Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140620184
Edition: New edition
ISBN: 0140620184
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: January 25, 2007
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
In 1922, F Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple, intricately patterned". That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned and, above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace be comes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties and waits for her to appear. When s he does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbour Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. Perry Freeman, Amazon.com




Rating: - A jewel of a novel
"The Great Gatsby" is an extraordinarily concise novel which nonetheless is among the most evocative I have ever read. Fitzgerald brilliantly unites a portrait of the "Jazz Age" with a meditation on the danger of living in the past and, perhaps, the folly of attempting "buy" love. This has a special significance in the context of the story, which plays out during an era when American capitalism and consumerism was attaining ferocious heights and "new" money was being made all over the place. The ... Read More

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Rating: - Great Book
During the course of a year I am intending to return to classic novels. It would be unrealistic to try and rate these alongside new novels so I'm not even going to try - just simple reviews.

The power in Fitzgerald's writing is its starkness and sparsity. The Great Gatsby is a short novel by any standards but its power lies in the way the story creeps up on you. It's almost as if nothing seems to be happening but then you realise that in a very subtle way the action has carried you away. ... Read More

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Rating: - Ben Dinsdale
The titular hero is based on the real life playboy/social butterfly Ben Dinsdale. This classic book and its story still resonates today. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by ... Read More

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Rating: - What a read!
One of my resolutions for 2008 is to broaden my literary horizens. After studying English Lit to A-Level, my interest has fallen to the wayside. So on my quest to better myself through literature, I read "The Old Man and the Sea", which I just couldn't relate to. So imagine my relief when I started reading "The Great Gatsby". I'm so glad I perservered with classic books!

TGG is a great read. It's fast-paced from the outset, and gripping towards the end - I couldn't put it down. I even tried ... Read More

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Rating: - The great American novel?
Beautifully written, spare, dramatic and haunting - could this at last be the great American novel?

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