The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Tami]

We are going to have one thread for each book as now Goodreads has made a spoiler tag that you can use to put before anything that is a spoiler. Use your discretion as to what would be a pretty big spoiler and label it. Please put up to what page the spoiler is for.

To create the tag simply do this:

< spoiler> Blah blah blah spoilery stuff < /spoiler>


*Take out the spaces in both of the spoiler tag.

It will look like this:


(view spoiler)[This is a spoiler. Spoilers should be labeled so you don't ruin books for others. (hide spoiler)]

Discuss away...

[Christie]

Okay, so I missed out on the discussion and rules for this month's group read--so forgive me if I'm stating the obvious--but both of this month's reads have new film adaptations about to be released. Big ones.
Anyways. Have a lot of people already read The Great Gatsby? This book is one of those canonical works that get assigned a lot in high school English classes and it seems to make a lot of people's favorite books lists.

[Jen]

I read The Great Gatsby for the first time last summer. It was never assigned reading for any of my high school or college English courses. I liked the book though! Different than what I was expecting.

I'm excited for the (new) movie, I think it comes out in December?

[Christie]

I had to read it in school (twice) and it was also different from what I expected. It was so long ago that I can't really say what I expected, just something different. (Do you remember what you were expecting, Jen?)

I know I'm in the minority here, but the first time I read it I didn't like it very much. The second time I read it, I appreciated it much more. It's funny how much the way a book is perceived depends on the reader. The Christie who read The Great Gatsby for the first time was a very different reader from the Christie who read The Great Gatsby for a second time.

[Nate]

Jen wrote: "I read The Great Gatsby for the first time last summer. It was never assigned reading for any of my high school or college English courses. I liked the book though! Different than what I was exp..."

Apparently it's now being released in 2013.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news...

[Riley]

Christie wrote: "I had to read it in school (twice) and it was also different from what I expected. It was so long ago that I can't really say what I expected, just something different. (Do you remember what you we..."

I didn't like it much when I read it, either. It took me a few weeks of digesting to appreciate it. I was in high school at the time, though, and I think if I read it again I'd like it more immediately.

[Kayla]

I also had to read this book for school twice. Funnily enough though, I don't remember too much about it. I know I really enjoyed it both times and that I loved the imagery in the book. I got really caught up in the setting and I think that's why I like it so much. The characters don't seem to stick with me for some reason.

I definitely want to read it again this month (it's also a Sept. groupread in my 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group). I have two other books I want to finish first, but hopefully I'll get to it in a week or so.

[Jessika]

Christie wrote: "I had to read it in school (twice) and it was also different from what I expected. It was so long ago that I can't really say what I expected, just something different. (Do you remember what you we..."

Christie, it's funny that you write that. The first TWO times I read it, I didn't like it. I was in high school for that. Then when I read it in college, I totally loved it. It must be one of those books that you just have to read at the right point in time.

[Chris]

I tend to like classics but this one is an exception for me. This is one of only two or three classics I've ever read that I didn't care for. I don't actively hate TGG but I never enjoyed it. To me, it just seemed like the characters represented such an excess of everything with no real morality or character. This is the only Fitzgerald I've ever read so I'd like to read some of his other stuff to compare. Has anyone read The Beautiful and the Damned or any of his other work? After The Paris Wife, the author and Zelda seem like pretty intriguing figures themselves.
Maybe I just need to revisit this one. It has been a good five years since I read it.

[Lori]

Chris, Most of Fitzgerald's books tend to be about the excesses of the 1920s. He offers so many critiques throughout this novel and his others.

[Michelle]

Christie wrote: "...Have a lot of people already read The Great Gatsby? This book is one of those canonical works that get assigned a lot in high school English classes and it seems to make a lot of people's favorite books lists."

I read it in High School (I think 11th grade?), but I really didn't remember it!! I just re-read (well I listened to the audiobook this time) and as it was going I remembered up to about halfway through the book. This makes me think I just read the Sparknotes for the second half of the book when I read it the first time (which I was known to do for the sake of time). I liked it a lot this time and I'm really glad I re-read it.

[Liz]

(view spoiler)[ So does anyone actually "like" these characters? By "like" I mean do you think they are people that are genuinely good but spoiled by the society in which they live or vice versa? I am not a fan of anyone in that book...perhaps the narrator (hide spoiler)]

[Michelle]

Liz, (view spoiler)[I think I like Nick too, but that's about it. I guess Daisy isn't the worst, but I definitely don't "like" her. Michaelis (sp?) is a good character, but that's kind of stretching things since he is such a fringe character lol (hide spoiler)]

[Traci-Anne]

Liz and Michelle(view spoiler)[ I'm not too much of a fan of any of the characters expect Jordan. Sh knew who she was and accepted it. Everyone else tried to be someone they weren't and it turned them into worse versions of their already superficial selves. (hide spoiler)]

[Rebecca]

perosnally i think the best thing about this book is it's thought provoking notions. Fitzgeralds use of colors, assumption, several veiw points, and the American dream have always been the draw for me. he isn't writing a love story for the ages, he's showing faults and basic humaity in an honest form.

[Laura]

I actually read this for my junior year high school english class. I loved it and thought that it was the most interesting read. My favorite character in the book is Daisy because (view spoiler)[she has the nerve to tell her husband that she never loved him and that he loved Gatsby. The worst part of the book would probably be when (view spoiler)[ Gatsby gets murdered in the end of the novel by the owner of the gas station and the husband of the woman who Gatsby killed with his car. This is also when the narrator finds out that Gatsby was lying about his identity the whole time. (hide spoiler)] I am very excited for the movie to come out in December. (hide spoiler)]

[Christie]

That's so funny that so many people (Kayla, Jess) also had to read it for school not once, but twice. And that lots of other people also didn't like it on first impression . . . or second (Riley, Jess, Chris . . .).

Liz brings up a really good point about the likability of the characters. (view spoiler)[ On reflection, I think that has a lot to do with why I didn't care for the book very much when I first read it. And I am definitely not a fan of Daisy's character. (hide spoiler)]

Chris, for me the (view spoiler)[ excess and immorality is kind of the whole point of the story. It illustrates the severity of the consequences.

"They were careless people . . ." It's so tragic and so true. (hide spoiler)]

Not sure if the depth of its insight there is much consolation, but it did make me appreciate the book more.

On another note, the new movie is now set to be released May 10, 2013. Has anyone seen the old one?

[Christie]

Okay, I want to add two more things. :D

1) I don't think (view spoiler)[ the illustration of this downward spiraling of excess is the only point in the story. (hide spoiler)] There are SO many different ideas to pick up and chew on, and that's a big part of why it has endured as a popular work of fiction and a famous part of the "literary canon" for so long.

2) It's really exciting to see how many people have gotten involved in the book discussions this month. (Myself included.) I think I had this impression that people would be reluctant to engage in a discussion of the "classics" (i.e. books more than a few years old), but looking back at the past few months, they're actually proving to be the ones most commented-upon. This is fun; I hope we can do this again!

[Wei]

I have mixed feelings about this book

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald qualifies into the list of authors you should read before you die. A general consensus that everybody knows due to the fact that most of his work end up labeled as classic. Hence why I decided to pick up his book, The Great Gatsby, and read it.

2. He describes things and situations with excess, and the description sometimes feels never-ending and occasionally boring :S.

3. His characters are quirky, which is a great thing because they have so much depth in them that they seem real.

4. Fitzgerald does have a way to get the words into your soul. Gosh, I can honestly say that the first half of the book I had to read it with my hands holding up my head. However, by the end it got really interesting. I could not put it down.

5. I was heart-broken. (view spoiler)[ After reading what happened to Jay Gatsby, all I can say is that Daisy Buchanan did not deserve him (hide spoiler)]

[Christie]

Yup, (view spoiler)[ it's pretty devastating (hide spoiler)].

Does anyone out there have any favorite quotations that come from this book? I know it's a popular source for them. That final line is especially renown . . .

[Wei]

He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.

For some reason this is my favorite quote. It's so beautiful, a different kind of devastating.

[Rebecca]

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

it always made me stop and think

[Liz]

Traci-anne wrote: "Liz and Michelle[spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[ So what did you think of Gatsby? (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Kayla]

What's funny in this novel is how pointless pretty much all of the conversations were that the characters had. Nothing of import was ever said until near the end (view spoiler)[when Tom confronted Gatsby about Daisy and accused them of sleeping together (hide spoiler)]. I think Fitzgerald was really attacking the rich in this way. I can't remember for sure, but I think one of the major causes of contention between Fitzgerald and Hemingway was that Hemingway was a bit of a "partier" while Fitzgerald hated the social scene. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not great at remembering trivia, though I love reading facts about authors.

Liz, I definitely agree with you about the characters. The only likeable one was Nick, and I thought Jordan was alright too.

I think it's interesting that Gatsby wrote her as a professional golfer. I wouldn't have thought female athletes would have been thought of too highly in the 1920s. I wonder why Gatsby chose to writer her as one?

And in answer to your last question, I really felt sorry for Gatsby for pretty much the whole book. (view spoiler)[Daisy really messed him up. He tried to appear confident and self-assured but completely failed. He wanted so badly to fit into Daisy's world so that he could "deserve" her. It's probably not fair to blame Daisy for what happened to him, though. There are times in life when you have to figure out when to chase after something or when to let it go. Gatsby's inability to let Daisy go was the real cause of his downfall-or at least the greatest cause among a few others-in my opinion. (hide spoiler)]

[Ana]

I think the best parts of this book were the characters. They were all deeply flawed and at most times not even likeable, but they were interesting, and that's what made them come alive to me. I'm also a fan of description, so Fitzgerald's way of really laying out the scene was very appealing to me.

[Rachael]

I agree with you Ana, although I don't particularly like any of the characters throughout the entire novel. However, I think this was brilliantly done by Fitzgerald to highlight his cynicism regarding the American dream