The Great Gatsby

If you don't fancy literature after this book then you never will. An American classic. All about what happens when idealism collides with conformity.

This is not a perfect novel. The characters are underdeveloped. It is difficult to care about some of them either way. The story line is melodramatic, and it does not break any new ground.

However, the real joy of the book it the language it is written in. Try reading it aloud. You will appreciate the rhythm and the cadenza of how each paragraph is constructed. You will not find a book that evokes its settings more vividly than this one. This is a short book, but it is to be read slowly. Savor every moment. You will be rewarded.

I think The Great Gatsby is a really good book. It's one of those that you will remember for a long time. Some of the themes are a little bit depressing, but they potray human nature pretty well. It has a perfect ending, with a resolution, that many other books lack. At the beginning it might seem a little bit boring, but once it picks up the action, it's hard to stop reading. I didn't really expct it to be that good, but I can say it's one of my favorite books.

The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of literature by F. Scott Fitzgerald! The story of love lost, found and lost again, the beautiful language will touch the heart and mind. It's amazing how simple things were back when Fitzgerald wrote this - the book isn't very long, and it speaks of so much: love, jealousy, tolerance, sacrifice, abuse, the inability to admit fault or appreciate what you have, the very essence of the American dream to become who you want to be.

This book is like an old black and white movie where men were men. It's entertaining, but the author allows you to think for yourself and draw your own opinions rather than spoon-feeding you a story with the desire to sway your judgment toward his own. I was really amazed at how the writing captured my attention and imagination so thoroughly that a couple of written lines could produce the graphic images of a horrific car accident in my mind's eye.

This is truly a thinking man's book and a must read.

When F.Scott Fitzgerald finished up this novel in Paris, he was a man with his hands full. Zelda was beginning to show signs of mental deterioration and infidelity, and his cavorting and hell-raising left behind a wake of bad reputation in the social set he used to party hearty with. He was a bit old for such shenanigans to be tolerated anymore.

This is reflected in The Great Gatsby. What is also reflected, and refined, is the paradox of an American trying to live to the ideal vested in the grail known as the American Dream. Fitzgerald was indeed talented and lucky as a young writer, but he was also undisciplined and still seeking to "prove himself."

It is refreshing, upon perhaps my third read in about 10 years, to realize that none of the characters are meant to be likable. They all have shadows and weaknesses of character. Though the narrator tries to portray himself as an innocent; an outsider, he is culpable as much as Tom Buchanan for the events following the climax of the book. This is important, and had I realized it earlier, it would've served me as I passed through the ages exhibited by the characters in the book.

As with America itself, there may be ugliness, indifference, and malice in some Americans. They are, after all, people. Yet people love America despite these bad apples. Their affection more to do with what America means...what it meant to stand for. what it has hoped to be from its inception.

Hope carries the dream. Hope endures even beyond what others would deem "reasonable." Hope transcends age.
Hope is Gatsby's specialty.

Read this book and feel for yourself the quality Fitzgerald describes as "vitality," and never take it for granted again.