Noted Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli draws upon years of research to present the Fitzgerald's Jazz Age romance exactly as he intended according to the original manuscript, revisions, and corrections--with explanatory notes. Reprint.
In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.
It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
What Can I Add?:
This book has over 1000 reviews. There is, essentially, nothing that I can say that has not already been said. The novel is nice, well-written, and an enjoyable read. The characters are all plausible, believable, and entertaining. They are all three-dimensional, and none of them are useless. The book is extremely well-written, and I would recommend it to just about anyone. I wouldn't call it flawless, though. Perhaps because of the hype, perhaps because it lacks some sort of jenais se quas, I... more info
As American as apple pie...:
This is absolutely my favorite novel of all time. No matter how many times I go back and re-read this book (that I was first introduced to as a sophomore in high school), it never fails to take me to a different time and place. I love the descriptions of the lazy and decadent ways of these characters and the struggle Nick Carroway has to be a part of them. I love the scandals that are around every curve. But, most of all, I love the easy-going manner of Gatsby himself. He's quite possibly the greatest... more info
The Summer of '22:
Aside from the narrator, Mr. Carroway, who chances to be Gatsby's perceptive neighbor, we are the only ones who ever come to know the man. Everyone else sees only a fragment of him... if that. And he is far from what he appears to be. We ultimately know him as delusional, obsessive, pitiable, and needy. The fact is he's quite a bit like many of us; the difference is in the contrast between his external persona and his internal one. Fitzgerald's remarkable achievement in this book is in portraying Gatsby's... more info
The Great Gatsby:
Today is one of those days when I long for a book such as "The Great Gatsby"
It is inseparably associated with a point in history F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed to despise. He is both the quintessential Jazz-Age writer and probably his era's harshest critic. Complex and timeless. Who could ask for more? My favorite passage - "Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher... more info
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