The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers.

The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

Is something wrong with me? Really didn't expect to take so long to finish this book, on top of not feeling overwhelmed by it. It was a difficult read, my goodness the storyline was way too slow. And I hated almost all the characters. But nice twist at the end, which resulted in my 2 + 1 rating.

For a reader, foreign to American history, especially the Jazz Age (the 1920s), this book would make much less sense. So don't skip the introduction about the same.

I never rated a classic 5 (except Pride and Prejudice), because it makes me feel dishonest. For a classic, this is a pretty good one, and you can finish it in a day.

The levels moral standards are well defined, and the narrator is a decent fellow as we can gather from his actions in the first few chapters, so we tend to resonate with his opinions in the later chapter.

The characters of Tom Buchanan and Mr. Gatsby were developed beautifully, but I couldn't care less about the women. What was the purpose of Jordan's character?

Tom Buchanan was presented as an unlikable guy, from the beginning itself, so the further statements about him just added beautifully to the picture, it was heartwarming.

Maybe the gender roles were so messed up that I didn't care about it. The fight between Tom and Gatsby about who Daisy loved, did not seem to involve Daisy's opinion. Daisy's a character to which stuff happened to. She didn't move through time, time moved through her. And of all the sh*t and roses flying around a few stuck on to her.

The first few chapters built up to too much, and the ending sorta flattened out.

Reading experience was good, the humor and the foreshadowing.

I'd suggest it if you have a few hours to kill, for the thoughts of the narrator, that you can relate to, than for the storyline as such.

I didn't read this when it was assigned in 11th grade English, too preoccupied with how “smart” I was for managing to get by in grade school while not doing the work. In college I read Tender is the Night and enjoyed it and still never picked up Gatsby, while knowing the story. Now at age 30, Nick's age in 1922, I went on a hike in Virginia and decided to take along a book that would not weigh very much. I'm impressed by how much it diverged from how much I “knew” about it from class discussion, plot summaries, and friends' descriptions of seeing the Luhrmann film.