The Great Gatsby
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Everybody who is anybody is seen at Gatsby's glittering parties. None of the socialites understand Gatsby. He seems to always be watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. But as the tragic story unfolds, Gatsby's destructive dreams and passions are revealed.
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BlackPhoenix thinks this title is suitable for All Ages
mbazal thinks this title is suitable for 15 years and over
Summaries
Add a Summary“The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time where gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession, it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s."
Poor officer Gatsby falls in love with flighty Daisy, but while he is away overseas she marries another man. He returns years later as a mysterious millionaire and tries to win her back.
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Add a NoticeOther: irrevocable awesomeness.
Sexual Content: This title contains Sexual Content.
Quotes
Add a Quote"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." "I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool....You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow....And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." "...with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room."
"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty – the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand. So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."
Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness--it stands out in my memory from Gatsby's other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before.
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Author John Green on The Great Gatsby
John Green (Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and more) -- one half of the Vlogbrothers -- tells you what you need to know about Gatsby.
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Add a CommentA great read. I found myself drawn to the mysterious Gatsby from the very beginning. I was not prepared for the sad ending however.
I am not sure why it took me so long to get around to reading this book! It deserves its reputation as a classic!
A glimmer of some distant music, bashing parties, careless rich young people and their shallow lives and fleeting loves… In the midst of all this is the rise and fall of the Great Gatsby, a man whose name remarkably takes the stand of the book title. A fine tell – a somewhat cold and slow beginning that graduates with an ineffable twist of circumstances through a rising intensity to a beautiful and sad end…
Recommended by a friend, and I have no idea why I had never read this before. I had to renew it; As I said to Scott "this is not a book, this is a poem, a song" As Scott replied " a work of art". I found myself reading it aloud; to hear the sounds of the words, phrases. I'll be needing my own copy of this one :)
10 years since I've read this classic, I think It's time...
I just read this book for the second time and it was much better than the first time I read it. I didn't get it before, but I get it now. The prose just takes my breath away. This is an amazing book, and it's rightfully a classic. If you tried reading it once and thought it was boring, give it a second chance and it will surprise you in a good way.
Phenomenal writing! It's a classic for a reason.
At the start I began to wonder if I would be able to keep reading. The characters were debauched, which is OK and can even be quite fascinating, but in a desultory way. Let's face it, bored people who can't think or examine even their boredom are boring. Who to care about? or root for? Fortunately things got a lot more interesting with the lyric descriptions of Gatsby's loving memories of Daisy. Like Nick's initial feelings about Gatsby I seem to swing from "he's OK, but flawed" to "his love is more like obsession and his benevolence verges on violence." What makes this all a classic is Fitzgerald's closely worked and insightful prose: "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." Good stuff. I now understand the respect Fitzgerald gets for his prose. As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed--that voice was a deathless song. "As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed--that voice was a deathless song".
Novels that are chosen to be on the exclusive list of classics always have some sort of view that penetrates deep into the world of the narrator, drawing us without looking back, without forgiveness. "The Great Gatsby," a story of the American dream is no exception. Told from a neutral observer's point of view, one who has connections with the main characters of the privileged, wealthy West Egg, New York, it is a marvelous tale that seeks to prove that even beautiful worlds have their ugly sides, and in this case, one which leads to a heartbreakingly pitiless outcome.
Teens, don't be fooled like I was into thinking that this is a boring book. It's like a dramatic movie or TV series packed into a book. It's really great. I just finished reading it in my junior Lit. class, and I will definitely be re-reading it more than once. Nick and Gatsby are the best characters.