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The most helpful favourable review
The most helpful critical review
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
What a read!
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books...
Published 19 months ago by E. Fifield
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
NOT the best piece of American literature ever written...
Many say that "The Great Gatsby" is one of the best pieces of American literature ever written, but I have to agree that I don't feel it lived up to all the hype. Perhaps it is partly my fault, after reading so many raving reviews of it, I expected too much from it and felt slightly let down by it.
You know you're on American territory as soon as you start...
Published 6 months ago by Amanda Hinks
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
What a read!, 22 April 2008
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!
TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried to convince family and friends to read it afterwards; but to no avail - so if I manage to get even ONE person to read it from writing this review, then good! Definitely recommended.
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28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
A green light to go and read this novel, 25 Nov 2002
'Gatsby' is the American Dream; but more than that, 'Gatsby' is about dreaming. It is an incredibly concise novel of lyrical genius. It is poetry and social commentary. A work of art and a historical document. A light breeze through the jazz age and a complex layering of narrative perspectives. A hedonistic trip through gloriously decadent capitalist excess and a crushingly melancholic musing on lost love.
If you're a romantic read this because Fitzgerald's employment of prose will make you weep.
If you're an english student read this because it will tell you everything you need to know about the influence of cinema.
If you're a historian read this for the way Fitzgerald doctors his text to avoid censorship laws in 1925.
If you're a social scientist read this because it has only one equal in its study of the illusion of American idealism. Alexis de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' is 100 years older, 250 pages longer, and not written in melting prose.
That is not to say that this work is without fault. Crucially for anyone who is compelled to regard such things in a novel that doesn't warrant it, the logic of Carraway's narrative does not follow. Fitzgerald originally wrote what now constitues the ending to sit at the front of the novel, and in its new-found position Carraway has access to information that in reality he would not have. This, as might be apparent, is the criticism of a man who was forced to read the work at A-Level.
Strangely, this has not diminuished from his continued enjoyment. Indeed, even after numerous returns to Fitzgerald's astonishingly few pages this is the single fault I find in this work.
Daisy will make you want to love. Tom will make you want to earn millions. Gatsby will make you want to dream.
Read it first as a fantastically crafted story, second as an insightful social commentary, and third as a work of perspective genius. Read it because you haven't already. It is as brilliant as that green light.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
A Dangerous Look Backward . . . At The Future, 19 May 2004
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." These are the last words in the novel, and sum up its theme. Our minds (like moths to the light) are drawn irresistibly to the most wonderful moments we have experienced. Our mistake is then to build our future around them, not realizing that they can never be recaptured. In pursuing the past into the future, we deny ourselves the real potential of the future.The Great Gatsby is developed in novel form around the story line of a Greek tragedy. Nick Carraway, Gatsby's neighbor, is the narrator, serving the role of the chorus. This choice of structure creates a marvelous reinforcement for the book's theme. The novel is constricted by the tragic form, even as Gatsby's future is by his immobilization by the past. If you like that sort of irony, you'll love The Great Gatsby. Nick knows both Gatsby (his neighbor in West Egg, Long Island) and Daisy Buchanan (his cousin who lives in East Egg, Long Island). Daisy knew Gatsby before he was Gatsby and before meeting Tom, her husband. Gatsby has made himself into a rival for Daisy over the five years since they have last seen each other, and makes his play for her again through Nick about mid-way through the book. Daisy and Tom's responses shape the tragedy that is this story. I won't say more because it will harm your enjoyment of the novel. The story itself is somewhat dated by the romantic perspective of the Roaring Twenties, and few will read it for the instant connection they will feel with the characters. Why would someone want to read this book? I see three reasons. The first is to explore the theme of moving illusions about the future built from the happiness of the past. The second is to see a fine example of plot development. There are no wasted words, actions, and thoughts. The third is to enjoy the language, which is beautifully expressive. For example, consider the book's opening 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 goes on one sentence later to give you a clue about how to read the novel. "He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that." These are not characters you will find uplifting. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Why did Fitzgerald create such characters? Precisely, because he did not approve and did not want you to approve. 'Everything that glitters is not gold' is another way of summing up the lessons of this novel. Why should someone not read this book? A reader who wants to be inspired by positive examples will find little to uplift oneself here. Someone who wants a story they can personally identify with will likely be disappointed. A student of how to create love and happiness will mainly find out how to create heartache and unhappiness. So the book is not for everyone. After you have read the book, I would encourage the self-examining reader to consider where in one's own life the current focus is dominated by past encounters rather than future potential. Then consider how changing that perspective could serve you and those you love better.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
The Greatest Book Ever Written, 30 Jun 2005
The Great Gatsby - the greatest book ever written? A bold statement open to attack, but not when you consider the sublime poetic narrative, the lucid characterisation, the rich thematic content and the grandness of its morality. And told with such economy - it can be read in a few hours. Fitzgerald, out of moneyed world of Princeton and, later, on the bottle, presents an antithetical journey of America the ideal and tawdry Americanisation, of dripping wealth and rampant moral poverty, of exhalting life and instant death. And for James Gatz becoming Jay Gatsby - a path of longing, luxuriant idividualism to worldly spiritual suffocation. Look at America today and the status of this text is revealed: a nation's commercial, social and ethical fabric is built up around the culture of this outstanding book.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
A beautiful book, 28 Oct 2004
By A Customer
I'm 15, and just finished The Great Gatsby for the second time. I didn't read it because of an English class or because I had to - it was entirely by choice I picked up a copy, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What struck me is how subtle the story is - on reading it the first time, I was left under-whelmed, but after returning to it again a few months later I can genuinely see why everyone loves it. It's lovely, descriptive narrative brings to life the sights and sounds of 'The Roaring Twenties' a story that exposes the materialistic and corrupt heart at the centre of the glittering 'jazz age'. Gatsby, Daisy and Tom are all flawed but fascinating characters - beautiful, wealthy and popular, but also superficial, cruel and greedy. Intriguing, certainly, likable, no. All in all, an interesting, poignant read, that I would recommend to my friends.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
NOT the best piece of American literature ever written..., 13 May 2009
Many say that "The Great Gatsby" is one of the best pieces of American literature ever written, but I have to agree that I don't feel it lived up to all the hype. Perhaps it is partly my fault, after reading so many raving reviews of it, I expected too much from it and felt slightly let down by it.
You know you're on American territory as soon as you start reading - I've always felt that American literature has a sort of quirkiness/simplicity in the narrative which is rarely seen in English literature.
I have to admit that it took me the first couple of chapters to get into it, and there are only nine chapters anyway. However, once adjusted to the narrative I found myself hooked in several parts of it, and bored by others. I really only kept reading in the hope that another hooking part would appear soon.
That hooking part certainly did appear in the shape of the climax, which I won't give away, but which for me was totally unexpected. I had expected the novel to end with one of those climaxes that never really resolves or explains anything, and makes you feel you've wasted your time in reading the previous 150 pages. However, the fact that the end was unexpected and happened so suddenly did add to the impact of it and redeemed the novel in several ways for me.
I disagree with the "best piece of American literature" debate, it may have several worthy messages in it, and it may be a clever piece of writing - it is, I admit, still worth reading, but for me was simply not enjoyable enough.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A genuine classic, 12 April 2007
How does he do it? Fitzgerald says more in one sentence than most authors manage in a lifetime. Not only is Fitzgerald able to capture the essence of complex ideas, or detailed descriptions in a few words, but he is a master storyteller. The Great Gatsby is a novel about the trappings of fame and glamour, about the seedy underbelly of `swinging' American 1920's high life, about incompatible love and wanting. This is a society magazine, 1920's style. There are few `Great' novels which appeal universally to everyone in one way or another. This is one of them. Read it now, you will not be disappointed.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A Literary Exploration, 25 Mar 2009
The Great Gatsby, acclaimed by some to be the greatest American novel of all time, is an exquisite and complex read that leaves many messages and ideas in the mind after reading.
It'd be pretty easy for me to keep going trying to explain the intricacies of the novel but even now after exploration of the text, I still don't truly understand every aspect and theme that has been intertwined into the novel and so I'll leave that one up to you.
As an A-Level Lit student I was forced into reading this, and after all the hype (and fairly bad teaching), I really disliked this novel after first reading. Some of the points and events are so delicately explained that you blink and you miss them. But then I opted for a second reading and found that, for all that its lacking in explanation, it more than makes up for in the thematic ideas and the 'lyrical' quality writing that Fitzgerald adopts, particularly at the beginning and end of the novel.
This is a classic. It is not the best or the most profound that I have ever read, but neither is it the worst. It is hard going but, for the money, (thank you penguin classics!) you can't really go wrong and it's well worth a read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Absorbing, 4 Feb 2009
I love books which capture a moment in history and The Great Gatsby does just that.It portrays vividly the life of the affluent in 1920s America.
The language is beautiful and descriptive.
About two thirds of the way through the book I thought nothing much was going to happen, but there was a twist in the story which turned the lives of all the characters upside down.
The characters are all flawed and believable and so distinct that you could tell who was speaking even if the sentence didn't end with "said Daisy" or "replied Tom", etc.
A romantic, haunting and hugely enjoyable book. I'm sure I will read it again.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A jewel of a novel, 4 Dec 2008
"The Great Gatsby" is an extraordinarily concise novel which nonetheless is among the most evocative I have ever read. Fitzgerald brilliantly unites a portrait of the "Jazz Age" with a meditation on the danger of living in the past and, perhaps, the folly of attempting "buy" love. This has a special significance in the context of the story, which plays out during an era when American capitalism and consumerism was attaining ferocious heights and "new" money was being made all over the place. The character of Gatsby represents this particular American dream, which nevertheless cannot overcome the cold and unbending divide between himelf and Daisy Buchanan, his well-bred and "old-moneyed" object of desire. I feel the novel explores a particularly American brand of snobbery which is still often to be found in our own age.
The novel uses the classic device of the wide-eyed narrator and his impressions and analysis of a more mysterious, eccentric figure (think of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, or Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte). In this case our man is Gatsby's neighbour Nick Carraway, and his voice in the vehicle for Fitzgerald's brilliant writing, which is matchlessly elegant and poetic. Indeed, a large part of the pleasure of this book is its gorgeous prose, which abounds in unforgettable imagery and wisom.
Its fabulous writing and deeply felt themes make "Gatsby" a triumph of 20th Century literature. It is a beautiful American fable.
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