Thursday, April 21, 2016

Book Review: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My Rating: 5/5 Stars
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Fiction
Published: 1925

I picked up this classic wanting to dive into the crazy party scene that was New York after the war and was not disappointed. But I wasn't counting on the deep, information about life that came with it. I'll keep this review short since for most people The Great Gatsby is old news but I just wanted to put my thoughts on the book out there.

"He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence."

The Great Gatsby is a tale of hope, dreams, and money. Putting love into it almost seems like a lie. Jay Gatsby is chasing a dream from five years ago when he was a boy who wished for more. Fitzgerald weaved this story together in such a sad, beautiful way and it left me with a sense of despair for this cruel, lovely world we live in.

The writing was so beautiful. You know those awkward new writers who have that one really good sounding sentence and they build their whole story around it? Well Fitzgerald's story is a book full of those lovely, unique sentences that would sound awkward and unfitting anywhere else. The character he used to narrate (Nick Carraway) was someone you instantly liked for his ability to see through all the charades. The story was a seamless narration that could not have been better. "A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea."

Jay Gatsby was a dreamer. He wasn't someone you were disgusted with for his hope in those weeks of young love in the summer twilight but someone you felt pity for because of his undying devotion to a woman whose voice sounded like money. By the end of the story I was in love with the man Gatsby. He was a sad character. Depressed and putting his trust in an allusion because he thought it would bring him happiness. His instant attachment to Nick and his continua way of calling people Old Sport. I felt the same way the man in the owl-eyed glasses did. He was a poor son of a bitch.

I didn't instantly hate Daisy. I thought she was shallow but most (if not all) of the characters in this story are. She was girl used to getting everything she ever wanted and when Gatsby, a young love, shows up while her marriage is going up in shambles how can she help letting into temptation and imagining her life had been different? By the middle of the book though I had a deep hatred for this blonde growing in me. She was cruel. Her voice and the way she moved might sound like money but that is all she was. A shallow woman with money who was to immature to grow up. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

I loved this story. It's short and sad and shallow but its beautiful. I felt depressed by it it, and happy, and close to tears, but in a good way. For me it represented humanities allusion of something better. There is always something better out there. The grass is greener on the other side and all that jazz. Its the type of story I'll keep coming back to and walk away with something new every time.

"Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."



1 comment:

  1. One of my favorite quotes is "Gatsby looked at Daisy in a way that every girl wants to be looked at" and every time I read it ... *the feels*...

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