This review is for the novel - not the movie!!
Today, I was looking through my piles and piles of unread books and saw a little novel peering out among the rest saying "Read me!!" I looked and it was F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby speaking to me. Here's an English literature major and teacher acknowledging the shameful truth that she has never read The Great Gatsby. <gasp> Yes, it's true. Somehow I have missed reading this novel. I grabbed said novel and read and read and read; finishing it in a mere 4 hours.
Synopsis: "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 drink and sex the national obsession,' it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature." (Amazon.com)
Review: "First published by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly; in its first year, the book only sold 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten." (Wikipedia) And yet this novel is now considered one of the greatest novels ever written.
The Great Gatsby is a story of the 'lost generation' – those who came of age in time to fight in WWI and, if they were lucky, returned home to find that everything had changed – especially themselves. This generation was no longer content to stay in the small towns and cities that their families had lived in for generations. The young men did not want to enter into the family business and settle down with a suitable young woman from nearby. The young women were not content to stay in their parents' house and wait – they wanted to be out in the world and doing 'something'.
The story is told, not through the eyes of Gatsby but through those of Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest who has settled in New York to learn the bond game. By chance, he has rented a house on Long Island for the summer, a small cottage stuck among much grander mansions and across an inlet from his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, who Nick had known slightly in college. Nick's neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby had been one of Daisy's many suitors before she had settled down with Tom. Nick soon finds himself swept into the glittering, glamorous world of Gatsby and Daisy and Tom. He is made an unwilling witness to Tom's infidelity, the illicit romance of Gatsby and Daisy, and finally to the tragic results of it all. Nick acts as the moral compass for a bevy of shallow characters amid the glittering Jazz Age.
Filled with some of the best prose ever written and rife with symbolism, The Great Gatsby is a very American story, one that depicts the American restlessness, the desire to be more, better, different from all that has come before. This is one novel that everyone really should read at least once (preferably a couple times) in their lives. It is quite possibly the most perfect novel that this country has ever produced.
The story is told, not through the eyes of Gatsby but through those of Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest who has settled in New York to learn the bond game. By chance, he has rented a house on Long Island for the summer, a small cottage stuck among much grander mansions and across an inlet from his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, who Nick had known slightly in college. Nick's neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby had been one of Daisy's many suitors before she had settled down with Tom. Nick soon finds himself swept into the glittering, glamorous world of Gatsby and Daisy and Tom. He is made an unwilling witness to Tom's infidelity, the illicit romance of Gatsby and Daisy, and finally to the tragic results of it all. Nick acts as the moral compass for a bevy of shallow characters amid the glittering Jazz Age.
Filled with some of the best prose ever written and rife with symbolism, The Great Gatsby is a very American story, one that depicts the American restlessness, the desire to be more, better, different from all that has come before. This is one novel that everyone really should read at least once (preferably a couple times) in their lives. It is quite possibly the most perfect novel that this country has ever produced.
Rating: 5 out 5 stars
As for the movie, I don't plan on wasting my time or money seeing it because I have a feeling that Baz Luhrmann's adaptation will be heavy handed and over the top. Not being a Luhrmann fan, I'm willing to pass on seeing the movie.
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