The Great
Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I am becoming a
fan of Fitzgerald, currently reading the Beautiful
and Damned. But Gatsby, as with everyone else who has taken English
classes, was my first Fitzgerald novel. I have Zelda’s to read as well, very
excited! It is not as long as you expect it to be, especially if you have only
seen the film versions. But there is a reason that the films got so much
material out of a book with nine chapters. Fitzgerald’s writing
almost leaps off the page and you are immediately transported into Gatsby’s
fast paced parties without ever meeting Gatsby properly. I think Cary Mulligan
did a fantastic job as Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is not an easy character to
sympathize with in the book. At the end you question whether she loved Gatsby
at all. It would have been easy to see Tom Buchanan as the ultimate villain, pulling
Daisy into his world and out of Gatsby’s. But that isn’t the case, as people
who have read it will know. Fitzgerald does not allow us off the hook easily.
It moves so quickly you will feel as if you have taken a car ride with the Great
Gatsby himself, after one of his parties. Look out for green lights across the
bay. The one thing you will regret after reading this book is that you weren’t
born into 1920s America. And the only way to sooth this regret is to read
Fitzgerald’s prose. Both the Fitzgerald’s novels.