F. Scott Fitzgerald-The Great Gatsby

The Most Popular Classic Bestsellers Books - F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby Info, Plot Summary, Review and F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography

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Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Book: The Great Gatsby (180 Pgs.)

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The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest – who serves as the novel's narrator – takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the (fictional) village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties but does not participate in them. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the "valley of ashes":[11] an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment they keep for their affair. At the apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party takes place. It ends with Tom breaking Myrtle's nose after she annoys him by saying Daisy's name several times.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick from their same division in the war. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy from a romantic encounter in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping to one day rekindle their lost romance. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are an attempt to impress Daisy in the hope that she will one day appear again at Gatsby's doorstep. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. They begin an affair and, after a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Daisy speaks to Gatsby with such undisguised intimacy that Tom realizes she is in love with Gatsby. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. He forces the group to drive into New York City and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, asserting that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand. In addition to that, he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes[11] on their way home, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Tom's mistress, Myrtle. Nick later learns from Gatsby that Daisy, not Gatsby himself, was driving the car at the time of the accident but Gatsby intends to take the blame anyway. Myrtle's husband, George, falsely concludes that the driver of the yellow car is the secret lover he recently began suspecting she has, and sets out on foot to locate its owner. After finding out the yellow car is Gatsby's, he arrives at Gatsby's mansion where he fatally shoots both Gatsby and then himself. Nick stages an unsettlingly small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest, disillusioned with the Eastern lifestyle.

Source: Wikipedia

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F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby - Review
TheGuardian

There are many novels which claim that they are the greatest love story of all time. It is only in the case of this novel that that statement can be applied and be true.

The novel is set during the roaring 20s in America, narrated by Nick Carraway, a man from a well-to-do family just out of fighting the war and looking to sell bonds. He moves to East Egg, the slightly less grand area in comparison to West Egg, right opposite Gatsby's mansion. Gatsby is rich, mega-rich, and throws magnificent parties every weekend which the whole town attend. However the host is never seen during these parties, and is never completely known by any one person. Gatsby holds a dark secret about his past and how he became so great, a deep lust that will eventually lead to his demise.

The Great Gatsby is in many ways similar to Romeo and Juliet, yet I believe that it is so much more than just a love story. It is also a reflection on the hollowness of a life of leisure. Both stories are obsessed with controlling time: Juliet wants to extend her present, as her future prospects with Romeo are bleak and Gatsby wants to create a beautiful future by restoring the past. This is what leads Gatsby to say his most famous line "Can't change the past? Why, of course you can." I could very much relate to this - there have been many moments where I've wished that I could go back to the past and just remain there, for it was a better place.

Similarly to Romeo and Juliet, Fitzgerald's writing is almost like a work of poetry, with waves of literary brilliance creating a rich and lush rhythm which you can almost tap your foot to. The descriptions are jarringly, magnificently beautiful so that it almost made my heart ache.

However, unlike in Romeo and Juliet, the characters in The Great Gatsby are in themselves very flawed and very hard to sympathise with. But that is the beauty of the book. Of course you hate Daisy Buchanan! Of course you hate Tom! You even begin to slightly dislike Gatsby, to whom it is not enough for Daisy to say that she loved him, but requires her to state that she never in her five year marriage loved her husband Tom. But Gatsby, to me, remains Great right until the end of this book.

It is ironic that only the idle rich survive this novel, and Fitzgerald through this further enrages the reader about the cruelty and the injustice of the world. The rich are allowed to continue to be careless, for that is the dream, is it not? To live a carefree life? Yet Fitzgerald highlights the horrors of being a careless person: "They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and vast carelessness." What's amazing in this line is that Tom and Daisy aren't careless to be malicious - that is just their nature. And that in itself is a very sad thing. They do not care for their daughter, for Myrtle, for Gatsby nor even each other. Their inability to care is what makes The Great Gatsby the stark opposite to Romeo and Juliet where the lovers are sacrificed and Verona is healed. In Fitzgerald's masterpiece nothing is made whole by this tragedy.

Many consider The Great Gatsby to be depressing because, in the end, those who dream do not achieve their aspirations. However, the main message that Fitzgerald sends to us isn't that dreaming will lead to despair, but that chasing an unworthy dream will lead to tragedy.

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