Name: Matthew Jackson's review of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Item: The Great Gatsby
Rating: 4
Author: Matthew Jackson

F. Scott Fitzgerald

'It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life' Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, is one of the great novels of twentieth-century literature. Set in the Long Island of 1922, it provides a critical social history of America during the “Roaring Twenties”, an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the “Jazz Age”, known for unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz music, flapper culture, and bootlegging and other criminal activity. A historic period when “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession”, as classified by The New York Times.

Nica

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

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 brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.

There was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away.

I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

“That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Angelica Garcia 

doxi 

"I wouldn’t ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can’t repeat the past" 

"Can’t repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"

Hana 

Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.

'She never loved you, do you hear?' he cried. 'She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved any one except me!'

Avarni B

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past...

tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further 

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. 

His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.

"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" 

"Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." 

"But it's so hot," insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, "and everything's so confused."

It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.

I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy.

akshita

He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on 

 with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. 

Bart Veldhuijsen 

'One thing's sure and nothing's surer. The rich get richer and the poor get - children'

Matthew Jackson

This new edition of The Great Gatsby includes a foreword by critically acclaimed novelist Michael Farris Smith, as well as an exclusive extract of his forthcoming novel, NICK, which imagines narrator Nick Carraway's life before he meets Gatsby Enigmatic, intriguing and fabulously wealthy, Jay Gatsby throws lavish parties at his West Egg mansion to impress Daisy Buchanan, the object of his obsession, now married to bullish Tom Buchanan. Over a Long Island summer, his neighbour Nick Carraway, a writer and a cousin to Daisy, looks on as Gatsby and Daisy's affair deepens. Tragedy looms in F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, frequently named among the best novels of the twentieth century. 'A classic, perhaps the supreme American novel' - Sunday Times 'More than an American classic; it's become a defining document of the national psyche, a creation myth, the Rosetta Stone of the Amercian dream' - Guardian

Kirsten Kim

This was such a sad and wonderous book. I loved it so much. There was always a solemn feel to it as if you knew what would happen in the end and hated it. I loved the way Fitzgerald introduced the harsh reality of the romance between Daisy and Gatsby towards the end. You could hear the desperation and longing but alas, it could not happen.

"Leaves the reader in a mood of chastened wonder . . . A revelation of life . . . A work of art." —Los Angeles Times Set in during the Roaring Twenties, this masterful story by F. Scott Fitzgerald is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a young man who moves to Long Island and attempts to learn the bond business in New York City after the war. There, he co-mingles on Long Island with his affluent and wealthy socialite cousin Daisy Buchanan, her brute of a husband Tom, and friend Jordan Baker. Nick's new residence sits across the bay from Daisy and Tom's house, and right next to a mysterious mansion. He begins to hear rumors of an infamous man named Gatsby who resides there. Eventually, when Gatsby learns of Nick's ties to Daisy, he extends Nick an invitation to one of his lavish parties. Gatsby's plan to court Daisy, in an attempt to revive a previous love affair, eventually bubbles to the surface and tragedy ensues. Dubbed the Great American Novel more than any other piece of literature to date, The Great Gatsby is sure to captivate readers with it's exquisitely crafted prose and poignant message about trying to relive the past. Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is series of essential literary works. From the musings of literary geniuses such as Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to the striking personal narratives from Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our literary history through the words of the exceptional few.

very american. i dont quite like americans.

Malia

THE GREAT GATSBY, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his new love for the bearutiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drinnk and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.
(back cover)

Anna 

** spoiler alert **
           i am quite disappointed with this book. i expected THAT amazing gatsby that became one of the most famous book characters of 20th century, but i didn't really find that person in this book. gatsby is full of mysteries, but not in a good and cool way mysterious, but in an annoying please-just-tell-me-already way. does that even make sense? he is just like every other man, not really original in any way. even tom had more unique personality traits than gatsby.
the main character, nick, also didn't really have any personality except for telling us the story about that great gatsby that actually wasn't great at all. 
the parties? expected them to be described way more beautifully, i couldn't really imagine the mood and the overall aesthetic of the 'roaring 20s'. 
and the end just was not it for me. at first i didn't even understand how gatsby died, my classmate had to explain it to me. kinda humiliating, i know. 
what happened to daisy? why did jordan get engaged all of a sudden? what why when who?? i have many questions and no answers.
it's probably just 'me thing', my friends really enjoyed this book, but i sadly didn't find it interesting at all.

Joub

“Beautiful. I hated chapter 6 because it took so long to understand it for some reason but other than that it was a stunning novel. Truly recommend.” -> the review I wrote on August 28 2020 before I knew this book would completely change my life

I reread it by listening to the audiobook (2020 I think)

Then reread to highlight sentences about daisy (2021?)

Then reread again (March 2024) in anticipation of annotating it for research and fun 

Then again to fully annotate it (March 2024)

when you just want to pursue your career but you ended up getting dragged in everybody else's business. 😂

lala

I read this book like, a couple years back but totally forgot about it and decided to buy a copy at Maruzen Sendai. I was completely amazed by how hauntingly beautiful this book is. I'd say that despite being published in the 20s, the book is easy to read and easy to feel consumed in the story. The premise is simple, the narrative is not complex but you feel the gut-wrenching effect of delving into Gatsby's illusion of love. The Great Gatsby offers us a great narrator that made the 'greatness' of Gatsby put in a place of his admirer, Nick. The dialogue does not give us answers, but the act of the characters do. I would recommend this as an easy read for someone.

Bria

I definitely pretended to read this for my ap lit class like 10 years ago because I couldn’t get into it. I actually read it this time, and I still couldn’t get into it. I don’t get the hype. Gatsby is a creep, and Daisy lives a sad, unhappy life. Nick is a great narrator, though.

kalenga 

Wtf is this 😭😭😭 I just did not enjoy this book no matter how entranced I was to pick it up, I could not care less about any of the characters, the women are whiny, the men are boring and the parties are so over the top. The "romance" in this book isn't even romance so don't even try to advertise it as a chase for love because there's literatly not even an ounce of real love in this like wtf. I don't see how this book can be considerded a must read 💀💀 Don't waste your time guys. 

surtified™

Tony Tanner

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby brilliantly captures the disillusion of a society obsessed with wealth and status. Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby appears to have it all, yet he yearns for the one thing that will always be out of his reach, the absence of which renders his life of glittering parties and bright young things ultimately hollow. Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream is often cited as the Great American Novel.

Hanna Rybchynska

I decided to read this book this month and it didn't disappoint me. This one is a really interesting perspective of the 30's in New York. It also does a good representation of obsession and money can be an excuse for bad behavior. I really recommend it to people who like historical fiction.

Chloé

Another read at school read. Honestly one of the better ones read but like also not a fave.

gatsby is sort of a loser actually.. what a lonely man 

ayoni

Lovro Oreskovic

I have had this book on my reading list for a long time. As you can expect, what prompted me to read it was the movie that came out some time ago, and I wanted to read the book before going to the movies. 
To be honest I am not a really big fan of the book. The plot is really concise and basically nothing complicated or really interesting happens during the whole book. And the narrator jumps forward all the time so you can not understand all the causes of some situations, it gets kind of shallow at times. 
That being said, there are a few sentences that when I read them I had to stop and appreciate them. 
So in no particular order here they go: 

... It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. ...

..."No ... I just remembered that today's my birthday." I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade. ...

... I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. ...

... "I'm thirty," i said. " I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." ...

All in all I'm going to go watch the movie, because I am interested how the screenplay writer/s handled the text of the book, but to me it is not such an epic text that a lot of people are calling it.

The Great Gatsby is generally considered to be the finest novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Written in an easy style, without complex literary experiment, at the height of the author s maturity, it is now an undisputed classic of American literature and is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The novel brilliantly brings out Fitzgerald s central theme of the dark surrounding the brightest light, the shallowness of many human friendships, and the eerie silence as the syncopated rhythm of the jazz fades. It brilliantly captures both the disillusion of post-war America and the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status. The novel tells the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby, an army lieutenant, who lives in a luxurious mansion on the affluent Long Island shore. His lavish parties for the glitterati of the day had become legendary on the island. Yet amid the throng of guests, starlets and champagne waiters, their host appeared oddly aloof. The parties were to impress only one person, that is, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby had a brief affair with Daisy before the war and her marriage to Tom....About Author:

Amna A.

" When you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages you've had."

"Everyone suspects himself at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people o have ever known."

Luke Harkness

An epic in the English language and a tale of intrigue

I'll obviously express my full views on this on my website but in short: The Great Gatsby is a novel everyone should have heard the name of. If not for the novel itself then the Leonardo Di Caprio film reimagining. The story tells of the mysteries of one man from the point of view of another. There are some intriguing characters and some wonderfully written prose. It's a treat on the ears, though I'd argue it falls a tad short on the storytelling.

Vicky  Nuñez 

I honestly don't know how can I rate this book. It annoyed me so much it gave me a headache. I get it is beautifully written, but the characters made me want to seriously injure them. What a bunch of whiny, shallow characters. Maybe it was a revelation at the time, but now it just talks about the stupidness we can see everyday in people who think marriage is a game for their own amusement.

I really wish Fitzgerald had written a Jordan Baker spin-off sequel; clearly, there's a mysterious depth hidden beneath her skin. Ideally it would feature some frosty dates with Nick in hotel parlours, richly plated in impersonal art deco (the hotel's, that is). Their words would carome passed each other like struck golf balls, disappearing into the dark recesses beneath vanishing velvet curtains. Whole pages would be dedicated to Nick's brooding internal monologue, emerging as not so many pointless observations, like the abrupt scratch on vinyl as the record ends. The tone would be Nabokovian. The epilogue lighthearted. 

In summary: was Daisy even in this book? I barely recall. Gatsby's anxiety was not endearing. The dinner party with the mistress claims the most memorability. Nick's principle of disengagement makes for b-o-ring protagonism. Wonderfully written.

Boring. I'm clearly not a fan of the old classics.

"I realised it was my responsibility, because no one else cared"

read this classic again. it is an avalanche of emotions that keeps growing on you and engulfs you all at once, leaving you soaked in a profound sense of familiarity and betrayal. this book is a reminder that any expression of love could be false because a selfish heart cannot love, even if it feels like love for a very long time.

Hamza

"I realised it was my responsibility, because no one else cared"

read this classic again. it is an avalanche of emotions that keeps growing on you and engulfs you all at once, leaving you soaked in a profound sense of familiarity and betrayal. this book is a reminder that any expression of love could be false because a selfish heart cannot love, even if it feels like love for a very long time.

Jade Dufty

"i hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

going into this i was kinda biased. i'd seen the movie already, and while it was well done i just couldn't enjoy it. so, as i started the book i tried to forget all that and i promise i tried to like the book. while some parts were good, other's just weren't.

i recognize that tom buchannan was created to be aggravating, and make you question while daisy was still with him, but i just cant handle him. everything he says and does makes me '????' inside. like introducing your wives cousin to your mistress ON PURPOSE? the only thing i have to say is 'why?'. also the amount of comments he makes about race... are we sure F. Scott Fitzgerald isn't just using tom's character to perpetuate his own racism? anyway. 

the only character's i can wholeheartedly say i liked were daisy buchannan, jordan baker, and the drunken man in gatsby's library. 

i took a while to get through the great gatsby despite it's shortness. there were parts that were just very boring, and lacked true emotion. and however, i have to admit that the ending was mildly upsetting. we learn how truly alone gatsby really was. he didn't truly have anybody in his life. 

so i gave it 2/5 stars as the good clearly outweighed the bad.

Atli 💗🧚🏽‍♀️

F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, "The Great Gatsby," is often hailed as a literary classic, yet despite its acclaim, it left me with mixed feelings. While the novel is not boring by any means, it also didn't elicit a "wow" factor for me, ultimately earning it a modest three-star rating. 

One notable aspect of the story is the complex relationship between Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. The undeniable closeness and intense interest Nick displays towards Gatsby do raise questions about the nature of their connection. Some readers may interpret it as a form of unrequited love or admiration bordering on infatuation. While this interpretation adds depth to the characters' dynamics, the novel does not explicitly explore or confirm such feelings. "

The Great Gatsby” helps readers picture the roaring `20s vividly by featuring this era's allure, glamour, and dark underbelly. Fitzgerald's prose perfectly captures the opulence and superficiality of the era while also delving into themes of unattainable dreams, social class divisions, and the destructive power of obsession.

Despite these strengths, the novel didn't completely captivate me. While it provides a compelling critique of "the American Dream" and the emptiness that can come with wealth and glamour, I found myself longing for deeper character development and a more nuanced exploration of the themes. The narrative can feel somewhat detached, with characters that, while intriguing, often remain enigmatic and distant. The characters felt like they hadn't yet reached their full potential.

Matthew Jackson &
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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