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In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "somethingnew--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel becameThe Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess,Gatsbycaptured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic 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 one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose,The Great Gatsbyis as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.
American Social History - "Old Sport" F. Scott Fitzgerald has written a classical portrait of life in the 1920's in America. Nick Carraway narrates this tale from the sidlines more as a spectator rather than as a participant. Jay Gatsby, the main character in this engrossing tale of life among the party set of what has become known as the roaring twenties, is a somewhat vague shadow of a character especially when compared with the other richly portrayed personalities. Perhaps it a virtue of the book that Gatsby remain a mystery man to the reader. "Old sport" is a phrase overused ad nauseum and gives Gatsby a grating personal quirk that was off-putting to this reader. Perhaps this was intentional on the part of Fitzgerald to keep Gatsby from being a more sympathetic rather than tragic figure. This novel has become a standard literature piece in the college-level curriculum as it lends itself to many insights to the human condition.
A rich story A rich story , July 20, 2005 "THE GREAT GATSBY" is one of the most exquisite books I have ever read to date that deals with most if not all aspects of love and the challenges of life. There is so much to learn especially for us in this modern world where so many people use the word "love" without really knowing what it truly means. The author is so descriptive that I sometimes felt as if I was in the story. He made it easy for readers to penetrate the souls of the characters and relate to their lives.
The character development is prodigious, while prose is outstanding. I felt as much for Gatsby as I have for any other character. He had always had high aspirations, but his dreams were taken away from him by the fact the he had to fight a war, and he could never be the same again. Gatsby's ambition is to have his former love, who is now married to an unfaithful husband, a quest that saw outstanding twist and turns in the story to make it the great read we have heard so much about. This book is truly inspirational for everyone irrespective of race, gender, age or occupation. I highly recommend it along with THE UNION MOUJIK, THE USURPER AND OTHERS, THE SCARLET LETTER as some of the beautiful stories I enjoyedWell-written, but not a timeless masterpiece. While I was reading it about a month ago, The Great Gatsby seemed like a pointless story of spoiled rich people, too lazy to commit adultery successfully, let alone make a marriage or even romance work. There was a lot of description about the period, and society behavior of the period, that didn't seem particularly relevant, and the end seemed morally ambiguous. However, much of this short novel has stuck in my mind, especially the characters, longer than other novels I read (mostly sci-fi and mysteries).
It also seemed a mistake to make the protagonist a bystander with only passing reference to Gatsby during the first third of the novel. On reflection, this probably built up the mystery about the character and kept me reading. Since then I've watched the movie with Alan Ladd, and they dropped that device, bringing Gatsby in early. The movie seemed like it would be thoroughly dull to anyone who hasn't read the book, though relatively faithful for a Hollywood adaptation.
