The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Book Reviews of The Great Gatsby
Book Review: The Great Gatsby
Summary: 2 Stars
The Great Gatsby is a book about the upper class in New York. It shows you how luxurious life can be but also how money doesn't bring total happiness. In this book the main character Nick Carraway is trying to break away from his country background and finds himself living in New York. What this book shows and what Nick finds out and doesn't like are the selfishness of the rich community, the backstabbing, and the shallowness in everybody. These are the reasons that Nick movies back to the country and marries his hometown sweetheart.
In my opinion I didn't like this book for the same reason that Nick left to go back to the country. I thought it was a very difficult book to read because there was never any positive happening to these people and it moved at a slow pace. All the ladies in this book were selfish, shallow sluts who didn't care about anyone but themselves. This is shown when Daisy Buchanan has an affair with Gatsby. At the end of the book, when it comes down to choosing who she wanted to be with, she pick her husband just because Tom could offer her security and the life style she is accustomed to, not for true love. The men are not any better. They are also shallow, careless, and like to take risks. For example, Tom Buchanan is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is the wife of George Wilson who owns a garage in the Valley of Ashes. Tom keeps an apartment for her in the city during this book which is the scene of a rather wild party.
Even though I didn't like this book there were still a few parts that I liked. I thought it was sort of sweet how Gatsby had a never-ending love for Daisy. Even though she didn't deserve the kind of love Gatsby gave her, the relationship was kind of a fairytale without a happy ending. I also thought the way Gatsby died was interesting. It was perfect timing for a death because he never had to go through life suffering, knowing that Daisy his obsession, would never be with him. It was ironic that George Wilson was the one who shot Gatsby because Wilson thought Gatsby was the one who had an affair with and murdered his wife. In fact Gatsby did neither and the only one who came on top was Tom Buchanan, who was responsible for causing pain in both of the men's lives.
All in all I didn't like this book. It was slow moving, boring, and depressing. If I had to recommend this book to a group of people, it would be to adults/teenagers with a lot of time on there hands or if you just like gossip.
Book Review: Book Review
Summary: 3 Stars
Melanie Vela
American Literature II
Ms. Krone
June 2, 2005
Book Review
The Great Gatsby is a fictional novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.It is a story of one man's desperate attempt at rekindling a past relationship with a beautiful woman named Daisy. She is a wealthy materialistic woman who, due to the difference of social classes, does not marry Gatsby, and while he is shipped off for war, marries a more wealthy man. The real conflict is set off when Nick Carraway, a distant cousin of Daisy comes to visit for the summer. He tries to help Gatsby win back Daisy, who has now become a very wealthy and popular man by throwing large extravagant parties. This leads to drama and conflict
This book is Fitzgerald's life in a couple hundred pages Fitzgerald is Gatsby in many ways. Gatsby moved to New York in hopes for fulfilling a dream and so too did Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald met and fell in love with a woman who would not marry him due to the fact that he had no money. He wins her over by becoming a famous author. The alcoholism that is portrayed in this play by the party guests reflects Fitzgerald who became a heavy drinker.
The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald's attempt at being remembered for a long time. It has always been his dream to be great. Gatsby was Gatz attempt at being great also. I think that is why Fitzgerald entitled his book The Great Gatsby, because Gatsby was supposed to be a great, popular guy who made something of himself. However, Gatsby wasn't great since everyone used him and his main goal to win over Daisy failed.
This book was good in ways that the storyline was interesting and that the ending was very suspenseful. I also liked how Fitzgerald made the narrator a truthful and moral man as the narrator because it allowed the reader to trust that his details of the characters were right, and to trust his judgment which also allowed seeing the characteristics and personalities of each character. Fitzgerald's in depth description of different aspects was needed but at other times it just felt like a run on words. It at times did create the mood, but for the most part, it created a boring façade upon the reader. It was slow and the real action of the book occurred late.
Overall, this book wasn't so good. I would not recommend the book to those who like action or drama in every page. The whole story was just one jumble of words that bored the reader page after page.
Book Review: The Great Gatsby
Summary: 5 Stars
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a dramatic novel that deals with the aspirations and dreams of some people and the way they affect relationships with others. The book's theme is complex yet one that most people can relate to; hope, the passing of time, undying love. The novel takes place in early 1920's New York; normally looked at as a decadent period, where money and partying were ways of life for a generation of young people who knew no other way. Among this crowd stands a group of people (our main characters) who, despite not being susceptible to this way of life, are very much a part of it, and, in some cases, are trapped in by it.
The novel is narrated by a young man named Nick Carraway. Long a Midwesterner, he travels to New York in his late 20's to become a bonds dealer. He settles in the "West Egg" district of Long Island, which, in the fictional geography of the novel, is divided into two boroughs - West and East Egg. He is quickly drawn into the circles of anonymous parties thrown by faceless rich people. His only real contacts are his distant cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her racist, sexist husband, Tom Buchanan. He soon befriends his very mysterious "Trimalchio" (party host) neighbor, Jay Gatsby, and slowly but surely is caught in the middle of a drama fueled by broken dreams and sincere hope.
Once used to the language and literary style of the book (which is very different from more modern writing) this book is very addictive. The imagery is beautiful; often, the very human characters say or do very memorable things, and the storyline is perfectly paced. And many of the issues the author mentions (but does not try to present explanations or solutions for) are still relevant today; class differences, lost love, alienation. And the fact that 80 years have passed since this period does not take you out of the story or dialogue; often, the situations in the book could just easily have happened today.
Overall, The Great Gatsby is an excellent book, easily worth reading by anybody. It tells you a lot about the period it was written in, and even tells you more than the generalities often associated with this period; it probes that not everyone in the Roaring 20's were so willing to throw money out of their car windows and hop speakeasys; the characters in this book are struggling with problems in society many people are still struggling with today. I definitely recommend The Great Gatsby.
Book Review: I dare: Luder of Saddam City does not get this book
Summary: 5 Stars
A couple of thoughts:
1. Don't read this book, or any book, because you believe it to be "a classic." That term is essentially meaningless, and the people who use it -- either as praise or blame -- generally don't have any souls. Really. And that is not a subjective opinion.
2. Do read this book because, in doing so, you may learn things about the reality of America, the dream of America, dreaming itself and the beautiful emptiness of it, and perhaps even yourself. You may not learn all these things. You may, in fact, not learn any of them. And, frankly, you may not like the way the book is challenging your conception of yourself once you realize just how deeply it is doing so. But at the very least, even if you hate the book after you have read it, you will have exposed yourself to some thoughts that are, in and of themselves, quite beautifully expressed. Worse things can happen to you. And if the worst thing that ever happens to you is that you don't like a book, you'll be luckier than most.
3. A lot of people have found in this book something worthwhile, although it hasn't always been (as evidenced by these reviews) "pleasure." Some of those people may indeed be fools, and others of them may have been hornswaggled by the Evil American Culture Industry into thinking this book was more meaningful to them than, say, the Iliad. But, probably, the rest of them are just being honest. You might give them the benefit of the doubt.
4. Likewise, a lot of people (albeit fewer of them, again as evidenced by these reviews) have found absolutely nothing worthwhile in this book. I encourage you to read their reviews, and then to press the "read the rest of my reviews button" to find out just how many of them prefer, say, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which is, without a doubt, funnier) to this book. But, as in thought number 3 above, it is probably a mistake to generalize: certainly not all of the people who find this book valueless are unsophisticated, imaginationless, anti-intellectual, snobbish, or even just plain douchebags.
It is remarkable, however, how often they sound that way.
5. You may disregard thought 4 with respect to Luder of Saddam City. I'm pretty sure he/she IS a douchebag. And I reiterate: he/she really doesn't get the book. Or, I suspect, books generally. But he/she does seem to like Spanish an awful lot.
Book Review: A Classic that Needs to be Read Today
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has come back into the limelight in the post-Enron, post-Tyco, post-Refco, post-Worldcom, post-Adelphia world of ethicless business. Like the major rich characters in this novel, today's ruthless robber-barons, cheat on their wives, demean their employees, spend money lavishly on conspicuous consumption. But Gatsby never gave a million dollar party like the head of Tyco did.
So much is similar: no one knows where the rich people's money is coming from. Everyone assumes there is something illegal about a few people having all the money and the poor people being pushed further into poverty. But, no one seems to be doing anything about it.
When General Motors steps away from its commitment to employee pensions, and United Airlines, and IBM, this book becomes more and more contemporary. Even more so when executive pay rises in the double digits every year. Tom Buchannan, the adulterer in this classic, would fit right into today's business elite.
Gatsby himself is mysterious at first, but his background in the First World War is revealed to be similar to that of many of today's veterans who returned from Vietnam, or Iraq, to find that the rules of business had changed, and for the most part, there was no effective enforcement.
The real lesson of this book is that the wages of sin is death. Gatsby dies in a case of mistaken identity. His death is triggered by Buchannan's infidelity. This is a message America needs to hear.
I had to read this book in high school. And I watched MTV, and the Dukes of Hazzard, and the Flintstones. But that was before Enron. I read this book again after the Internet bubble burst, just like the stock market imploded in 1929, shortly after this book was written, sweeping millions into poverty. And I read it a couple of times since Enron was looted for billions of dollars and sank into bankruptcy, leaving many of its employees without pensions or savings.
I think it is a classic because, aside from little things, like air conditioning, which had not been invented yet, the book is as relevant today as it was when it was first published.
By the time this book became popular, thousands of people who had hoped to be like Gatsby were living on the streets. If they read the book during the depression they would have been happy that Gatsby got what was coming to him.
What will you think of him?