The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.58 You Save: $7.42 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.56 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Great Gatsby
Book Review: A Classic Both Timely and Timeless
Summary: 5 Stars
Like most of its current readers, I was exposed to "The Great Gatsby" through high school and college cirruculum and was impressed by both the way that it distinctly and vividly portrayed a certain time and place while still offering a timeless take on love, loss, hope, and human nature. It is a powerful story and one that stays with the reader long after the last page is turned. It deserves the praise it receives from academics and general readers alike for managing to seem highly relevant when it is read even in today's world, as the themes it touches on, universal and yet uniquely American, resonate as much today as they did when the book was first published.Book Review: A Classic of All English Literature
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a beautiful masterpiece. Fitzgerald gleefully dances the line between prose and poetry in an intriguing and delightful manner. He creates a collage of the human condition: love, romance, hatred, kindness, evil, deceit, loneliness, emptiness. The book also has great humor, unforgettable characters and an interesting plot. It's real miracle though is Fitzgerald's unassailable command of the English language. If you buy it in kindle form don't buy the cheaper version. It's words are broken up and all over the page. It will drive you crazy trying to read it.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?
Book Review: A Classic to be Enjoyed Over and Over Again
Summary: 5 Stars
First and foremost, this is a great book. Anyone who enjoys literature will fall in love with Fitzgerald's examined manipulation of the English language that can be called nothing else but art. Every word speaks volumes in this tale of minimal pages but endless emotions. It is a book to be savored and one that continues to get better with age.Book Review: A Classical Disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
There are many different opinions as to how good or bad F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s novel of The Great Gatsby really is. It is quite comical to know the many dissimilar viewpoints there are because from several people, they praised the book and had said that it was one of their favorites, whereas others opposed it stating otherwise. So honestly, I unable to take any of their opinions of what they thought of the book into consideration, thusly I had to read it myself.
When I first heard that my literature class and I had the opportunity to read The Great Gatsby, I had an open mind and frankly, I grew with such anticipation. The first few pages immediately begins with the narrator, Nick Carraway, a rather timid man from the mid-west, who becomes quite interested into all the glamour and glitz of the New York, along with the wonder of his uncanny neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Nick is definitely not your average narrator. He generally judges all his surroundings by its cover, and basically has something to say about everything. And with Fitzgerald as the author, all that is being judged is extremely detailed as it can get. Some may say detail is good, but I say, too much detail can get others thrown off and indifferent toward the novel.
As the novel progressed in content, I began to grow uninterested. I felt that I wasn't as into the novel like others had appeared to be, and my mindset toward the book wasn't quite as good as I hoped. To be honest, the novel's storyline wasn't half-bad; it was typical, a so-called "classic," but nonetheless it was rather acceptable. Fitzgerald focuses on a plethora of different characters dealing with their lives of betrayal, love, and sometimes even death; doesn't that sound quite alluring?
Charm is brought into this tragic tale as Fitzgerald adds his romantic side into play. He shows how one character loses his love and strives to regain his love back. It is certainly reasonably endearing, but it appears to show originality on Fitzgerald's part. To me, I feel as if it has already been done. Uniqueness is the basis to any story, in order for the reader to stay fascinated, the author must create something that is out of the ordinary, therefore keeping the reader more than satisfied.
All in all, Fitzgerald's "Best American Novel of All Time" unfortunately isn't at its best. Honestly, the way he expresses his writing with such perplex detail isn't the smartest approach an author, who supposedly is seen as one of the greatest American novelist in American Literature, should make. As a reader you should consider these factors as to how to judge this so called "classical" novel written by the infamous and supposed great writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald for yourself. But truthfully, if you, as a reader, define Fitzgerald's archetypal storyline as great as its title; that is beyond me.