Another classic that many were "forced" to read in high school English class, the Great Gatsby is of course an amazing book. Evocative of a superficial world of wealth and sensuality seen from the blasé eyes of Nick Caraway (a very Hemmingway-esque character if I may say). Far better than the recent movie, the book is both poignant and bitingly sarcastic. There is a lot of FS Fitzgerald's own life and obsessions here and plenty of tragedy but without over-the-top pathos. The tone rests - like Caraway himself - detached and distant. The strength here is in the ambiguity of his feelings for Gatsby and the facetious lifestyle he represents. A masterpiece to be read again and again...but do not miss Tender is the Night which to my mind was similar but, since it was longer, features slightly more developed. characters.

Every time I read this book, I fall more and more in love.

The Great Gatsby is the single most iconic novel of the Roaring Twenties or “Jazz Age”, and, more broadly, of 20th-century American literature — the American High School curriculum has undoubtedly contributed to this illustrious reputation. It doesn’t look like much though. Just a short novel (under 200 pages) recounting a tragic experience occurred to a bunch of Long Island hedonistic upstarts who spend their time boozing, smoking, dancing foxtrot, pool-partying, golfing and cheating on each other, all possibly to forget the traumas of the First World War. In comparison, Marcel Proust’s diner parties descriptions, before the War, seem a bit prim, starchy and bundled up.

The genius of Fitzgerald lies in the fact that his narrator (as in Proust) tells his story after the fact and with some degree of detachment. Such that it all seems like an insane, slightly sad and ultimately inessential pageant. The drama of the love triangle and the eventual tragic denouement is seen as though through a softening lens. The way Fitzgerald uses ellipses and euphemisms is quite striking as well. For instance, this sentence towards the end, when the narrator stares at the swimming pool: “A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden.” (Penguin Classics, p. 172 — I won’t decode this now to avoid spoilers, but I encourage you, faithful readers, to check it out.)

His description of places, people and atmosphere — the glamorous, glittering, glimmering fairy-girls, the hyper-gaudy, twinkling, moonlit, colourful hanky-pankies, the scorching, golden heatwave over a Versailles-like New York — are all powerfully evocative, dream-like almost. The crepuscular ending, a Whitmanian suggestion of the American myth as a transient, unreal garden of earthly delights — which soon enough will be turned into a valley of ashes, fuming under the stare of giant billboards —, is both elegiac and sublime.

Gatsby himself, described as radiant by the narrator (the epithet “the great” puts him, oddly enough, on par with kings and emperors), seems, in fact, a bit depressed, lonely, detached from the world. He is, in short, a blurry, suave, ascetic onlooker amidst the outpouring of luxury and licence of a gigantic courtship ritual — and, frankly, his compulsion to call everyone “old sport” is a bit tiring. Tom Buchanan is a livelier character, but quite obviously an entitled sexist, racist, and an insufferable brutal asshole. The female characters, Jordan, Daisy, Myrtle, by contrast, are cute little flappers but singularly lacking in intensity.

The Great Gatsby is many things at once in a short format. A novel about the luxurious and decadent parties of the narrator’s mysterious neighbour — redolent of Trimalchio’s banquet in Petronius’s Satyricon. The Great Gatsby is also about a narrator fascinated by and reporting (more or less credibly) on a shadowy, romantic, elusive figure — Nick Carraway on Jay Gatsby, like, say, Ishmael on Ahab in Moby-Dick. The Great Gatsby is also a novel about a romantic and domestic tragedy. And finally, this novel provides an outline for Hardboiled Fiction, which achieved enormous success only a decade later, with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet) offered an adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel in 2013, with Leo DiCaprio in the title role — I haven’t watched this movie yet. However, the fascinating Spring Breakers (same year, with James Franco and Selena Gomez) might well be considered a contemporary take on Fitzgerald’s masterpiece... Or, for that matter, just any other Justin Bieber or Nicki Minaj’s careless wondermilk-flowing pool-partying music video!

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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I firmly believe that "The Great Gatsby" is a novel that cannot be fully appreciated in a first read. I read it for the first time after college, and hated it. Now, 10 years later I have read it half a dozen times, and find it to be a richer and richer experience every time.
Fitzgerald was a talented writer, and there are times that the prose in this text is breathtakingly good. But that is not what makes this novel stand out as one of the greatest pieces of truly American literature. Rather it is the eternal optimism, sometimes misplaced, of Gatsby (and some of the other characters) that keeps calling to the reader long after the last page. Fitzgerald wrote a book that speaks to the American ideals and persona, and he did it in the guise of a love story. There is no better description of the indefatigable American spirit than the last page of this novel. It is literary perfection, and even if the book that preceded it was not incredible it would be worth the price.
I won't rehash plot points here, but I will say that in Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan Baker, and the amazingly well drawn Tom Buchanan, Fitzgerald created a cast of characters that will long reign as one of the most recognizable in the canon of American Lit. I recently reread this novel for a book club, and it is no coincidence that despite the many varied reactions to the book, everyone agreed that Tom stood out. We all knew a Tom in our lives. It speaks to Fitzgerald's honesty as a writer that one of the least likable characters in the text is one of the novel's standouts.
Don't read "The Great Gatsby" because you have to. Read it because you want to. And then put it aside and live a few more years of life. Then come back to it. You will be amazed what you will find in its pages that you did not find before.

A satisfying read, old sport!
Pink suits, bright yellow cars, duck egg-blue dresses, jazz, outlandish decadence, peacock feathers and endless champagne place a veil over the background of snobbery, greed and moral decay.

Baz Luhrmann dazzled with his 2013 adaptation. At the time, I thought it was typical Luhrmann ‘over-the-top’, delightful entertainment, but after reading the novella I see he got it spot on.

The Great Gatsby is not without some faults. I’ve shared my reservations about hints of antisemitism with my buddy reader, Marge Moen. I read articles and essays on this, most pointing to F. Scott Fitzgerald simply writing what was reflected in American society in the early 1900s. One could debate this until the cows come home, old sport!

Sometimes researching the background of novels can cloud the sum of all its parts, so I left it there and just enjoyed the read.

Our fantasies of grandeur are always restricted by our aesthetic tastes and The Great Gatsby is literally an anthem to vulgarity and fraudulence…

But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace.

The grotesque aesthetic stupidity and the fabulously bad taste of the characters are outright shocking… Instead of wishing for variety and quality, they just want to get more of everything that glitters…

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher – shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.’

Gatsby is a fraud and the narrator doesn’t have much sympathy for him but in the end the raconteur finds out that the respectable members of society are just hypocrites and that they are even more fake than Gatsby.
Honesty and intellect don’t mean a thing, all that counts is the art of pretending and the greatest pretender takes all.

COSÌ CONTINUIAMO A REMARE, BARCHE CONTRO LA CORRENTE, SOSPINTI SENZA POSA VERSO IL PASSATO



Romanzo che mi è parso molto, molto cinematografico (anche se non credo Fitzgerald avesse ancora incominciato a lavorare a Hollywood quando Gatsby fu pubblicato).
Ma il cinema per gli US (e per noi italiani) è la forma d’arte esportata meglio nel corso del Novecento, quella che si è diffusa di più, è diventata più famosa. Fitzgerald anche in questo seppe cogliere l’aria del tempo (e poi restare eterno come solo i classici possono).


Il primo adattamento per lo schermo apparve a un solo anno di distanza dalla prima pubblicazione, 1926, film muto, con Warner Baxter nel ruolo del titolo, Lois Wilson in Daisy, e Neil Hamilton in Nick. La regia di Herbert Brenon. Il film fu un fiasco, come tutti gli altri che seguirono nel tempo. Fitzgerald e sua moglie Zelda detestarono questo primo adattamento e uscirono dalla sala prima della fine della proiezione. Di questo film è rimasto solo il trailer, il resto si è dissolto.

Cinematografico non solo nell’attenzione alle luci: le finestre, aperte e chiuse, i controluce, i colori (il verde della luce del faro, il giallo della macchina e degli occhiali, il rosa e l’oro degli abiti di Gatsby, l’oro della ricchezza, l’azzurro dei prati, l’argento della luna…) - pure se all’epoca la pellicola era ancora in bianco e nero, la realtà ricostruita nei set era ovviamente colorata.
Squisitamente cinematografica la prima apparizione di Gatsby, in silhouette, uscito per decidere quanto gli spettasse del nostro cielo, protende il braccio verso la luce verde al di là della baia, il faro davanti alla casa di Daisy (questa luce verde ritorna più volte nel romanzo, diventa il simbolo della ricerca di Gatsby, del sogno individuale e collettivo, infatti è lo stesso verde che appare ai primi marinai che raggiunsero la costa americana, loro sì inseguirono il sogno diretti da est a ovest).
Ma, l’effettiva entrata in scena di Gatsby è articolata in un crescendo, per i primi due capitoli e metà del terzo, come l’ingresso della primadonna. Preparata dalle voci (…è parente del Kaiser… ha ucciso un uomo… è cugino di secondo grado del diavolo…), dalle chiacchiere, dai mormorii, la curiosità sale nel protagonista io narrante e nel lettore (sicuramente nel sottoscritto lettore).
E poi, colpo di genio, Gatsby all’improvviso è già in scena: niente occhio di bue, niente rullo di tamburi, accanto a Nick, il nostro Virgilio in questa divina tragedia americana, è seduto un uomo di qualche anno più grande di lui, che parla con cura e formalità, probabilmente un ex commilitone durante la Grande Guerra. Ed è proprio lui, Gatsby, il mitico grande Gatsby, colui che dispensava la luce delle stelle a falene indifferenti.


Sempre in bianco e nero, ma in sonoro, si comincia a entrare nel mito, con Alan Ladd nella parte di Gatsby, Betty Field per Daisy, e Macdonald Carey che fa Nick. Dirige Elliott Nugent. È il 1949, e anche questo film incassa male, la maledizione di Gatsby contagia lo schermo.

Esistono molti tipi di sorriso: quello di Gatsby però è unico, e FSF lo descrive a meraviglia.
Dimentica tuttavia di dirci la cosa che spiega tutto: non basta scrivere che era uno di quei rari sorrisi capaci di rassicurazione eterna, come si incontrano quattro o cinque volte nella vita - il sorriso di Gatsby era uno di quei sorrisi che ti fanno sentire importante. Prima di tutto proprio per il fatto che sia uno come Gatsby a sorriderti. Quel genere di sorriso che si accompagna quasi sempre a laconicità. Perché a quel sorriso si affida l’essenza della comunicazione.


Ed eccoci alla versione del 1974, con la star delle star, Robert Redford [che quest’anno ne fa ha 81, e quando lui non ci sarà più, per me non esisterà più neanche Hollywood], Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Lois Chiles. Firma Jack Clayton, che rifiuta la sceneggiatura di Truman Capote e opta per quella di Francis Ford Coppola. Il film finalmente incassa, ma l’alchimia Redford-Farrow è sotto zero. Clayton non raggiunge purtroppo le vette di The Innocents (in italiano: Suspense, 1961), l’adattamento di ‘Giro di vite’ di Henry James.

Sempre per restare nell’ambito cinematografico, Nick, l’io narrante è al contempo regista e interprete/testimone, racconta ciò che vede, assiste e partecipa, ma anche ciò che ha sentito, ricostruendo l’intreccio per noi lettori come farebbe una voce fuori campo.
Fitzgerald glielo lascia fare in modo che la storia e il personaggio principale siano costruiti su vuoti ed ellissi, elementi strutturali quanto mai filmici – alcuni degli eventi fondamentali del romanzo non sono messi in scena, non sono rappresentati: per esempio, l’incontro tra Gatsby e Daisy, l’investimento di Myrtle, la morte di Gatsby, tutti momenti clou che rimangono per così dire ‘fuori campo’.
Nick è il punto di vista dominante, ma è qualcuno che ammette di essere allo stesso tempo dentro e fuori i fatti, è qualcuno che ci dice esplicitamente quanto il suo racconto sia in soggettiva piuttosto che oggettivo - per questo non si trattiene dal manipolare il piano temporale dei fatti, l’ordine degli eventi, spostandosi avanti e indietro nel tempo, proprio come farebbe un regista in fase di montaggio.
E proprio come un regista che interviene sulla lente e gioca con la messa a fuoco, la percezione visiva di Nick è spesso annebbiata, distorta, come sottolineano i molteplici riferimenti alla vista, allo sguardo, al punto di vista, all’illusione ottica (lo stesso passato di Gatsby riassume in sé contorni sfumati e incerti).
In contrapposizione allo sguardo del grande manifesto pubblicitario che ritorna più volte, quello del dott. J.T. Eckleburg, che dietro i giganteschi occhiali nasconde quasi sicuramente gli occhi miopi di dio (metafora della cecità eterna, la pubblicità mercifica il divino).


Questa versione nasce modesta, destinata alla tv: è il 2000, Toby Stephens interpreta Gatsby, Mira Sorvino Daisy e Paul Rudd Nick. Dirige Robert Markowitz.

Alla ricerca dell’ultima frontiera, il confine da Ovest si è spostato a Est, e in questa terra di conquista dove il sogno di felicità e redenzione è universale ed eterno, in questa vicenda semplice, per certi versi addirittura banale, eppure complessa e intricata come solo i grandi classici possono essere, in queste pagine che sono simboliche e mitiche, americane al cento per cento (Under the Red, White, and Blue sembra che fosse il titolo preferito da Fitzgerald, lo propose all’editore troppo tardi, l’opera era già in stampa) ma universali, il sogno è destinato a fallire.
Gatsby è un cavaliere medioevale senza armatura che insegue il suo sogno, il suo Santo Graal che si chiama Daisy, ma si chiama anche successo, perché senza successo Daisy non si trova, non arriva.
Il sogno americano è già marcio negli anni Venti del Novecento, quando è ambientato questo romanzo: il proibizionismo stimola e diffonde corruzione, il successo arriva in fretta con metodi spicci, non serve più il duro lavoro. Anche se si arriva in cima, ci si muove in una terra desolata come quella che circonda il drugstore del marito di Myrtle, dove la donna viene travolta e uccisa, mischiando il suo sangue alla cenere, e in ultima analisi all’immondizia.
Proprio come Lancillotto, il più celebre cavaliere medievale, Gatsby conosce l’amore sia romantico che fisico (non credo di aver mai letto una scena d’amore più erotica di quella descritta da Chrétien de Troyes tra Lancillotto e Ginevra).

On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages along shore the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.
Un esempio dell’incanto che è una grande scrittura.


Nel 2002 ci fu uno strano tentativo, Gatsby diventa nero in questo insolito remake che trasporta la storia al terzo millennio: si intitola semplicemente G, dirige Christopher Scott Cherot, e Richard T.Jones interpreta il protagonista Summer G. Esperimento curioso, ma non indimenticabile.

Nel 1922, quando iniziò a pensare al romanzo che ultimò e fu pubblicato tre anni dopo, Fitzgerald scrisse al suo editor: Voglio scrivere qualcosa di nuovo - qualcosa di straordinario, di bello e semplice e dalla struttura intricata. Parole che sono cronaca di un capolavoro annunciato.
Figlio di Henry James, o come disse T.S.Eliot, il primo passo in avanti fatto dalla narrativa americana dai tempi di Henry James, mi piace pensare che Fitzgerald battezzò la sua non eroina ispirandosi proprio alla Daisy Miller di James.
Figlio della grande tradizione, dove Nick sopravvive alla morte di Gatsby per raccontare la storia proprio come Ismael sopravvive alla tragedia di Achab, Fitzgerald seppe spostare l’asticella più in alto, più avanti.
Così in alto e così avanti che un altro sommo scrittore, J.D. Salinger, fa pronunciare al suo incomparabile personaggio, Holden, catcher in the rye, parole di lode per Fitzgerald e il suo Gatsby (Mi fa impazzire, Il Grande Gatsby. Il vecchio Gatsby. Vecchio mio. Mi fa morire, capitolo 18). E come Nick alla fine del romanzo pulisce una parola oscena scritta sui gradini della villa di Gatsby, così Holden cancella le oscenità scritte sui muri della scuola della sorellina.
A questo punto mi piace citare Calvino, le cui parole trovo particolarmente adatte a questo capolavoro: un classico è un libro che non ha mai finito di dire quel che ha da dire - Di un classico ogni rilettura è una lettura di scoperta come la prima - I classici sono libri che quanto più si crede di conoscerli per sentito dire, tanto più quando si leggono davvero si trovano nuovi, inaspettati, inediti - Un classico è un'opera che provoca incessantemente un pulviscolo di discorsi critici su di sé, ma continuamente se li scrolla di dosso…


Ed ecco l’ultima leggenda, Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan in Daisy, e Tobey Maguire fa Nick. La regia è affidata al geniale Baz Luhrmann. Siamo nel 2013. Il risultato non è memorabile.

Tentai poi di pensare a Gatsby per un momento ma lui era già troppo lontano.

Probabilmente non avevo diciotto anni quando ho letto Fitzgerald per la prima volta. I 28 racconti. Il primo, ‘Il diamante grosso come l’Hotel Ritz’, mi fulminò e mi conquistò col suo finale: I don't know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing of it." He shivered. "Turn up your coat collar, little girl, the night's full of chill and you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours. Chiarendo e stabilendo per me sin da allora che l’adolescenza non è un periodo della vita, ma uno stato dell’anima.

Nick Carraway left his native Midwest to work in finance in New York. By happy coincidence, he finds accommodation on Long Island, the city's posh suburb. His tiny house had wedged between two large buildings, one of which was the sumptuous villa of the enigmatic Jay Gatsby. The place seems to host a permanent party where all New York flock to enjoy the generosity of the house's master. But no one knows Gatsby, and the wildest rumors surround him. Where does his come from his fortune? It even said that he would have killed a man. Nick is invited to one of these excellent receptions, where he will bond with his mysterious neighbor and collect some secrets. If James Gatz has risen above his condition, amassed a colossal fortune, and has become Gatsby, it is worthy of Daisy, his love of youth. Daisy lives across the strait with her wealthy husband, Tom Buchanan. Daisy does not seem happy with a husband who cheats on her with a confident Myrtle, an ordinary woman married to a mechanic—Daisy, who is none other than Nick's cousin. The latter will, therefore, help to bring former lovers together. But by a chain of unfortunate circumstances.
They are young, superficial, and arrogant. Spend without counting the family fortune. They are dizzy with music, alcohol, speed, and sex. They are the privileged youth of America in their 20s who cheat their alcoholic parties on trips to New York palaces. If they frequent Gatsby, it is not without a certain condescension towards this nouveau riche with a fortune of dubious origin. And yet, he amassed this fortune for the purest of motives, for a dream of love. But, as is often the case, they will not confront the idea with reality, and Gatsby will learn it tragically.
It is the novel of an era with a bittersweet tone, but beneath its classic air, it hides a very affordable gem of emotions.

This third reading of Gatsby has been by far my favorite. It seems I’m destined to read it every eight years. In 11th grade the plot went almost entirely over my head, even as I remember being magnetized by the beautiful sentences and jazzy attitude. Then again, in anticipation of the Leonardo DiCaprio film—can't believe that was EIGHT years ago—I was rushing through to finish before opening night. Not a good idea. The Great Gatsby is not a novel to rush through.

Fitzgerald designed the novel to read like a poem, full of rich symbolism and carefully constructed sentences that convey whole chapters of atmosphere. This time I read it more like that, slowly, lingeringly, with a highlighter in hand. I think that's necessary, to be honest. There is a surface story that’s an engaging tale of passion, confronting one's past, and a whole lot of pizazz, but there is also a symbolic story that reaches far beyond. Everything is a symbol. Gatsby's romantic obsession with Daisy is not about her at all, but the fantasy of her, of raising himself out of the low class and being a part of high class. Gatsby's outlandish parties are an overcompensation for his own self doubt, while also a lure for Daisy. Their symbolic weight is most powerful when the parties cease and all the characters are left to deal with grim reality in their own way.

Of course there are many avenues of interpretation, none of which may be as the author intended. Gatsby was a commercial and critical flop for Fitzgerald. It was his third novel and performed even worse than his previous two, which were only moderate successes. He died with the assumption that he would be a forgotten man. The critics were tepid in their reviews and even the most favorable misinterpreted his novel, Fitzgerald wrote.

What he may not have realized, however, is that the difficulty to understand exactly why the novel is a masterpiece may have been a reason for its eventual canonization. To further enhance my experience, I read Gatsby along with Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide which is a textbook for understanding literary theory. I don't think I've ever read an actual textbook cover-to-cover, but this one makes it easy. Each chapter Tyson introduces a method of literary theory (Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxist Criticism, Structuralist, Queer, etc) and then provides a lengthy analysis of Gatsby from that theory. Outside of Shakespeare, few literary texts could weather such an affront of ideology and remain a masterpiece, but Gatsby does.

If you’re new to Gatsby or just have a hankering to dust it off again, expect to be enlightened. Treasure hunt as you go along, ponder each sentence—especially the ones which seem inconsequential—and afterward, maybe even read a sampling of the endless literary theory that’s been written. I don’t like books which require “analysis” to understand why they’re brilliant, but in this case that’s not an issue. The novel is wonderful from a purely entertainment perspective, and only becomes more powerful through close, critical reading. And who knows—as much as has been written about it, maybe Fitzgerald’s “true” interpretation is still out there, just waiting for a savvy reader to find.

(Book 699 From 1001 Books) - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922.

The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan.

Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream.

Characters: Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, Meyer Wolfsheim, George Wilson.

In Spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a World War I veteran—journeys to New York City to obtain employment as a bond salesman.

He rents a bungalow in the Long Island village of West Egg, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who hosts dazzling evenings.

One evening, Nick dines with a distant relative, Daisy Buchanan, in the fashionable town of East Egg. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, formerly a Yale football star whom Nick knew during his college days.

The couple has recently relocated from Chicago to a mansion directly across the bay from Gatsby's estate. There, Nick encounters Jordan Baker, an insolent flapper and golf champion who is a childhood friend of Daisy's.

Jordan confides to Nick that Tom keeps a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who brazenly telephones him at his home and who lives in the "valley of ashes", a sprawling refuse dump. That evening, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone on his lawn, staring at a green light across the bay. ...

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «گتسبی بزرگ»؛ «طلا و خاکستر گتسبی بزرگ»؛ اثر: اف اسکات فیتزجرالد (فیتس جرالد)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش ماه سپتامبر سال 2002میلادی

عنوان: گتسبی بزرگ؛ اثر: اف اسکات فیتزجرالد (فیتس جرالد)؛ مترجم: کریم امامی؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، انتشارات نیلوفر، 1379؛ در 288ص؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

نخستین بار با عنوان «طلا و خاکستر گتسبی بزرگ»؛ با ترجمه جناب آقای «کریم امامی»، در تهران توسط انتشارات فرانکلین در سال 1344هجری خورشیدی در 204ص منتشر شده است

مترجمین دیگر این اثر بزرگوار، خانمها و آقایان: «فهیمه رحمتی»؛ «نفیسه رنجبران»؛ «مهدی سجودی مقدم»؛ «عباس کرمی فر»؛ «فاطمه جمالی»؛ «محمدصادق سبط الشیخ»؛ «رضا رضایی»؛ «مهدی افشار»؛ و «معصومه عسگری»؛ هستند

نقل از متن: «آنگاه کلاه طلائی بر سر بگذار، اگر برمیانگیزدت، اگر توان بالا جستنت هست، به خاطرش نیز به جست و خیز درآی، تا بدانجا که فریاد برآورد: عاشق، ای عاشق بالا جهنده ی کلاه طلائی، مرا تو باید».؛ پایان نقل

انگار هر کتاب نامدار، که در اینمورد در عنوانش نیز، واژه «بزرگ» خودنمایی میکند را، بیشتر باور داریم؛ پیشتر، چندبار خوانده بودم، دوستی نگارگر، در دو واژه، همین نویسنده را ستوده بودند، آن دو واژه چشمم را گرفت، و اینبار آخر، که کتاب را برداشتم، ساعت سه صبح روز سیزدهم مهرماه سال 1392هجری خورشیدی بود، که به انتهای راه خوانشش رسیدم، و بسیار هم خوش بگذشت، اینبار مدهوش شخصیت پردازیها، و صحنه آرائیها شده بودم، سخن شخصیتها یادم میماند، تند و تند میخواندم، تا به جاهایی برسم، که نگارنده، با واژه ی «دی زی»، صحنه ی داستان را بیاراید، میدانم که باز هم خواهم خواند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 23/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 06/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

As a spotty fifteen-year old in the late 1970s, when presented with the task of reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in year ten English class, I was too gormless to realise just how good a story this was. I hurriedly stuffed it to the bottom of my school bag, among the squashed three-day old Vegemite sandwiches and even older half-eaten apple cores and rushed outside to kick a ball around with the boys. Sadly, the book destined never to be opened. Some forty-two years later, I've finally got around to reading this story and regret having waited so long. Oh, to be able to turn back time.

Jay Gatsby is hopelessly in love with Daisy, a woman he met five-years before, just as he was about to fight in the Great War. It was clear they loved (or were infatuated with) each other at that time, a period when he was a poor man, trying to make his way in the world and ashamed of his upbringing. He believed he was destined for greater things, the American Dream perhaps. Daisy and Gatsby end up losing contact, she marries the obscenely wealthy and ultimately detestable, Tom Buchanan. This husband of hers is a prolific adulterer and is having an affair with the wife of a local mechanic at the time Gatsby returns to seek out Daisy to rekindle their ‘lost love’.

During these missing five-years he has accumulated massive wealth and has managed to purchase and develop a dream home with his ‘new money’ on a fictional peninsula on the coast of Long Island, a place called West Egg. This home is across the water to Tom and Daisy’s home in East Egg. West Egg represents ‘new money’, East Egg ‘old money’. Aren’t they both literally delicious place names? I was so disappointed when I found out they are fictional.

Gatsby’s palace on West Egg hosts perpetual, lavish parties for the rich and famous. It seems he is using these parties to attract Daisy so they can renew their acquaintance. However, this doesn’t happen and Daisy’s cousin Nick (Gatsby’s next-door neighbour) is asked, by Gatsby, to set up an afternoon tea at his humble home. Anyway, the reunion occurs, and this is where the story gets interesting. Ultimately, there’s a shocking event which results in the death of one of the characters which has major implications on the eventual ending.

My main fascination here was, who the hell was Gatsby and how did he become so wealthy? Fitzgerald never really lets this cat out of the bag (not to me anyway), did he gather his wealth through nefarious means? I reckon he did – bootlegging perhaps? The other thing that smacks you in the face is the obscene, and what seems like, the pointless hedonistic partying of the upper class. All they seemed to do was drink, dance, party, have sex with each other and gossip. Good fun for an afternoon sure, but all the time?

Gatsby was trying to breathe life back into the brief fling he had with Daisy five-years ago. Could he pull it off? I suppose we have all thought whether we could go back to a period of our own life and pick up where things left off. These thoughts, fantasies, dreams – must burn up considerable mind-time for humankind. I wonder how many people pull it off. I would suggest people and places move on very quickly, revisiting and then reliving the past is a pipe dream. Nothing remains the same.

The 1920s sounds like a dreadful time to live. You’d either be scraping a living on dusty farmland, flogging yourself in a dirty factory or living a dreadfully empty existence bouncing from one party to another. Fitzgerald really does create a vivid picture of these times – I found this to be an exciting, riveting page turner.

As I have considerable time on my hands at the moment, I reckon I’ll watch The Great Gatsby on Netflix today, and see how well the flamboyant Director Baz Luhrmann does with this story. It’s got to be good, how could it not, with the wonderful Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and the sublimely gorgeous Carey Mulligan as Daisy. I’m sure it will be excessively extravagant Old Sport!!



I am so glad I've moved on from being that pimply kid who stuffed a copy of this classic among the smelly half-eaten sandwiches at the bottom of his school bag, to an old bastard who manages to treasure the experience - so what if it's forty plus years too late!!!

4 Stars