Apparently the colors yellow and white represent sickness and goodness, respectively. I learned this from my Honors English friends after I had read the book on my own, and was very thankful I didn't have to read this for a class and be forced to write papers analyzing the terrifically brilliant symbolism and prose etc etc. It would have completed ruined an otherwise extremely good and exciting story.

PS: The character Daisy appears good and innocent, but at her core is actually rotted and evil. Daisies are white on the outside and yellow on the inside. DO! YOU! SEE!

Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious young man, who gives extravagant parties on Long Island, New York, outside his palatial mansion , in the warm, lazy, summer nights. That he doesn't know the people he invites, not to mention the numerous gate crashers, might make it a little strange, but this being the roaring 20's, anything goes, rumors abound about Gatsby, bootlegger ? Who cares, as long as the free liquor flows, the great food served, and the beautiful music, continues playing. Finally attending one of his own gatherings, we discover that he's after Daisy, a lost love, she's married, which complicates the delicate situation. Nick, Daisy's cousin, arrives in town and through him, reunites Gatsby with his former girlfriend, she enjoys luxury, which is why Daisy married rich Tom and not poor Jay. A catastrophic car accident kills Tom's girlfriend, yes, he's a creep but a wealthy one, it's vague who's responsible, but her husband thinks he knows. Death in a swimming pool, ends this tragedy and symbolizes the Jazz Age ... Thoughts: Gatsby was a tortured, lonely man, even shy, who tried to become a member of the establishment. He, with all his riches, needed to enter it, to become part of it, to feel alive but could never remove the dirt and his lowly, and embarrassing origins. They (the upper class), used him and laughed at the stranger behind his back, and the illusions about Daisy , a woman who never really existed, except in his distorted mind. The truth shocked Gatsby, the pretend gentleman but he could never let go of the mirage, if he did, there would be nothing left of his soul.

"Sonrió comprensivamente, mucho más que comprensivamente. Era una de esas raras sonrisas, con una calidad de eterna confianza, de esas que en toda la vida no se encuentran más que cuatro o cinco veces."

Esta es una novela que le hubiera encantado a Oscar Wilde y podría aventurar que hasta le hubiera gustado escribirla.
"El gran Gatsby" resume una era dorada, la década de los locos años '20, pasados ya los amargos, oscuros y trágicos sucesos de la Primera Guerra Mundial, cuando el jazz, el charleston, el foxtrot, los vaudevilles y los cabarets eran las atracciones centrales y auténticas mecas destinadas a la dispersión y el olvido de unos Estados Unidos efervescente que despertaba de una modorra atroz.
La figura de Jay Gatsby (James Gatz) simboliza el ideal del sueño americano, irreverente, despreocupado y acompañando su deslumbrante rostro y figura, la presencia de ese único dios sin ateos que es el dinero.
Envuelto en un halo de misterio, Gatsby es un desconocido conocido por todos. Sus fiestas son un derroche de champagne, música y bailes, pero cuando todo termina y el brillo se apaga, el autor de esta novela, un impecable Francis Scott Fitzgerald, comienza a mostrarnos que algo oculto (y trágico) se esconde detrás de todo el glamour para ganar su espacio en escena. Porque no debemos confundirnos, ésta es una historia trágica. Sólo hace falta seguir leyendo…
Verdaderamente Fitzgerald escribe como los dioses. Su narrativa es sencillamente impecable, con la técnica y la belleza necesaria para embelesar los sentidos del lector de la misma manera que Gatsby lo hace con quienes lo rodean.
La historia, narrada por Nick Carraway es balanceada con presteza para que vayámonos adentrándonos en los hechos hasta el último capítulo, el mejor y el más importante, de modo que arribemos al final de la historia sin quedarnos con ningún cabo suelto.
Esta corta, pero poderosa novela encierra además un típico argumento de la literatura. El del desenfreno de las pasiones amorosas, a las que el ser humano no puede escapar.
El lector, con el correr del tiempo sabe que el brillo inicial de la frivolidad se opacará ante el efecto de corazones desbocados y acciones furiosas.
Un puñado de personajes que incluyen al temperamental Tom Buchanan, su esposa, la bellísima Daisy y su prima, la despampanante Jordan Baker, secundados por tres o cuatro más, le alcanzan a Fitzgerald para brindarnos toda la acción que esta excelente novela nos ofrece. Todo lo que sucede entre ellos, todo ese torbellino de pasiones es contado con inmejorable precisión y nos mantiene indefectiblemente atentos.
Ha sido una verdadera experiencia leer por primera vez a Fitzgerald. Nunca había leído nada de él y me ha impresionado fuertemente, por lo que seguramente seguiré adelante con la lectura de otras de sus novelas, probablemente "El extraño caso de Benjamin Button" y "Al este del edén" y por qué no, también con sus cuentos. Luego de leer "El gran Gatsby", me doy cuenta por qué es uno de los mejores escritores americanos de todos los tiempos.

After six years of these heated and polarized debates, I'm deleting the reviews that sparked them. Thanks for sharing your frustrations, joys, and insights with me, goodreaders. Happy reading!

In love and good faith, always,
Savannah

so... why exactly is this unimpressive piece of cheap melodrama still glorified & labelled as the Great American Novel?

2.5 Stars

1) n  Alwaysn google who you are going to fall in love with.

n  Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.n

2) For then   love of God, nmake a 401K

n  They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. n

3) n  Nevern swallow a thesaurus.

n  I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.n

Jay Gatsby is rich - the kind of exorbitant rich that other rich people like to hang out with him, just so they can bask in his richness.

He's also in love, with one Daisy Buchanan...who's already married to one, surly, cheating and backstabbing man.

Our narrator has front row seats to all the glitz, the glam and the gore that circles around Jay Gatsby's chaotic life. (Cause, whenever you throw that much money at something, you better be prepared for something to be thrown back.)

Overall, I liked this one better the second time around. I'm a bit more familiar with the story, and I have more of a feel for the way Fitzgerald writes.

I really enjoy the character of Gatsby this time around and love Daisy a little bit less.

The one thing I disliked in round 1 (and have disliked every time I go through this novel) is the language. It just seems...SO over-the-top and flowery.

It really just takes forever to say anything in this book. Like this:

n  So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.n

and this:

n  It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.n

AND THIS:

n  Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.n

Ultimately, this one was not the one for me. Maybe I'll give it another shot in a couple of years...

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As clear a portrait of a generation as has ever been put to pen, and Fitzgerald has done even better by making much of the qualities of this novel timeless, shining a bright light on all that it right, and much that is wrong, with our society and our culture.

Complex, multi-layered, this is also subtle and simple - but subtle like a jazz movement, intricate in its performance and difficult to grasp all at once.

*** 2019 Reread - I watched the 2013 film and needed to revisit this wonderful book.

What Fitzgerald accomplished was to make a good story about lost love and dashed dreams a great story because it also paints a portrait of a time and place - the Roaring Twenties between the Great War and the Great Depression. From our vantage a hundred years later, we can see this as the eye of a hurricane, a gentle respite between calamities. But for the partygoers at Jay Gatsby’s place on West Egg, there was booze and music and laughter and a sense that this bacchanal might go on forever. But Fitzgerald, sensitive artist that he was, saw the chipping paint over the gaudy design, noticed the frayed edges of the party dresses and the fragile bubble about to burst.

Jay Gatsby can be the man of that time, optimistic and hopeful until the end, still chasing a dream that was only ever just that.

A very good story.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic 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 then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

I just spent three days being read to by Jake Gyllenhaal and it was absolutely wonderful! I took Jake with me for long Summer walks, to the grocery store, Trader Joe's, and let me not forget the ten minutes I spent driving around the parking lot of Target, not for a better parking space, but to listen to Jake read "The Great Gatsby" to me! My only regret is that this fabulous experience is over. Sigh...

I've read the book and watched both versions of the movie but this is by far my favorite experience with this novel!

Highly highly recommended!

IMPRESIONANTE! Sencillamente una obra maestra! Un soñador en busca de un sueño que un buscador de perlas, mató. Aunque en este caso, podríamos afirmar que las perlas y el buscador no eran tales, sino simples hombres y mujeres corrompidos y sin sueños; o con sueños que ninguna ola del mar se tomaría la molestia de acariciar.

I'm supposed to love this book. It's a classic. It's the great American novel… as an English major I'm supposed to just worship every sentence of the book and praise its brilliance.

I don't like it though. I really don't. In fact, I downright dislike this book.

I hate every character in it. I hate the supposedly brilliant prose. I hate the supposedly clever symbolism. There is not a single thing in this damn book that I enjoy.

But Tim, it's a metaphor for the American Dream and… I get it, of course I get it. The symbolism is so blatant, how could I not get it?

Maybe I should reread it? How many times do I need to read it to enjoy it? I read it in Highschool. I read it in college (twice) and read it again years later to give it one last shot. I'm done with it. May I never touch this blasted thing again. 1/5 stars and a hatred that burns with the passion and fire of a thousand stars.

…

Unless of course Gatsby is actually a Green Lantern, who is staring off into that distant green light as symbolism for his secret identity… he is also defeated by something yellow (a weakness of all green lanterns). Maybe when he's off at the parties he's actually off saving the world with super powers! Brilliant! 5/5 stars!

…

No, it's not that fun. Back to the 1/5.

n  n

Casual, self-absorbed decadence, the evaporation of social grace, money calling all the shots and memories of the past holding people hostage from the future that lies before them. Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald has nailed it and written one of THE great American novels.

This book was a surprise. I LOVED it and all of the deep contradictions swimming around its heart. At once a scathing indictment on the erosion of the American Dream, but also a bittersweet love letter to the unfailing optimism of the American people. Call it dignified futility…obstinate hopefulness. Whatever you call it, this novel is shiny and gorgeous, written with a sort of breezy pretension that seems to mirror the loose morality of the story. Rarely have I come across a book whose style so perfectly enhances its subject matter.

Set in the eastern United States just after World War I, Fitzgerald shows us an America that has lost its moral compass. This fall from grace is demonstrated through the lives of a handful of cynical “well-to-dos” living lavish but meaningless lives that focus on nothing but the pursuit of their own pleasures and whims.

Standing apart from these happenings (while still being part of them) is our narrator, Nick Carraway. As the one honest and decent person in the story, Nick stands in stark contrast to the other characters. “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” Nick relays the story of the summer he spent in Long Island’s West Egg in a small house sandwiched between the much larger mansions of the area. His time in Long Island is spent with a group that includes his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her rich husband Tom who live in Long Island’s East Egg. At one point in the story, Nick provides the following description of the pair which I do not think can be improved upon:

n  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.n

In addition, we have Jordan Baker who is a poster child for the pretty, amoral, self-centered rich girl whose view of the world is jaded and unsentimental. Basically, she’s a bitch.

The most intriguing character by far is Jay Gatsby himself, both for who he is and for how Fitzgerald develops him through the course of the narrative. When we are first introduced to Gatsby, he comes across as a polite, gracious, well-mannered gentleman with a magnetic personality who our narrator takes to immediately.

n  He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself. n

However, from that very first encounter, Fitzgerald slowly chips away at the persona and peels back the layers of the “Great” Gatsby until we are left with a flawed and deeply tragic figure that in my opinion ranks among the most memorable in all of classic literature. Nick’s journey in his relationship with Gatsby mirrors our own. “It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”

Through a series of parties, affairs, beatings, drunken escapades, the lives of the characters intermesh with terrible consequences. I don’t want to give away major parts of the story as I think they are best experienced for the first time fresh, but at the heart of Fitzgerald’s morality tale is a tragic love that for me rivaled the emotional devastation I felt at the doomed relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights. In general, Fitzgerald’s world of excessive jubilance and debauchery is a mask that the characters wear to avoid the quiet torments that haunt them whenever they are forced to take stock of their actions. Rather than do this, they simply keep moving. "I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."

In the end, Fitzgerald manages the amazing feat of creating a sad, bleak portrait of America while maintaining a sense of restrained optimism in the future. Both heart-wrenching and strangely comforting at the same time. I guess in the end, this was a book that made me feel a lot and that is all I can ever ask. I’m going to wrap this up with my second favorite quote from the book (my favorite being the one at the very beginning of the review):

n   And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.n

5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!