The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby

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1IWantToBelieve
Mai 19, 2013, 4:47 pm

Read it, didn't get it. At all. Please enlighten me. :)

2HarryMacDonald
Mai 19, 2013, 7:18 pm

I share your seriously modified rapture. I believe that the current, actually REcurrent fascination with this book stems from a fascination with the antics of people in situations which we can never share (material wealth, glamour -- alleged -- and easy livin'). I am prepared for the yowls of derision, but I don't see much to separate that reader-motivation/mentality from the impulse to watch THE LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS, or ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT. Too bad, really, as Fitzgerald was not with some skill as a writer. But he'll certainly never been in my pantheon.

3sunqueen
Mai 20, 2013, 2:51 pm

I could not agree more. I've always found this work to be vile, possibly due to the forced reading in school, or having to help my own kids with it years later. I hate that Gatsby is so enamoured with such a shallow woman like Daisy. I hate the story. I hate the green light at the end of the pier. Blah!

4barney67
Modifié : Mai 22, 2013, 9:57 am

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

5mamalaz
Mai 21, 2013, 10:08 pm

It's poetry.

6msladylib
Mai 22, 2013, 12:15 am

Gatsby wasn't great. The Great Gatsby is. It engenders all sorts of comments, and hardly seems almost a century old. Shame that some silly movies were made of it.

7Nickelini
Mai 22, 2013, 1:59 am

I read it many years ago, when I was in my 20s. I was expecting a certain something and was oh so disappointed. I hope that if I read it today I'd have a better time with it, but since I'm currently reading Tender is the Night, I'm not so sure. But when I need help with literature, I turn to Shmoop, and lucky you, it looks like they have tons on Gatsby: http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/

Here's what they have to say under "Why Should I Care?":

"The Great Gatsby is a delightful concoction of Real Housewives, a never-ending Academy Awards after-party, and HBO's Sopranos. Shake over ice, add a twist of jazz, a spritz of adultery, and a little pink umbrella … and you've got yourself a 5 o'clock beverage that, given the 1920s setting, you wouldn't be allowed to drink.

The one thing all these shows and Gatsby have in common is the notion of the American Dream. The Dream has seen its ups and downs. But from immigration (certainly not a modern concern, right?) to the Depression (we wouldn't know anything about that), the American Dream has always meant the same thing: it's all about the Benjamins, baby.

Yet Gatsby reminds us that the dollars aren't always enough. As we learned from Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, you can put on the dress, but you still aren't going to know which fork to use. Especially if you're bootlegging to make the money for the dress. Even when they have the cash, newly made millionaires are still knocking at the door for the accepted elite to let them in. If the concept of the nouveau riche (the newly rich) has gone by the wayside, the barriers to the upper echelon (education, background) certainly haven't.

So there you have it. There's more to the Gatsby cocktail than sex, lies, and organized crime. Although those are there, too, which, as far as reading the book goes, is kind of a motivation in itself."

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Hope that helps.

8Sandydog1
Août 10, 2013, 9:03 pm

Symbolism, symbolism, symbolism. Read a few critical reviews and guides. I found it to be an exceptional short novel.

9melodyscott
Nov 9, 2013, 9:57 am

The Great Gatsby is about a false life. Gatsby was a control freak to the point of obsessive sickness. So much so that he made up his own name and lived in a kind of fantasyland. He invited “friends” to his elaborate parties (and anybody else who showed up) and actually used them to perpetuate his illness. They were his people, they loved him, they were good friends--all in his head. They were props for the elaborate stage he’d made for his life.

I found myself vacillating between feeling sorry for him to wanting him to grow up to wanting him to do something normal.

He threw gifts at his intended bride who was already married to somebody else. Previous to her marriage he and she had romanced. But she was a child and when he went off to war, she couldn’t wait for him to come back and married the first guy with money who came along. Gatsby couldn’t accept this. And the girl was so dependent she didn’t want to leave her husband. Besides the fact that she was beginning to see that Gatsby was not just a flirt. He intended to get what he wanted and he wanted her. She also began to notice that he paid no attention to reality but made scenes out of his few relationships where he could be the star.

10Cecrow
Fév 5, 2016, 2:38 pm

I've recently read Reading Lolita in Tehran and it threw me a bone or two where Gatsby is concerned. A big part of it is morality shifts between layers of society, that is, upper society foregoing its ability to empathize and by extension care much about good/evil acts: witness Daisy's cavalier attitude about the driving accident. Gatsby had to rise into this strata to pursue her and became similarly susceptible. There is a hollow side to the American Dream.