 3, 2018
– Shelved
May 3, 2018
– Shelved as:
modernist-movement
May 24, 2018
– Shelved as:
3-star-reads
May 24, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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Yasmin
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May 03, 2018 06:54AM
Having re-read it recently, I feel it's totally overrated!
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YOU NEVER READ THIS BOOK? JK :P I like this book a lot, but I can see why others wouldn't like it. I feel like his other books don't get enough attention.
Nooo this is my favorite book in the worllddddd i hope you like it lol
The fuss is about nothing.
I'm wondering what you'll think. I'm sure you'll have something interesting to say about it, whichever way you see it.
I read it in university and for the life of me I can't remember what it is about or even if I liked it, I guess that says it all, lol
Try his short stories or Tender is the Night. As much as I love Great Gatsby, I feel like his other books get ignored.
"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." Care to share the names of any such books? :)
Its' popularity baffles me, also, Sean.
Dear Sean. your perspective is an intriguing one , but I think it doesn't hold true for all aspects of this novel , I mean this novel provides us with multifarious life forms and social strata , and the reflection of being born into different classes is mirrored , the valley of ashes a prominent one , which all converge into the importance of morality , a streak whose player in this novel is Nick , a young ,recluse man trying to be perspicacious being , and despite his efforts he is now and again caught in a twilight of ambivalence , to the point that is climax of morality reaches it's pinnacle when he says ''I have had enough of everybody'' in the last stage of the novel . Furthermore , the orgiastic future that Gatsby holds in his mind is a magnificent milestone which the novel is based on , representing Fitzgerald's immaculate art of representing the unreality of reality , how wholeheartedly Gatsby aspires to the Green light , how he says that he was son of God , I think there are many layers of meaning in this novel , and even though the plot is basic , it doesn't make the novel unengaging , you see , I think this is the very point , Gatsby creates the maximum number of impulses with the minimum amount of conflict , which is really praiseworthy , sorry if I wrote more than a comment ought to be , that's because this novel is somehow my Bible ........
Relieved to see that I am not alone.
I think that those who teach English become a little stuck in the past when it comes to what is considered "great reading". If a book has appeared on the list previously no one wants to be the first to say that it has been replaced by other books that have told the story better or more vividly. I can see why this novel was all the rage when it first came out. Nothing else explored issues such as class and corruption at the time, and the Fitzgerald's were the Kardashions of their day -- fame beyond their talent. Even on first reading I wondered what all the to-do was about.
Elaine wrote: "I think that those who teach English become a little stuck in the past when it comes to what is considered "great reading". If a book has appeared on the list previously no one wants to be the firs..."Actually, when it first came out it didn't do that great. Fitzgerald made most of his money with short stories.
Morgan wrote: "Try his short stories or Tender is the Night. As much as I love Great Gatsby, I feel like his other books get ignored."I picked up a book of them today because i did really like his prose.
Puneet wrote: ""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." ..."
Nadja by Andre Bretton
Passing by Nella Larson
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Pretty much anything written by Herman Hesse. (He seems popular on here, though it's rare i meet someone who has read anythingof his)
I know what you mean about its popularity, but I think that's partly our British perspective. Those in the US grow up, hearing its title in hushed tones, as one of The Great American Novels, and I guess some of that stardust sticks.
Cecily wrote: "I know what you mean about its popularity, but I think that's partly our British perspective. Those in the US grow up, hearing its title in hushed tones, as one of The Great American Novels, and I ..."I agree completely. In part I thought my Englishness prevented me from relating to a novel that (in part) tries to capture the failings of the American dream.
And yet you might almost expect it to work the other way: that we'd be more ready to see and accept the weaknesses in the American Dream.(Don't tell anyone, but I can't abide Little Women either.)
Puneet: well, the guy Fitzgerald thought was the greatest of their day was James Branch Cabell, who is almost the definition of a fall from public consciousness. Reviewers in the 20s thought that Jurgen wasn't just the Great American Novel, but that it was an eternal masterpiece that would never be forgotten. Now it is. Yet it's actually aged pretty well. The 'sequel', Figures of Earth is brilliant too, although less approachable. (Cabell's books are mostly ironic fantasy novels - sort of Wodehouse meets Mallory, with a deep vein of cynicism, and elegaic prose poetry punctuated by deadpan absurdism).
I'd also recommend, if less highly, Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, so famous in its day that its name entered the dictionary. Lewis won the Nobel, and was also top of the bestseller lists for years at a time - Babbitt was one of the top 10 books of 1922 and 1923. (his Main Street had been #1 in '21, and Elmer Gantry would be #1 in '27). He's basically what Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Tom Clancy were to the 1980s, if they'd been the same person... anyway, Babbitt isn't an outright all time great (it goes in circles too much in the middle section), but it is seriously good, and certainly deserves to get a lot more attention than it does. It's basically a dissection of 'modern' urban American middle-class life in the 1920s, and has continuing relevance today. It's moving, and funny (if not as funny as it thinks it is), and informative.
And that's just three books that I happen to have read recently that were written in America between 1919 and 1922...
This is a weird book that I think you have to read more than once. Hating it at first is part of it, IMHO
Great review! Maybe you can make a list of books that deserve more attention? I would be very interested to know what your personal classics are :)
Yeah, like Schnuet said, I would be interested in recommendations for other books in the era which you'd recommend. :) Thanks for the review!
greatly overrated indeed.
I agree it is overrated, but I will admit I will forever want to experience a party or get together of that size, because as stated in the movie large parties like those are so much more intimate and enjoyable.
Lauren wrote: "I agree it is overrated, but I will admit I will forever want to experience a party or get together of that size, because as stated in the movie large parties like those are so much more intimate a..."That sentence i liked too, and also how husbands had to physically drag their wives home from those "intimate" gatherings.
