The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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.