Reviews Literature / The Great Gatsby

You got the message perfectly. Which is why I thought it is an amazing book. If you looked what was inside the orange juice you would have discovered a lot more.

It's...out of print? Didn't I just walk past a wall of copies?

Gatsby is all about the characters. From our perspective, the story seems tired and cliched. It's all about what everyone is thinking and who they are, not about the events happening to them.

It originally went out of print for several years before a couple of pretentious college professors picked up on it.

<smile> I thought that back in college when I was forced to read it. Give it a few years and go back and read it again. Gain some knowledge of the Jazz Age and the world people had to live in during that era. I agree that college is far to soon to introduce that book. It's an adult book, and you need to have an adult outlook to understand and appreciate it.

I think students should be eased into this book, read some of Fitzgerald's contemporaries (O'Hara, Hemingway and Faulker to a lesser extent). Like the above poster said, the best way to understand this book is understand the era. That's common with any novel.

I had to read this book in 7th grade, and the book's illegible nature led me to fail english that year. So I have more than a little resentment for the book.

Well in 7th grade did you do research on the Roaring Twenties? Did you read up on the intersection of Powerful new America and it's prohibition, Europe and it's ruined Belle Époque, sprinkled with the lost generation and new money amongst old? Because if you read the book in a closed system as a complete universe onto it's own, then of COURSE it's going to be a terrible experience. Fitzgerald wasn't writing a book, he was writing about everything AROUND the book. I suggest reading "The Sun Also Rises" by Hemingway, and Brave New World by Huxley and you will see the rumble under your feet and the electric buzz in the night air.

I had to read this book in high school, and I also thought it was dull and the characters were annoying. If I were to read it again now, I'd... still probably think the characters were annoying, but maybe I'd change my perspective on the writing.

Answering in order? Yes, yes, yes, and no. I still thought it was lousy. It just seems like an overly long satire on the rich. I haven't read "The Sun Also Rises" but I'm a huge fan of Brave New World, it's one of my favorite novels.

Wait a minute, are you writing this review from the memory of your seventh grade read of it?

Yes, it was only around around two years ago though.

"I had to read this book in 7th grade, and the book's illegible nature led me to fail english that year. So I have more than a little resentment for the book." -The Questioner 132

I think this bears repeating. For fun, come up with your own reasons why!

You're in ninth grade? I daresay yours is not the best perspective on literary classics.

Perhaps you're right, I also vastly prefer Jack London's "The Sea-Wolf" to that slow and irritatingly written ball of fluff known as "Moby Dick". So my opinions may not hold much weight in the circles you travel in.

While a guy in 9th great may not have the best perspective on literary classics, tvtropes isn't the best place for well written analysis of literary classics, though admittedly this review could use more substance.

I would like to point out that saying that a novel has no literary value because YOU personally don't like it is unfair.

7th grade is too early to read this. Even if you read it now it'd be too early. It's not a novel you really wouldn't be able to enjoy reading unless you have a grasp of some of the main issues the author is trying to portray, and a grasp of how to analyze literature. I myself read this junior year or highschool just as I was learning to read a little deeper into books.

And yes, I did like the novel. It's a pretty short read anyway, and it has some nice quotes. I think the ending was beautifully written.

I feel as though I understand this book perfectly well. I could summarize it as "rich people suck, and the classes are divided and blah blah blah". It's just one overly long meditation on that idea. No new observations, no ground breaking story telling, just boring and unlikable characters interacting with other boring and unlikable characters in an ordinary setting. I suppose one could praise it for the rich use of language, but I never let a bland use of words stop me from enjoying a good story or let a beautiful use of words allow me to enjoy a bad story. And this was a bad story.

I guess that's where we differ. Honestly? I think it's a matter of taste. I thought the characters and the themes were really interesting. And also while you did get the overtone of the book, there were some subtle issues going on there too. You mentioned that you liked Brave New World. Well, while I didn't dislike BNW it wasn't my favorite. Dystopian literature really just isn't my thing, but it doesn't mean I can't see the literary value of it. I wouldn't read that book again, though. Same with 1984 or anything of that dystopian nature.

I can't say I agree, but I can see where you're coming from. For me, I find the themes and characters interesting, especially when you look at when it was published. The entire book pretty much talks about a looming crash in the economy and it was written and published before Black Tuesday, so for me it shows incredible insight on behalf of the writer. Obviously, to each their own.

The fact that you're blaming this book on your failing English that year causes your review to lose a lot of credibility, since in America, at least, most students have to read this book in grade school at some point, and I'm pretty sure that most students don't fail their classes. Although I think the standard age is high school, so I agree that seventh grade is a bit too young.

Oh, and, to each his own opinion, but Moby Dick is a "ball of fluff"?

Well, I personally liked "The Great Gatsby" and I would like to discuss some things with you: " It's dull, the writing is lazy, the story is annoying, the characters are boring and unempathetic, and any so called "depth" completely escapes me. I understand why this book went out of print."

Well, I can understand your point of view, this book is dull (I felt the first and second chapters particularly hard to read) the characters can be seen as boring an unempathetic (except Gatsby, maybe) and maybe I can see some "depth" in it, but if you don't, I can understand it.

Then you said: "I feel as though I understand this book perfectly well. I could summarize it as "rich people suck, and the classes are divided and blah blah blah". It's just one overly long meditation on that idea. No new observations, no ground breaking story telling, just boring and unlikable characters interacting with other boring and unlikable characters in an ordinary setting. I suppose one could praise it for the rich use of language, but I never let a bland use of words stop me from enjoying a good story or let a beautiful use of words allow me to enjoy a bad story. And this was a bad story."

I agree with you, if "rich people suck, and the classes are divided and blah blah blah" would be the only theme, it would be boring. However, I think there are a lot of other themes in the book even more fascinating: One of them would be "Self-deception", how all the characters are so entangled with his own dreams, fears and hopes that they accept a terribly reality without question.

Gatsby is obsessed with a girl that he becomes a millonaire only to get it. He does not realize that she only wants him as a lover but will never surrender her actual position to him. Tom is a human being whose dreams and hopes are stucked in his college football days (he will never top them again), and is so desperate for company that he sees Nick as a friend.

Nick is another gem: He a pompous intellectual (you're right when you accuse the book of being appreciated by "pretentious college professors": Nick MUST be one of them) who is obsessed with riches (this is America before the depression) and so moves to the East to get rich. He thinks he is so above the rich (and is fascinated by their lifestile) that it takes all his will to move to the West again.

Mirtle's last words are like "hit me, damn coward" to his poor husband, but she is perfectly willing to let his rich lover hit her... all the rich had to interact with criminal elements, and we could go on, but my point is that hipocrisy and self deception governs the lifes of rich and poor.

Another theme could be the american dream: Gatsby could have been anyone, anything he wished. He was a war hero, he was with Dan Cody, he made himself a millonaire, he could have been, like Mr. Gantz said, "a man who could make great his country". Instead of that, he become a (succesful) criminal.

And the worst part it was his dream: he didn't want to get Daisy, I doubt Gatsby could see Daisy as an human beign (he was surprised to see her daughter): He saw her as the chance he had to get back in time 5 years ago, when he was young and all the world was full of promises. Even with this misguided dream, with no real hold in reality, Gatsby followed his dream, and for that Nick recognized "You're better that those rotten bunch".

I think those are the themes of the book, not only "The rich suck". And someone said that you were too young to have the best perspective on literary classics, I would like to offer a reason for that sentence: As long as you grow, you have more experiences in life, and can discover things in the books that when you were younger could not appreciate: I'm thirtysomething, and I - and a lot of other people I have known - also have chased dreams with no hold in reality, unnataible dreams that we have not the wisdom or the strength to let go. It took me a lot of self deception, but alas, I manage to still dreaming.

If you did not like the book is all right, because the person you're now could not feel any relation. But I invite you to think to read it back in some years, when a lot of good and bad things had happened to you, and maybe you can think better of the book and the author.

I enjoyed it greatly. It makes great points about how the american dream isn't as golden as we think, and the characters are will written.

I enjoyed it greatly. It makes great points about how the american dream isn't as golden as we think, and the characters are will written.

"I had to read this book in 7th grade, and the book's illegible nature led me to fail english that year."

"I feel as though I understand this book perfectly well."

If it's illegible, how can you possibly understand it?

"I could summarize it as 'rich people suck, and the classes are divided and blah blah blah'"

If that's your summary, I can't say as how you understood the book very well.

Again, it's a text. If you're trying to evaluate it as though it came out yesterday, of course it's going to suck. Historical works needs to be viewed through the lens of their time period first and formost. You can make brash generalizations about how they apply to the rest of the universe after that.

I disagree. If I say that The Wealth of Nations is a horrible book on economics because it supports the labor theory of value and the real bills doctrine, then the fact that it was published in the 1700s shouldn't matter. If I say that The Great Gatsby is a horrible book because of it's bland unsympathetic characters, dry prose, and boring plot(granted these are subjective), then the fact that it was published in the 1920s shouldn't make a difference.

Your review still sucks.

Any answer on how the reviewer found the book illegible yet still perfectly understood it?

Joking aside, this is not a review. This is more of a rant. The OP has yet to properly back up why s/he thinks the book is bad other than continually saying "This story was bad."

"I didn't like this book cause I don't understand it so it's horrible end of story."

That's pretty much what this review speaks to me. I read it in High School, and I still understood it perfectly. Just because you cannot pick up on these things doesn't mean it's a horrible book. Also, you're not really supposed to sympathize with the characters; they exist to tell the story, not be a surrogate for yourself.

"If I say that The Wealth of Nations is a horrible book on economics because it supports the labor theory of value and the real bills doctrine, then the fact that it was published in the 1700s shouldn't matter."

You clearly don't understand The Wealth of Nations either. The common misunderstanding of it today comes from people anachronistically reading it as an attack on socialism. It's actually an attack on merchantilism.

I never criticized The Wealth of Nations as "an attack on socialism". I criticized it because it supported a theory of economic value that was somewhat unpopular even when the book was written, and because it supported the real bills doctrine. Both of which were actually rejected by the British Anti-classical economists. It supported incorrect economic theories that weren't even universally accepted when the book was written, because of this I say it's a horrible book on economics. The point is that looking at things through a historical lens won't turn the ramblings of an overrated 18th century idiot into deep insight, and it won't turn a book with flat and unsympathetic characters, a pretentious prose, and a poorly paced and boring narrative into a "good" book.

What makes a good book is subjective, and whether society decides it's a good book depends mostly on values and culture.

It may have been considered a good book because of the different values and culture when it was written, and some people probably consider it a good book because they try to look at it from the values and culture of when the book was written. If someone wrote the same book today, it would be a flop.

"The common misunderstanding of it today comes from people anachronistically reading it as an attack on socialism. It's actually an attack on merchantilism."

Merchantilism and socialism can be attacked along the same lines, if you see the latter as a rather extreme example of the former. I'd be fine sticking to the definition of socialism as the absolute collective (or, rather, state) ownership of the means of production. Only there are a whole lot of economic systems commonly described as socialistic, ranging from anarchism to communism to fascism to corporatism/syndicalism to Fabianism. At least some of those popular varieties bear resemblance to classic merchantilism.

...Hell, I liked it.