The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Book Reviews of The Great Gatsby
Book Review: Compact and Polished: Fitzgerald's Most Popular Novel.
Summary: 5 Stars
Fitzgerald is considered to be an important early 20th century American writer. I bought and read Fitzgerald's five major novels ("This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon") plus one book of short stories plus the biography "Some Sort of Epic Grandeur" by Matthew Broccoli.
His first major novel, "This Side of Paradise," along with "Gatsby" and "Tender is the Night" are considered to be great novels, and I enjoyed the reads. The other two have serious flaws. Interestingly, the Bloomsbury Guide does not rate any of the five well known Fitzgerald novels as masterpieces. His best or most complicated work is "Tender is the Night," but it is less well known than "Gatsby" which became a successful film.
Fitzgerald wrote about half a dozen novels and over 100 short stories between approximately 1917 and 1940. The short stories were done largely to make money to support his life style. In later years, he worked on a number of Hollywood film scripts. He died poor in Hollywood in 1940 at an age of just 44, leaving an insurance policy as his main asset.
Riding on the success of "This Side of Paradise," Fitzgerald created the rambling novel "The Beautiful and the Damned." That novel has good prose but is a step down from his first novel. It was not a commercial success. Fitzgerald wrote the next novel - "Gatsby" - with an eye on creating another commercial best seller.
"The Great Gatsby" is a much shorter novel than his prior two: just half the length. It is compact, polished, and contains beautiful prose. It is written largely in the first person by a young man who describes the life of his neighbour "Gatsby" on New York's long Island. It takes place during a warm New York summer, and like many other Fitzgerald works, there is a fascination with wealthy Americans. The story reflects some of the elements of the author's own life, and accordingly the protagonists have advanced in age to people in their twenties and thirties - no longer recent university graduates as in his prior two novels - and they are roughly the same age as the author.
This is Fitzgerald's shortest and his most polished novel. Some think it is not as good as the more elaborate "Tender is the Night" or his breakout novel "This Side of Paradise."
This is an excellent but short read.
Book Review: "Great" doesn't even begin to describe this one
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a seriously awesome book. Quite simply, you must read it. I know you've heard it before: allow me to join in praising it.
The first thing I'd like to point out is Fitzgerald's brilliant use of symbolism. The cars, the colors, various characters' glasses... these aren't just trivial things, you know. Pay close attention to them.
Anyway, the next thing I'd like to discuss is the character of Gatsby himself. A very intriguing figure. In fact, he's a bit of an enigma to me in that I have no definite opinion on whether or not I admire him. My opinion on the other characters is clear-cut (I mostly dislike them, other than Nick - which I believe was Fitzgerald's intention, to portray the rich as shallow and irresponsible - another thing that comes off brilliantly). But Gatsby... I'm not sure on Gatsby. I have to salute him for sticking with his dream for so long, in spite of its hopelessness, but the ends of said dream would have resulted in disaster for all parties involved, and his motives would be questionable. Gatsby is charismatic, well-read, determined, and intelligent; he is also greedy, self-absorbed, and stuck in the past. In other words, very human. And that's the most intriguing part of his character: when the end comes, I am unsure whether or not I feel Gatsby deserved his fate. Something to ponder. I like books that make me think deeply, and this is one of them.
As for Fitzgerald's language, let us say he has total mastery over it. I knew he was a phenomenal writer from reading a collection of his short stories before I picked up Gatsby, but nothing could prepare me for what this book would present. Fitzgerald was a very, very talented writer, and there's a fine reason why he is widely considered one of the best. Books don't get much better.
As an attack on the fast, hard lifestyles of the wealthy (something Fitzgerald himself knew a lot about), and as a meditation on how time's passage can ruin lives, this is equally brilliant. Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Every character is fully fleshed out, even seemingly (but only seemingly!) trivial characters like Old Owl Eyes; the symbolism is perfect, the language is stunning, and the book is just the right length. I can think of no criticisms.
Book Review: The Decline of the American Dream reveals a nice life lesson in the end
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel demonstrates the importance of creating one's own happiness and not relying on material things to generate that. Gatsby believed that by becoming rich he could solve all his problems, but that only made him more somber with his already tainted life.
Gatsby had been living a tough life of rejection and decided to turn to the one thing he thought would help--money--and poured his life's ambitions into procuring that. He became so dependent on this solution that he would go to any means necessary to become rich. Gatsby would devote the next five years of his life to cheating and scheming his way to the top. He began illegal drug sales to generate more profit. His riches were gained by no honest means and represent a life of lying and shortcuts. That is no way to go about happiness. Happiness can only be achieved if one actually makes it for themselves. They cannot rely on material possessions to create that for them. Being truly happy takes effort, and that is something Gatsby does not know how to give. Taking the easy way out will never lead to any blissful ending.
Gatsby has to learn that lesson the hard way as his riches begin to worsen his life, not better it, and people take advantage of him and only want him for his money. Gatsby feels lonely in this world as he begins his new life as an elite "business man" so he invites people over to his house to enjoy his money with him. He soon realizes that spending time and money on strangers does not make him any better off than before his riches. His money can only make others happy, not himself. Those people who he begins to believe are his friends do not care about him in the least bit; they only want him so that they can enjoy the same luxuries as he does. These people that spend all hours of the night at Gatsby's house do not appreciate him enough to come to his own funeral. No one cares about him except his father and neighbor. Having money does not make Gatsby happy and it will not make any one else happy. The only thing that warrants true happiness is having people who love and care about each other and that will not forget their true friends when they need them the most.
Book Review: Shines Brilliantly Like a Just-Discovered Piece of Cameo Jewelry from a Bygone Era
Summary: 5 Stars
It's difficult to give any even-handed critique F. Scott Fitzgerald's standard-setting Jazz Age novel since it was required reading for most of us in high school. However, if you come back to it as a full-fledged adult, you'll find that the story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.
Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.
These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading.
Book Review: Less about Wealth and Excess, More About One Man's Dream.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Great Gatsby is less about the American Dream and more about the death of a dream; a dream one holds in one's heart, for such an inexplicably long time, that it becomes something more than a dream, something ineffable and austere. Like the previous sentence, this book is permeated with ambiguous phrasings and sentimental, other-worldly prose - that is to say, Fitzgerald has a certain writing style, and chooses to imbue his novel with a certain unabashed romanticism.
Most peoples critiques of the characters are incomplete. Sure, they have money, and that might make them frivolous or careless to a certain extent, but they all have depth and breadth. The characters only seem overtly despondent because we view them through the eyes of the narrator, a person who seems somewhat detached from things, as he should be, as the novel is essentially his recollection of events. The net effect is that the novel achieves sort of a dream-like quality. The most likable of the characters is the novels name-sake, Gatsby. I read somewhere that the original editor/publisher of the book had Fitzgerald omit much of Gatsby's biography - I would have liked to know more about Gatsby. That's the great trick of the novel, the reader wants to know more about Gatsby, and when his identity and his character is revealed, it can seem anti-climatic; but when we discover why Gatsby has amassed his wealth, created his persona, and built his estate in a certain place, we realize his true intentions, and recognize them as being the best of humanity, even if they are naive and romantic notions flush with sentimentality.
The plot to the novel is interesting and includes one or two twists that make it feel like an urban legend.
The main sticking point of the novel (for me) is that wealth does not create happiness, nor is it a means to an end. The wealthy face all the same problems, regrets, and insecurities as everyone else, with the added burden of having money.
The novel is a relatively short, enjoyable read, poetic and sublime. An excellent addition to anyone's general library. Recommended.