The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Book Reviews of The Great Gatsby
Book Review: The Great Gatsby
Summary: 5 Stars
The Great Gatsby is a beautifully written book. Perhaps its greatest strength lies in the sheer magic of the writing. Fitzgerald spins sentences of such wonder, such clarity and honesty, that we are left to do nothing else but shake our head in amazement. Jay Gatsby may be a great mystery, he may be the Great American Dream personified, but if he sparkles, then the novel itself shines.
Nick Carraway has decided, at twenty-nine to 'go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man.' By chance, he finds a cheap house, a 'weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month' that is nestled amongst the huge mansions of the rich. He doesn't know it to begin with, but he is neighbours with Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby.
Gatsby holds parties on the weekends, grand affairs of cocktails and party dresses, his house filled to the rafters with people, some invited, most not. He is endlessly hospitable, allowing his alcohol to be drunk, his food to be consumed, his pool, his books, his home - they are open to his guests. Guests, not friends.
He is a mystery. Nobody knows why he has these parties, though everyone attends. Just as nobody knows how he made his money, or who he really is. Gatsby, when he enters Nick's world, refers to him and everyone as 'old sport', a distancing technique that is prevalent throughout the novel. 'It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.'
But he is not completely unknowable, though the romantic beliefs about him are accurately held. No, Gatsby is more and less than the stories that surround him. He is in love, his mansion lies directly across from that of Nick's cousin, Daisy, an old flame he cannot let go. At her jetty a green light winks across the water, and it is this that Gatsby watches on lonely nights, nights which are filled with people who mean nothing, or nights he spends alone.
Gatsby is mysterious and alluring while he remains unknown. When his love for Daisy is revealed, he becomes more known and less ethereal, his character growing from an enigma into a person. It adds warmth and humility to his personality, and is something beautiful. 'He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths - so that he could 'come over' some afternoon to a stranger's garden.'
But it is when Daisy 'becomes his' that Gatsby's character loses its shine and lowers to the ground. He is now a normal man, with the same strengths and weaknesses as everyone else. Perhaps there are more weaknesses - it is hard to consider cuckolding Tom Buchanan an admirable quality. Gatsby represents the dull, ordinary routine of a dream realised, that failed glow of actualised fantasy.
Nick's presence in the story has its own plot, but it runs adjacent to Gatsby. Perhaps Fitzgerald's greatest inspiration was to make Nick a 'supposer', to remove Gatsby from the immediacy of intimate narration and make him the refracted imaginings of Nick. 'I am one of the few honest people I have ever known', Nick says of himself. But Gatsby isn't honest, so how can an honest man understand someone's whose life is built on fantasy and deceit? More importantly, can an honest man understand someone who exists - has created himself - out of a love that has fallen into the past? He can't, which is what makes Gatsby, and Nick, so interesting.
Gatsby's love lies in the past. Fitzgerald refrains from sentimentalizing Gatsby as a younger man, but it is evident from the text that the sadness of his - our? - lives comes from an unwillingness to leave the past and live for today, or better yet, the future. Gatsby is sad and melancholy, a friendless man who wants a friend, an unloved man who wants to be loved. But can a man who only looks backward expect love or friendship in people that necessarily live in the now? He can expect it, but it won't happen. Romantic, yes. Fulfilled, never.
Fitzgerald's writing is beautiful, both understated and grandiose, mellifluous in its gentle rhythms. 'On the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of nonolfactory money. 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.'
It is worth noting the quality of Tony Tanner's introduction in the Penguin Classic edition. He goes to some length to show that part of what makes The Great Gatsby such 'A classic, perhaps the supreme American novel' is what Fitzgerald cut out of the piece, not so much what he left in. He analyses passages in the first draft and their remains in the completed piece - it becomes clear that Gatsby can survive only as a mystery, with as little exposition as possible. So many times, what Fitzgerald cut was explanatory dialogue or comments from Gatsby, which would have dramatically weakened the piece. We cannot and should not know Gatsby, even when he becomes 'known' and explained by the text. He must remain a cipher, such that we can impress upon his impressionable facade anything at all that we wish. I say facade, because we cannot probe deeper into what Gatsby is. The Great American dream? Perhaps - but what is he, even with that? He's a mystery, and so is the dream.
Book Review: A Glittering Reflection of a Darkening America
Summary: 5 Stars
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) lived fast, achieved success early, and then descended into a ferocious alcoholism from which he never emerged. His literary star was already in decline when he published THE GREAT GATSBY in 1925. Although the book had admirers, critical reception was lukewarm and public interest was virtually nonexistent. At the time of his death Fitzgerald and his works were regarded as trivial relics of an era noted for its superficiality; it would not be until the late 1940s that both critics and readers began to re-discover and re-assess them.
THE GREAT GATSBY has often been described as "the great American novel." In some ways this is unfortunate, for it has resulted in the academic world's force-feeding of the novel to exactly those least likely to have any appreciation of the work: high school and college students, who most often lack the maturity required to grasp the nature of the work. It is short but remarkably complex and requires skills of critical analysis that seldom arrive short of thirty years experience.
On the surface the story is not unique. Nick Carraway, a well-to-do young man from the midwest, has come to New York to learn the bond business. He takes a small house and afterward discovers that his cousin Daisy, now married to Tom Bucchanan, lives directly across the bay. A visit to their luxurious home introduces Nick to professional golfer Jordan Baker, an attractive woman in which Nick is soon interested; it also alerts him to the fact that Daisy is disillusioned in her marriage to Tom, who for all his wealth and social status is limited in his views of the world and more than a little brutish in his habits.
Nick is only casually interested in Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, but he is soon propelled into constant contact with all three through his own neighbor, Jay Gatsby, a mysterious yet charismatic man whose chief occupation seems to be staging parties. After some little time, Nick learns that Gatsby knew Daisy before her marriage, and indeed his parties are set forth as bait, an attempt to lure Tom and Daisy to his home on the less fashionable side of the bay. For Gatsby loves Daisy, and his memory of their romance has propelled him to fame and riches, all in an attempt to bring her to his side. Through Nick, Gatsby arranges to meet Daisy once more, and the lost love blooms anew.
Or does it? THE GREAT GATSBY never allows us entry into Daisy as a person; we are never privy to her thoughts but are instead required to see her through the eyes of those around her, and the way in which we read her changes according to the people and circumstances involved. As the novel climaxes Nick and Gatsby and we ourselves do at last understand both her and Tom and the others of their kind, but the understanding comes too late to avert the three deaths and profound disillusionment that conclude the book.
Like most great novels, THE GREAT GATSBY is about a great many things, but it is perhaps most particularly about America's drift into a terrible sort of materialism in which human beings become less valued for their humanity than for what--and in a very real sense--who they own. Almost everything the characters of the novel do, say, or plan is done "for show." Gatsby's parties and his car, Jordan's golf competitions, Tom's mistress, Daisy's child, Nick's job are masks that conceal the screaming emptiness of a world in which what you have has become more important than who you are. "What shall we do with ourselves this afternoon?" Daisy asks at one point in the novel. "And the day after that, and the next thirty years?" Who would you be if you had only yourself? Would you still be what your possessions seemed to indicate--or would you be a different person, perhaps better or perhaps worse?
Although THE GREAT GATSBY has always been admired for the cool, languid beauty of Fitzgerald's language, many felt the core statements of the novel were rendered largely irrelevant by the Great Depression and World War II. But like Gatsby's memories, which he himself cannot lay to rest, the book has a way of resurfacing in our minds in a remarkably disquieting sort of way, again and again with each generation. The great literary diamond of the Deco age still glitters, and it does so all the more in the face of the "on demand" confused consumerism that has arisen in the internet age. We know it should not be like this, and we wish it were not so, but we expect someone else to deal with it--or, as Fitzgerald writes with such profound clarity near the end of the novel, we, in this most American of American novels, are a people prone to smashing up things and creatures and then retreating back into our money and vast carelessness. We prefer to let other people clean up the mess we have made.
A brilliant work.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Book Review: A masterpiece uncomfortably stuck between generations
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Great Gatsby" is a strange book because it seems that every American is forced to read it in high school, and yet its lessons are most meaningful and appropriate for people who are much, much older. Fitzgerald's main message seems to be that those individuals who think big and dream big will eventually be crushed by their headstrong romantic ambitions, and that golden memories from the past--no matter how achingly seductive and promising in retrospect--can never be recaptured.
How depressing! What high schooler wants to be exposed to these dreadful (if true) life lessons, especially so early in life?
Therein lies the rub. "The Great Gatsby" is a benchmark work of American literature that is primarily read by youngsters who are too young to appreciate it, and it is ignored by oldsters who might truly connect with it because they, in their old age, dismiss the novel as some sort of stale required reading for adolescents.
But let's now look at what the two groups might like, and then dislike, about this fascinating 1925 novel.
LIKES OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL CAFETERIA CROWD:
1.) It's a short read.
2.) It's a famous work written by a famous author.
3.) It's a clear, clean, tidy read.
4.) It offers little complexity or contradiction (at least on a superficial level).
5.) Nick Carroway is cool, and Jay Gatsby is REALLY cool.
6.) Fitzgerald's gifts of description are amazing, especially those of the Gatsby mansion and its parties.
6.) The book's mini-lessons are tidy, potted plants: (a.) money is bad; (b.) it sucks being the outsider; (c.) pay attention while driving, lest you mow down a mistress; (d.) don't bother Googling your ex-girlfriend and buying a big house across the bay from her big house.
DISLIKES OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL CAFETERIA CROWD:
1.) Nick Carroway's narration is a little too suavé and complex for its own good.
2.) The last quarter of the text, sort of a crime novel spelled out, doesn't match the epic grandeur of the first three-quarters of the book.
3.) Except for a few parties, one DUI, and one murder/suicide, nothing happens over nearly 200 pages of text.
LIKES OF THE RETIREMENT-COMMUNITY CAFETERIA CROWD:
1.) It's a short read.
2.) Nick Carroway's narration is agreeably suavé and complex.
3.) Scores and scores of textual passages in "The Great Gatsby" are arrestingly beautiful in their imagery, simplicity, and lyricism.
4.) The oldsters know good-hearted, hard-charging successful people who eventually crashed and burned, just like Gatsby did.
5.) The oldsters like looking back gauzily and wistfully on the splendor and health of their youth, no matter how things actually turned out.
6.) The bastards win out at the end of "The Great Gatsby," just like in real life.
DISLIKES OF THE RETIREMENT-COMMUNITY CAFETERIA CROWD:
1.) The last quarter of the text, sort of a crime novel spelled out, doesn't match the epic grandeur of the first three-quarters of the book.
2.) The pivotal automobile accident is just a tiny bit forced and convenient. (See for example p. 151 of the 1995 Scribner paperback edition--how can Daisy swerve to pass an ONCOMING car on a two-lane street? If the approaching car is ONCOMING, there is no need to swerve--just to keep driving straight.)
3.) Why did Gatsby let himself be killed by the raving George Wilson? Wouldn't Gatsby, who purposely ordered his car with the damaged fender to be entombed in his estate's garage, get the hell out of Dodge? (Tom and Daisy did.) Are we meant to believe he gave up on life because, after one bad afternoon and a car accident caused by Daisy, he would give up on five years' worth of empire-building and let himself be assassinated?
4.) Overall, the book doesn't quite fit together seamlessly. It fails to be perfectly harmonious, internally and thematically.
In sum, this is a masterpiece stuck uncomfortably between two places: the hearts and minds of the young, who have not yet lived long enough to endorse the timeless truths of the novel's grim central message, and the hearts and minds of the old, who might indeed recognize the value of its teachings, but skip over the text because they consider it to be fodder for juvenile minds.
The text's tragic inability to succeed in one or the other camp reminds us of two similar and heartbreaking failures: of Jay Gatsby, who had all the material goods and all the street cred, but still died young, broken, and alone; and of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was perhaps the most naturally gifted author America ever produced, but still died young, broken, and alone.
Book Review: HoustonE reviews The Great Gatsby
Summary: 5 Stars
Consumerism is the New Food for America The necessities in life at one period in our world were merely just an
acre of land and tools to build a shelter and feed the empty stomachs. As technology increased in parts of the world, people's necessities began to adapt and change. In America, the basic necessities of food and water are available on every block of the street and are taken for granted; therefore our necessity in an American life became money. Although the concept is hard to believe that money is anywhere close to being as important as food or water, it has to be understood to know the role of consumerism. Back in the mid 1700s, people in North America focused on their crops because their goal was to feed themselves and a family if they had one. In the twenty- first century, America has satisfied hunger at a very cheap rate and has encouraged Americans with a new goal. Since most Americans do not struggle for food, we are not trying to satisfy our physical living life, but our spiritual life. The spiritual life is our mindset on happiness, our wants and what makes us feel "good". Therefore, with the excess money people have after rent or payment on homes and food, most people invests it on materials, either to decorate their home, the equipments needed in their hobby, or a car for transportation. Again, because America is more advanced than other countries, it is necessary for us to possess excess materials not needed for the physical life, but for the spiritual life of desire, and happiness.
Even if consumerism is unneeded to a person, it is unavoidable. Grocery stores not only have foods and snacks, but clothes, flowers and office supplies. Also, the idea of a new school year means new clothes and looks. Another example is marriage, buying dresses, tuxedos, service, a ring and a legal contract. Commercialism also plays a big role for expanding consumerism, such as ads on the back of store receipts and search engines on the internet. Another reason why consumption in material is still here, although some people believe it is the key to corruption is because majority wants or desires it. Each material is designed to be produce because people have been demanding it. Some will still disagree, but when there are enough people taking interest in a certain material, some company will produce it to make a profit on their own.
Back in history, the thirteen colonies were not happy with the king interrupting in individual businesses, and still after two hundred and fifty years the United States of America are not happy with the effects of capitalism. There are reasons to have a bad impression on it, such as the production of trash, greed, and class distinctions, but as a whole America is a successful country to be named the land of opportunities. Our needs and wants have created diversity of positions in the educational, medical, business and science field.
Another favorite author is Fitzgerald, who depicts money and materials as faults of corruption in Americans. Gatsby is the only gentlemen who is wealthy that proves some dignity and respect of the true feelings of love. He had depended on materialism on his whole life, seeking his desire for daisy. Wealthy, brutal, and powerful; Tom abuses his power of status to deceive a poor mechanic Mr. Wilson to get to his wife, Myrtle. He also depends on consumerism to be at the status he is.
One of the important materials in this novel is cars. Myrtle represented the corrupted people who obsessed over materials and wealth, which ironically ended her life. This is all too true in our nation, when people just become in debt, because they could not control their desire in useless materials.
It is ironic how our very desirable consumerism in American life, will one day drive our society crashing to the ground. Whether it be a nuclear war over the last gallons of gasoline, or the pollution created from the excess trash of products, consumerism will run the American country to the peak until it will fill up all the wants and desires from the spiritual life.
Book Review: The social life of the rich in the Jazz Age
Summary: 5 Stars
Gatsby was a bootlegger and a penny stock hustler. He was "great" only in a delusive sense. Thus the title of Fitzgerald's celebrated novel is ironic, and that is something to keep in mind when reading it.
But Gatsby is seen as a step above the tony East Egg society that lived in their plush estates across the Long Island sound from his nouveau riche mansion--at least that is the revelation that narrator Nick Carraway eventually comes to as we learn from his famous line, "They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole dam bunch put together."
It is ironic and proper that Daisy Buchanan, the wispy, languid and privileged beauty escapes blame for the tragedy near the end of the novel. It is her class that had always escaped blame, that had always lived on in its narrow-minded, greedy luxury. We can see their class--the Buchanans and their crowd--as Eloi-like children of the robber barons. Although Gatsby was dishonest and a criminal at least he had some gumption. And in the end we see he had some sense of integrity and courage as well.
He is "great" then as compared to the listless, privileged people who had inherited much of the vast wealth that this young nation had accumulated during the westward expansion following the Civil War. Gatsby's failing and the failure in general of the rich was that they knew not what to do with their leisure and privilege. Gatsby threw lavish parties and affected an air of mystery while the Buchanans indulged in racist and class war philosophies while they pursued adulterous affairs and the mind-numbing qualities of drunkenness.
When I first read this as a young man I thought it was a rather mediocre novel. The infidelities that so drove the story were commonplace to me at a time past mid-century, and I really missed the deep irony that Fitzgerald intended. The Great Gatsby was not "great," that much was obvious; but that he was great relative to the Buchanan crowd was what I missed. He serves not only as the "up from poverty" character so often seen in Jazz Age and depression novels, but he is a more deeply realized character. Not a brutal man like most bootleg operatives, instead he is almost a dilettante bootlegger, yet a hugely successful one, so much so that hardly any of the details of his business now occupy him; indeed one of the reasons that I mistook his character upon a first reading is that the actual reality of the lifestyle of those who fed the speakeasies is not in the novel. Fitzgerald was more interested in the social life of the degenerates and how they looked upon social climbers like Jay Gatsby.
Nick the modest narrator is in-between. An educated man of the upper middle class, a graduate of Yale, he represents the objectifying device in the novel. We see everything through his eyes and through his sensibilities. Initially in ambivalent admiration of both his cousin Daisy and Gatsby, Nick eventually becomes disillusioned with their differing but shallow lifestyles and their shallow values while he comes to realize that while Gatsby is a cut above, he is still a man with a tragically limited vision.
In short, The Great Gatsby is an indictment of the Jazz Age and its easy money mentality with attendant moral corruption. Perhaps this is why it did not sell well when it was published in 1925--the jazz agers were not interested in self-portraits--but now has become a stable of American literature, and certainly Fitzgerald's most read and most celebrated novel.
Fitzgerald the man may have borne witness to the excesses of the Roaring Twenties but he did not learn its lessons. He died young in Hollywood in 1940 of a heart attack, an alcoholic trying to write pot boilers for magazines and scripts for B movies. The tragedy of Jay Gatsby in some strange way may have foreshadowed the tragedy of F. Scott Fitzgerald.