This is not a bad book but it doesn't have the compelling story to me. I found the author very capable of crafting words, but I did not sense a "I can't wait to know" moments. Of course like all classics you have to over look the vernacular. The author also used a few words that I was not familiar with. This would make this book better for a more sophisticated reader. I am interested in reading other reviews by more learned people to see just how much I might of missed.

Set in the Roarin' Twenties, this unforgetable classic is a romance as well as the story of Jay Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald told the story in a unique way, through the voice of Nick Carraway, an impartial aquaintace of both Gatsby and Daisy.

Details of the golden era come alive in vivid descriptions of fashion, music, and decor, carrying the reader back to a time of bootleg liquor and the newly invented automobile. Jay Gatsby lives in a luxurious mansion. He sometimes stands on the beach in his backyard gazing across the water at a green light marking the home Daisy Buchanan, the love of his life who is, unfortuately, married to someone else. Daisy's two-timing husband Tom is not impressed with Mr. Gatsby.

As the tale unfolds, we see that Jay Gatsby is quite a different man than the most people think. Beautifully written, I highly recommend this classic romance.

Deceptively simple...beautiful language, memorable story and characters, many layers...i've read this three times. very quick, enjoyable read. learn something new every time.

The Great Gatsby is a book that you will appreciate for a long time after your done with it. I couldn't put it down from the second I started reading it. The characters are finely crafted and the storyline a hit as you meet Nick and Gatsby and the different lives they lead until one day they are both wonderfully and tragically intertwined. I found myself saddened to both the book ending and the outcome of the story but I have a greater respect for both F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920's because of reading it.

This is a master piece in literature and should be read not only by student but everyone who enjoy a good written book. It is richly set in the jazz era and portraits the life and shallowness of Gatsby the main character. An impossible love and the empty life he lives in pursue of this undeserving girl. A great work of art.

Anna del C.
Author of "The Elf and the Princess"
and "Trouble in the Elf City"
The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One (The Silent Warrior Trilogy)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's timeless classic is evocative, stirring and unsettling. I had not read this book in thirty years and decided to re-read it while looking for another book at the library. I can now understand why leading experts believe this is one of the best if not the best American novel in the last one hundred years. It has it all: lost love, class struggle, deceit, betrayal and murder. Fitzgerald's descriptive prose is exquisite. His imagery shines every step of the way. I highly recommend reading this great American novel!

Surely everything has been said before. BUT, I shall point out that if you like Gatsby, you will probably love Fitzgerald's short stories as well. Also, there are several interesting books written about F.Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda--two truly compelling people who lived somewhat reckless rock star lives long before we watched rock stars burn out on MTV reality shows.

The Modern Library declares that this is the 2nd greatest novel of the 20th century?

Are you serious? Above Lolita.

and let's not forget the novels the list completely disregarded, that trample all over Fitzgerald's poorly dated morality tale:

Gravity's Rainbow
V.
The Crying of Lot 49
White Noise
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Journey to the end of the Night
Naked Lunch
Blood Meridian
The Stranger
The Old man and the Sea

Seriously, Fitzgerald just was no good, and pales horribly in comparison to the true giant of 20th century American literature; Hemingway

This is one of those novels you hear about your entire life and finally get around to reading.
What a bore.
The stilted language is like trying muddle your way through Beowulf in Middle English.
Save your money if you're just dying to read this book and get a used paperback version.

It has been a while since I read a book in one sitting. It has also been a while since I first read "The Great Gatsby". Since then, I read articles and saw movies about F. Scott Fotzgerald and his wife Zelda. It is hard not to draw some similarities between Fitzgerald's best work and the way his own life ended. Without going thru the plot, this is all american story about difference between old money and new money. Not all rich are created equal. It is also a story of obsessive love that will not let go. Can a man love so much that getting rich in order to be close to the woman of his dreams can consume his entire life? How much does it take for a person to understand that one cannot live in the past? Love story is set in it's moment, time and place. Once any one of the components is not there, love is not the same or there is none at all left. And then of course, there is pure love and there is recklessness - way of using people and there emotions as means of reassuring ourselves - with always disasterous outcomes. This book talks about all of that in a way that feels like being said in one breath. Storytelling is so compelling and language so beautiful, you cannot put this book down until you are finished reading it.

The main story -- a romantic man's doomed attempt to recapture the love of an immature woman -- was less enthralling than expected. Daisy seemed hardly worth all the trouble Gatsby took, and for that matter, neither did entry into her world. She was a cipher. The use of a narrator to connect the various characters was interesting; how could the book have been written otherwise? But at times the plot felt contrived, as with the switching of cars and an accident, and the symbolism around the valley of ashes seemed heavy-handed. Other than the passive narrator, the people lacked even a small degree of self-awareness. The one who seemed the least conflicted and most sure of himself was the brutal, self-centered Tom.

It was the lesser details in this novel that were enjoyed most. A montage at the end of the second chapter in which the drunken narrator moved from an elevator, to a bedroom, to Penn Station. How Gatsby's smile affected those who saw it. A mansion housing a library of books with their pages uncut. The vapidity of a man who tried to act out his limited idea of the good life but had little of interest to say and thought San Francisco was in the Middle West. Dogged efforts at self-improvement linked to shallow goals. A shady character eating with "ferocious delicacy." The way Daisy conveyed her love for a character in just a few words said lightly in front of her husband. The class disdain someone like Tom felt for the main character -- he couldn't be an Oxford man because he wore a pink suit. The gust of hot shrubbery from Central Park wafting through the upper windows of the Plaza Hotel. The author's description of how it felt to reach 30. And the concluding paragraphs, which can still move despite the superficiality of the people portrayed.

Simply the Greatest novel ever written. Long before the hamptons and hedge funders...Fitzgerald captured summer on long island: a story of love amongst those who are rich and those who want to be rich, mix in sunshine, sand, water and some rum. Still going on nearly 100 years later.

What has perhaps seduced some into thinking that The Great Gatsby is a "great novel" is that it does go after great themes, and was written by a talented writer. If you want to get a sense of Fitzgerald's talent, read his short stories: they crackle with life, excitement, and unlike this novel, have stories that pull you in and move you along hypnotically. Gatsby does not. It is like a great suspension bridge for which the pillars have been laid (the "great themes") but at no time was attention given to putting down the road itself--any plot or characters we can get our teeth into. It is a punishing bore. And I suppose those who like it are those who are so entranced by well-weighted sentences that they can get caught up in it easily. There are two well written pages, especially his description of the people traveling from Minnesota to the East. Those of us who demand more--and I don't think there's anything wrong with demanding an interesting plot!--are quite numerous, and for us, the rest of the book is unbearable. Yes, the theme is potentially great. But the book, like a failed suspension bridge, is a disaster.

It had been years since I first read this classic. What a treat to visit it again. I also loved Michele Cozzens'A Line Between Friends. Two great reads this summer.

The following is a cut-up of other one-star reviews of this product.

Exciting needs to stretch the mind. Mass-produced tickertape parade of sleeping pills. It needs to use sci-fi interest. Imagination murder is what makes the mind. A man spliced together out of old newsreels. 1920s self pity is a wonderful thing. View love in a distant manner.

At only 182 pages in the paperback edition, The Great Gatsby looms far larger in the life of American fiction than its slim dimensions. Unlike many novels with a great deal of hype latched to them, Gatsby lives up to its reputation in every blessed way. Perhaps part of the staying power and widespread appeal of this work is that it and its author were nearly forgotten. This powerful work was hardly read for more than 25 years, and now it is widely assumed to be one of the greatest works of American fiction in the 20th century. It earned its kingdom through dark years. From amnesia to aggrandizement shows that behind the swirl of its reputation is a powerfully complete artistic vision. Like all great work, Gatsby can be read on many levels: as a critique of the shifting American psyche, as a critique of the pitfalls of capitalism, as a time capsule of the roaring 20's... each reading brings new surprises. Perhaps the most refreshing reading is the uniqueness of the language. Fitzgerald here created prose masterpiece. Every sentence is finely wrought and cleverly designed, like jewels in an exquisite setting. He created, as he stated, a consciously artistic achievement.

Aside from making a powerful statement about the so called "American Dream," this novel is brilliantly written. Mr. Fitzgerald's mastery of the English language is evident in his genius sentence structure and meticulous word choice. One cannot help but stop reading to simply marvel at some of his phrasing. I highly recommend Gatsby to anyone out for great read.

"Pursuit of happiness"? More like the pursuit of money leading into happiness. The novel starts off with a dull beginning but soon develops into what is known as one of the greatest written novels during the First World War. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of importance of social class along with money status to show that Mr. Jay Gatsby is a symbol for the average American during the 1920s. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway who is a young lad living in West Egg, Long Island. Next to him lives the infamous Jay Gatsby who falls in love with a taken woman. Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan had met five years earlier and had fallen in love but unfortunately Jay left and was not able to contact Daisy for some time. After waiting for five long years Daisy decides to marry Tom who is one of Nick's friends from college. Sooner or later Gatsby and Daisy meet up again at Nick's house and fall in love all over again. Nick ends up being caught in a love tangle when he finds out that not only are Daisy and Gatsby having an affair but also that Tom has an affair with Myrtle Wilson. In the end three people end up dead due to the entanglement, but it is made clear that Daisy's choice to stay with Tom is solely based upon the recently found news that Gatsby was actually a poor man who inherited money. This then ties in the theme of "money does matter" and the downfall of the American society due to a shortage of money in the 1920s seen on pages 40-41. I recommend this book to those who are interested in reading twisted romance novels with a little rising action thrown in.

So I love classic English literature, but F. Scott, and the Great Gatsby in particular are not my favorite. My wife loves them, but I can go without them. To me, it never really makes me relate or care about the characters, and if you cannot care on some level about the characters, what is the point of reading a book, you know??

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a small, quick read classic novel. While many consider it to be the finest of American novels, I personally didn't find it to rank quite that high. It is however a very good book, and although I somehow did not read the book until in my 30's, I can understand why it is so widely required in many high school and college courses.

Mr. Fitzgerald paints a vivid picture of the "Jazz Age" of the 1920's and most of the book is centered on New York City and Long Island's North Shore. I found a lot of parallels to today throughout the book. The Great Gatsby gives a detailed development of how the never ending quest for material objects and riches can corrupt someone to their soul if a proper grounding in what is truly is important isn't present.

Mr. Fitzgerald also provides excellent character development; creating characters that can be rooted for and loathed at the same time. In the end it is shown how shallow pursuits can lead to a road of destruction and dismay.

This 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 out in the world to 'do something'.

The story is told, not through the eyes of Gatsby but through those of Nick, 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, again by chance, across an inlet from a cousin, Daisy and her husband Tom, who, also by chance Nick had known slightly in college. Also by chance, Nick's neighbor, the mysterious 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 one sided romance of Gatsby and Daisy and finally to the tragic results of it all.

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. As with many books that are assigned reading this one is often forced on an audience that is too young to appreciate it. Like many others I hated this novel when I first read it (I was an 18 year old college freshman) but found that it stuck with me, unlike many other assigned books, long after the final exam. Over the years I have read it several times and each time discovered something new, a different aspect of the novel becoming the 'point' of the story.

This is one everyone really should read at least once, perferably a couple times, in their lives.

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grown in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer" (4)

"When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness" (21)

"The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world" (68)

"It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." (96)

"Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air." (108)

"...--he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder" (110)

"'Madame expects you in the salon!' he cried, needlessly indicating the direction. In this heat every extra gesture was an affront to the common store of life" (115)

"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. [...] Thirty--the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair." (135)

"...and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that weath imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor" (150)

"The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised." (150)

"It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete" (162)

"[Mr. Gatz] had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise" (168)

"But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away" (177)

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...." (179)

"He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night" (180)

--------------------

such lush and gorgeous sentences filled this small book. delivered in an effortless manner. i like very much the portraits fitzgerald summoned up of each of the main characters. having said this, i don't believe this book is THE Great American Novel, as some critics would have it. i don't know if it's even great. it's a fairly good read, but to bestow such laurels on this novel is a bit of a stretch.

`You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.'"

One of the few books I did not resent being coerced into reading by public school curriculums. One hell of a book. Three cheers for the collarless shirt, and a fourth for a story that glorifies a truly American craft--smuggling under embargoes and prohibitions. Death to the State's drug war! Long live Gatsby!

The Great Gatsby is not your typical fictional novel. In this book you will find mystery, excitement, rule-breaking, parties, and shady characters that surprise you with every turn- all of which I was not expecting when I began this book. F. Scott Fitzgerald added these elements in a 1920's setting- an era in which there were many social changes. The main theme presented in this book- you can't relive the past- is relevent even today. We all live in the here-and-now- what's in the past is in the past for a reason, and trying to alter that will cause problems for many people- as you will find in The Great Gatsby. We can all get something out of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, no matter your age!

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.

Simply put, Gatsby is a perfect book. Perhaps the "Great American Novel" that so many have tried and failed to create. A marvel of character and symbolism, a wonder of a story. It is fully realized, and a very telling narrative pointed at class structure and society of early 20th century America.

Bought this book because it was recommended as a great american classic.

Once I finished reading it, I threw it into the "poubelle".

I feel that F. Scott Fitzgerald left much to be desired in this book. In th e plot, the characters, his descriptions of almost anything really-were lacking to say the least. Read if you must, but do not expect to be entertained or enlightened.

"The Great Gatsby" is a difficult novel that successfully polarizes readers, especially ones who take it seriously. That marks great literature. When serious readers react oppositely to the same work, you know you are looking at good, if not great, art. Please note, too, that the range of reviews today mirrors the range of reviews that greeted this book when it arrived new in bookstores over 80 years ago. You can easily search those then-current reviews on the Internet for your own amusement and instruction and once again be surprised over how little people change. For some of us, "The Great Gatsby" is a wonder, while it leaves others wondering at us.

To describe briefly the novel: Set in the American 1920s at the height of a stock market boom in the Roaring Twenties, this novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a wealthy, young Ivy League graduate who's learning the bond business on Wall Street. Nick tells us about his life at the time as it connects with a second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, from Louisville, who is married to the fabulously and formidably wealthy Tom Buchanan. Tom and Nick schooled together at Yale where Nick had an uneasy relationship with the larger, wealthier, and crueler Tom Buchanan. The story unfolds with Nick, Daisy, Tom, and an attractive female golf pro, Jordan Baker, out on the glistening lawns of the wealthy sections of Long Island. Fold in Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson and her clueless, but devoted husband, George, and we have a strong story, but nothing about this Gatsby guy. Only when we are well into the story do we hear about the title character, Jay Gatsby, and he is slowly brought into plot and character development. Gatsby has been driving this novel from the beginning, but we don't know that. We learn in subtle, indirect fashion that Daisy and Gatsby have a mutual past that neither our narrator, Nick, nor her husband, Tom, discern or know. And in that past connection we grasp the proximate, animating force of the novel: Gatsby loved Daisy then and loves her now. The novel unfolds as Daisy learns that Gatsby owns a mansion across the bay from her estate. The old lovers cross paths again - one forcing the reunion, the other gliding into it - and we have all the action that will drive the remainder of the novel. I reveal nothing more and observe: The novel is simple and obvious, a story of wealthy, sophisticated people in boom times, with a narrator watching a married couple that has romantic rivals.

The basic plot and character in part explain why serious readers can be so seriously divided over "The Great Gatsby." Virtually everyone who dislikes the novel finds it to be simplistic, boring, and obvious. Gee whiz, let's try to get interested in people who have everything in life yet have trouble doing anything in life well. Tom and Daisy have it all, yet are stupid, shallow, and thoughtless people. Gatsby at least strives for something better and while he achieves great wealth, notoriety, and popularity, he, too, suffers from problems that should be easy to solve given his talents and resources. Jordan Baker, the female golf pro, is successful, famous, and attractive, but alas she can't make her life work. And, Nick, our narrator, seems to observe everything well, except for himself. All in all, we have a cast of characters who warrant scorn, dismissal, and contempt.

And yet, other serious readers see Gatsby as a great novel, a work of art. How?

Start first with a quality that almost all serious readers notice and admire: The writing. Fitzgerald writes romantic sentences with a Hemingway edge. His words are at once beautiful and descriptive. Even readers who overall disparage the book, heed the writing, and marvel at it. The voice is unique, esthetic, and sharp. Gatsby is Fitzgerald's finest writing and certainly some of the best writing in English anytime. But writing skill alone will not save this book for some serious readers.

What earns this disdain, I think, is found in the deceptive simplicity of the book. At a genuine level of analysis the story is rather easy to grasp, understand, and evaluate. Especially if you are reading this book under requirement as it appears many students experience, the psychological demands of the classroom (it's required, a specific timeline, deadlines for completing various chapters, assignments in class or for homework on the book, etc.) I think lead many readers into the worst outcome for a reading class - you read to survive the course rather than for your own simple entertainment and education. Under these conditions, the obvious, simple, and designed elements of "The Great Gatsby" attract immediate attention in the short term demands of required reading and lead some readers to obvious, simple, and designed conclusions about the book. If you've "had" to read Gatsby, give it a year, and try once again. It's not a maturity issue. It's a motivation issue: Read it for yourself on your own terms.

If you read for yourself, you can reflect on complexities in the book. Realize first that Fitzgerald writes differently about Tom and Daisy than he does for Nick or Jordan Baker, or the minor, but important characters like Myrtle and George Wilson, but most especially for Gatsby. With Tom and Daisy, Fitzgerald tends to offer direct and immediate observations of their behavior and thoughts as if he is looking them right now with a God's eye view and telling us about them. He really gets under the skin with Tom and Daisy. With Gatsby, by contrast, most of the writing is a narrative recounting of the past that is cloudy, perhaps misremembered, and operates as description with little interpretation or with contradiction from an unreliable narrator (Nick). This makes the characters of Tom and Daisy seem like high quality photos while Gatsby comes off more like a portrait done by an Impressionist painter: Clearly a portrait, but with shadows and no sharp edges. Tom and Daisy are objects. Gatsby is all subject and he becomes a Rorschach test allowing us to project ourselves onto him.

Next, you need to be alert to absolutely crucial plot actions that are briefly presented and can be easily missed. The climatic action of the story in particular requires the reader to do a lot of work and keep certain actions in mind through a long series of character reactions and developments. Recall the scene late in the book that takes place in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Who's in the scene? What do they say to each other? How are relationship conflicts resolved? Then, the characters move rapidly out of the Plaza Hotel and drive back to West and East Egg in separate cars. How do those car rides manifest behaviorally the relationship conflicts resolved earlier in the Hotel? Stated another way, in the Hotel we hear conflict and resolution. From the car rides we see how that conflict and resolution play out in action. This sequence is the ultimate plot point for the novel that drives interpretation. You need to read it carefully.

Finally, you need to relate what we hear and see regarding relationship conflict and resolution with the interpretation and understanding of Jay Gatsby. You'll recall that Tom and Daisy are bright, detailed, and sharp characters while Gatsby is vague, shadowed, and blurry. You can try to understand Gatsby through the events that occur following the car rides back to the Eggs. For you see, the whole point of the book is in what happens to Gatsby and what happens to Gatsby is caused by his character. (So, Fitzgerald exemplifies that maxim that all writers steal and that good writers steal from the best which in this case is Fitzgerald stealing from Heraclitus!)

For many people the basic theme of "The Great Gatsby" is this: Be careful what you wish for. I think at a simple level of analysis this is true. At a deeper level (one that follows my suggestions above) I would refine that theme into this: Be careful what you aspire to. For me, this novel is a great cautionary meditation on the American Dream and its less pleasant possibilities. In positive form, the American Dream is that you can be more than you started with. That explains in part why this book is often required for younger readers in high school or college who are taking their first real steps toward realizing their own American Dream. Fitzgerald offers Gatsby as a caution to those of us who think that aspiration past our beginnings is a good thing, a desirable thing, and the point of ambition. Everyone in this novel aspires to be more than they seem to be or who they are. Everyone in this novel suffers loss, failure, or disaster. No one in this novel leaves with any awareness of why they failed. Yet most of the characters can be described as either great challengers to the American Dream or else already living the American Dream. How is it possible for such failure to occur?

In my eyes, the answer is found in the last sentence of the novel: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Aspiration moves "against the current." Ambition motivates us not to a positive manifestation of the Dream, with the Dream as the Vision or Goal of one's life, but rather ambition motivates us to a negative manifestation of the Dream, with Dream as Fantasy or Psychosis or UnReality. And for those of us who aspire, we will find ourselves "borne back ceaselessly into the past" a modern Sisyphus doomed to push the stone uphill to the crest only to see it roll down to the valley every time.

That is a soul-chilling thought. Isn't this kind of ambition a good thing? Don't all good parents aspire for their children to aspire? Doesn't it all fall down if we don't aspire? It is not that anyone in the novel aspires badly or stupidly or illegally, but rather that they aspire at all is the root and branch of their failure. Here, "The Great Gatsby" argues that it is ambition itself that will cause people to fail and worse still to fail without insight and repair, for as long as you continue to aspire you will continue to failure.

This is an interesting and heuristic interpretation. First, it breaks free of the simple and obvious surface appearances and misdirections that divert some readers: It's the 1920s and irrelevant; it's about a bunch of spoiled white folks; it's about the vita loca. Clearly, there's a lot more going on here and it requires careful, thoughtful reading and reflection. Second, it explains why Gatsby is still appealing to so many people even after 80 years. It turns out that we are still living in a Modern age and the current Postmodern foolishness is explained by the past: Gatsby and Tom and Daisy and Nick would call themselves Postmodern today. The American Dream here is the defining element of Modernism and the fact that we're still aspiring the same old way like Jay Gatsby connects with us at a deep level. Third, it reinforces the perceived greatness of the novel that many readers see and continue to see. This is not only a well written, well structured, pretty novel, it also addresses eternal human nature and the repetitive futility we often experience in life. Gatsby is dramatic philosophy, a better written Platonic dialog.

Or so I think.

I read this book after having known the plot and ending, through another novel, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian. I figured it sounded interesting and thought I would read it for myself. Having known the ending didn't make for the most exciting read, but it was good. More than that, it was more about what the novel represented and did not say.

I won't go through the plot. The 1920's were a fascenating time and this novel helped capture that. While it was also written during this period, it had very much a sound and tone of an older novel which did take a little getting used to. Overall, I'd describe it as a little more bland or plain spoken that what you might read today. The character development was done with finess and the story was brought along to the conclusion masterfully. Towards the end you just wanted to skip through to see how it would end.

Overall it's a tragic tale. There's a lot of tragedy in the book, however it's interesting how the author choses to present this to us, in a matter of fact way. What really resonates with me is the topic of the past and how some of us are prisoners of it. And how often a first love, may be your only true love. The notion that maybe you can recapture this one day, is something I think many can relate to. Great novel, I'm glad I decided to finally get around to reading this classic.

Excellent book that I'd recommend for those trying to gobble up as many classic titles as we can find the time for. Gatsby's obsession, and the way the book provides a bit of action, love story, and manages to transport the reader to another era with so little effort, makes this title more than worthwhile. The last sentence is considered to be one of the great lines of literature, and the journey to that final page was enjoyable, every step of the way. It certainly had me pondering the price and value of love in the context of early modern American culture.

If you haven't read this, just get it and read it. Period. Then read all the other reviews that go into detail about character, plot and meaning. First just read it for what it is, to you, at the time of reading it. Then read all sorts of expository writing and reread it and you will have fully experienced this multifaceted American classic. There is so much to this novel that you can ponder it as you read it and afterwards and come up with a lot on your own. There is elegant phrasing and it is difficult to put down, as a novel should be.

The fact that some of the 5-star reviews for this book claim that those of us who do not like it "don't get" literature is just rude. Also, the fact that anyone would rank this book next to Faulkner, Woolf, Joyce, etc. offends me deeply. But that is your opinion, and you have every right to it.
As many have said, this book is immature. It takes a fairly basic outline (long-lost love, people cheating on spouses, an "outsider" comes in and has no true responsibilities) and throws in some symbolism that any high school student could conjure and then acts pretentious (which is probably why so many people like it, because they think it makes them look good). And that is all. I know that many people claim that was how it was in the 1920s, but please, no other piece of "literature" I have ever read has come off so shallow.
But back to those who act like not appreciating it means that you do not know much about reading. That is just inconsiderate. I truly hate this book, but if you like it, fine, I'll argue with you about it (and the fact that I've had to read three times now for school as an English major means I know quite a bit about it) until I faint. However, this does not mean that I will write you off and not listen to any of your other opinions. Because once someone did this to me when I told them I truly disliked "The Great Gatsby" and then they sarcastically asked what my favorite book was, expecting me to say something in popular fiction like "The Da Vinci Code". And, at the time, it was "Crime and Punishment" from my Russian Literature course. Furthermore, if this book is The Great American Novel, then American Literature is pathetic when standing next to most other countries, including Russia.

Fitzgerald captured one of the great truths of American life: that a person can "reinvent" themselves. We are not bound by our accidents of birth. He also captured one of the sad truths: too many people spend their lives chasing an illusion. In Gatsby's case, it was the illuions of the happiness that comes from being in the "moneyed" class. If Fitzgerald were writing today, I would bet that Gatsby would be chasing celebrity culture, equally pointless and equally seductive to so many. The developing friendship between Nick and Gatsby is interesting to watch, as Gatsby at first tries to ingratiate himself with his money, and then realizes he doesn't have to and finally opens up to have a real friend. When Nick informs Gatsby that he is worth the lot of the rich put together, it is a culmination of something real, not the illusion. The book captuers the roaring 20's well, but can also translate easily into our time. It is justifiably considered a classic.

This was the most difficult book to finish that I have ever picked up. I suppose that is because drama and romance are not the subjects that interest me the most. If you are a fan of the romance genre you may rate this one a bit higher than I.

The writing style is good, however, the storyline is predictible and dry. What is lacking in this book is a bit of action or real suspense. If if weren't for the quality and craftsmanship of Mr. Fitzgerald I would have reviewed this book at a 1 star.

Based upon the reviews clearly individuals give out way to many 5 stars. For me a 5 star review is a book that: 1)I will definitely buy 2)I will read as part of an annual pilgrimage and 3)I could recommend to you with clear conscience that I'm not wasting your time. For most individuals this book is going to be a waste of time.

There are two Kindle editions of The Great Gatsby, both at the same price.

Unfortunately the edition I bought, from Old Landmark Publishing, has a number of minor transcription errors. The most notable is the occasional

insertion of multiple paragraph

breaks within a sentence. There are also occasional misplaced paragraph breaks in dialog paragraphs, which sometimes leads to confusion about which character is speaking.

I downloaded the free sample of the Scribner Edition and although that is only a short sample, it appears to be a much better quality transcription.

So since there are two Kindle editions available, you might want to avoid the Old Landmark Publishing Edition (the one with the car on the cover) and try the Scribner Edition (the one with the stark black and white cover).

I picked up this book after about 12 years and I have to say I loved it just as much the second time around. Fitzgerald's descriptive ability is effortless and filled with beautiful imagery that stays with you forever. Everything just jumps off the pages and makes you feel as if you are in the book itself, partying at Gatsby's mansion or lounging with Daisy Buchanan. It is a beautiful book, a MUST read, and definitely a true classic!

There are two Kindle editions of the Great Gatsby, both at the same price.

Unfortunately the edition I bought, from Old Landmark Publishing, has a number of minor transcription errors. The most notable is the occasional

insertion of multiple unexpected paragraph

breaks within a sentence. There are also occasional misplaced paragraph breaks in dialog paragraphs, which sometimes leads to confusion about which character is speaking.

I downloaded the free sample of the Scribner Edition and although that is only a short sample, it appears to be a much better quality transcription.

So since there are two Kindle editions available, you might want to avoid the Old Landmark Publishing Edition (the one with the car on the cover) and try the Scribner Edition (the one with the stark black and white cover).

This is another one of those American classics that you just have to read at some point. I would definitely place it in my top 100. Great story, interesting and complicated characters, and beautiful writing. At this price, you really don't have an excuse for not reading it.

The writing is pretty good but unfortunately that doesn't make up for a weak storyline. The plot is so far-fetched in places that it spoiled my enjoyment of the book. The ending was particularly trite and melodramatic. The fact that this book comes in at less than 200 pages long is good because if you don't like it, well at least you didn't waste a lot of time. This is the sort of book that other "celebrated authors" apparently think highly of but many "casual readers" don't really enjoy it and I am one of the latter. Sorry, but only 3 stars.

I really tried to get into this book. Sorry, I could not get past the shallow, dislikeable people and situations. Prose and symbolism are nothing if accompanied by a boring, unreadable plot. Maybe that is the point, but there are plenty of classic books that have it all: prose, symbolism, good plot, good characterizations, action, social commentary etc. It seemed like this book was an outline of a novel where the author sketched the main points, threw in some symbolism, then decided not to fill in the outline and create any depth to the story. Maybe that was the point, but it made the book really lacking. It does not require a thin, shallow book to portray thin, shallow people or times.

This book is my favorite work of fiction and was such a fascinating read that it drew me in from the first sentence. ("In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.")

Fitzgerald did a masterful job producing the setting, defining the characters, and connecting the reader viscerally to the conflict.

I appreciate the context in which Fitzgerald wrote his defining piece, i.e., he was dealing with personal difficulties. It is evident Fitzgerald channeled his emotion into the book.

Fitzgerald also had an absolutely terrible first title (i.e., On the Road to West Egg), which would have doomed the book to obscurity. Fortunately, he had an exceptional editor that worked with him to get it right.

This is a deceptively simply novel that can be taken as a tragic love story. However, it can mean much more than that. One way to look at this novel is that it portrays the rise and hope of America and its eventual loss of innocence. Attempting to interpret the symbolism and arrive at a deeper message makes this story much more satisfying.

The west was conquered and the midwest cultivated, so in The Great Gatsby set in the 1920s we turn our attention back east, where to midwestern narrator Nick Carraway and his neighbor Jay Gatsby the green light at the end of the Buchanans' East Egg dock seems to represent the fertile promise of America, and the dreams and the money that are supposed to make them reality. Some dreams, like the dream of recapturing a romantic past that never really was, become nightmares.

Although he witnesses and participates in deception, including both sides of the Buchanans' infidelity, Nick wants to appear to be a reliable narrator, which he emphasizes when he says up front, "I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me." Later, Nick identifies himself with "the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him, too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." Nick's authorial viewpoint sets the tone for his story and his observations of the brutish Tom Buchanan; his shallow and unsatisfied wife, Daisy; his class-climbing mistress, Myrtle Wilson; and the mysterious Jay Gatsby, the hero of the different unbelievable fictions he tells (when Nick asks him what part of the middle-west he is from, Gatsby responds enigmatically, "San Francisco.") A confused Nick hears solemnity in Gatsby's voice and sees sincerity in his look, despite the obvious prevarication.

The most influential literal voice is that of Daisy Buchanan. Lacking the romantic substance for which Gatsby has idealized her as the symbol of his youth--his real youth--Daisy becomes a siren with a siren call. Nick writes, "The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said." Her friend, Jordan Baker, tells Nick, ". . . and yet there's something in that voice of hers. . . ." Later, Nick mentions that the "exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain," and "I think that voice held him [Gatsby] most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed--that voice was a death song." Nick says of Daisy, "Unlike Gatsby and Tom, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs . . ." By contrast, Myrtle is earthy, with "an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continuously smoldering." Tom, whose affairs we are told have included a hotel chambermaid, seems mostly unsusceptible to Daisy's voice, while even Nick notes its influence and Gatsby is destroyed by it and by his desire for the real past that every story he tells effectually effaces.

A compact novel concentrated on only a few months in the lives of a few characters, The Great Gatsby is rich with symbolism. During his reunion with Daisy, Gatsby almost stops time literally by knocking Nick's clock down, but instinctively he catches it before it falls. "We all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor," Nick writes. Gatsby even apologizes as though he had broken the clock and as though it were a significant loss that his countless money can't replace. As the reunion continues, Nick says of Gatsby, ". . . in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock."

Throughout, time is a consistent theme; it is part of what Gatsby futilely endeavors to recapture. He can reinvent a past in which he was "educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years," but he and his means cannot recreate the real past. As Nick observes, "Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one." He adds later, "Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion."

The Great Gatsby reminds me of The Count of Monte Cristo. Both Gatsby and the count start life as ordinary men and, through circumstances and the determination to achieve a much-desired goal, transform themselves into extraordinary men, ciphers to all but the most observant of their fellows. One seeks to revenge a past wrong; the other ignores the present and tries to reinvent the past as though there had never been a Tom Buchanan and as though Daisy had never loved him. Both efforts take time and unlimited patience and money, but only one is successful. The count revenges his past so he can live better in the future, but Gatsby fails because he does not understand, or want to understand, that the past is written and that the future begins with the present.

Somewhat lacking in heart--the only character who displays genuine emotion is Tom Wilson, Myrtle's despised husband--The Great Gatsby captures the jaded excesses of the post-World War I era and the American faith in time, money, and effort as the sources and creators of success. The novel also shows the greater power of circumstance and fate. I've read The Great Gatsby only once, but to appreciate its structure, symbolism, and richness would take several re-readings. Read once for pleasure, then read again to explore Fitzgerald's craft.

I just finished reading this book for honors english class and i actually enjoyed it. I didn't know what to expect so i was really surpised at how good the writing is. I agree with the reviewer who said the genius of this book is not just the story but the meanings hidden within the text. It really is extraordinary writing. You could analyze almost every sentence in this book and find a hidden or alternate meaning. The story wasn't edge of your seat action but it was still very interesting. The book really makes you think Fitzgerald was far ahead of his time. It's a book that deserves its place as one of the greatest American fiction books of all time. I would definitely recommend it to any one interested in reading a book that makes you think a little.

Did you ever want to go back? Back to those great times? That's what Gatsby wanted to do but he additionally wanted to CHANGE THE RULES too!

This work is told from the perspective of a third party about a determined man, Gatsby, who fails to secure an early love, a vain immature gal, Daisy, and now that he's hit the big time and has become a high-roller, he wants his Daisy back (even though he never had her to begin with) -- and he's willing to go to any extreme to OWN her.

The setting is the 20s, a period of excess and near social insanity in New York City in particular. Gatsby puts his plan into place and things go fine for awhile in that Daisy responds quickly to his overtures. But what Gatsby never figured on is that Daisy is a mile wide and an inch thick. She RE-responds to her husband's overtures to come back, albeit this act is spurred on by a personal tragedy and the death of a near-innocent.

Gatsby, in the meantime, has inadvertently set into motion a chain of events over which he no longer exerts control and, ultimately, it leads to his demise.

This book is arguably Fitzgerald's best work and it's bulging with symbolism and metaphor. It's a book that is set apart from most others of the period and now is thus referred to as "literature" -- quite the professionally written novel.

It's not for everybody but if you're up for reading some great prose, you love scandal, and don't mind all the subtle ethical lessons that accompany the work, then this one is probably for you.

Tom Wolf wrote a very similar work which was all about having rotten friends and the parallel excesses of a much more contemporary period, if you're interested: The Bonfire of the Vanities