About the Book:
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
My Review:
3/5 stars. I had to read this book for school, but I didn’t like it that much. A lot happened in a short amount of time, so I wouldn’t say it was boring. I just wasn’t entertained by all the drama. Everyone was just cheating on each other and no one learned from their actions.
Classics are hit or miss for me. Classics I've had to read for school, like Of Mice and Men and now this, I haven't particularly enjoyed. Some classics, though, like Little Women, I love.
While I didn't like the book itself that much, I liked some of the discussions it sparked in class and I found specific parts of it that were really interesting to focus on. For example, I enjoyed the role as the passive, neutral narrator that Fitzgerald gave to Nick Carraway. For the majority of the book, Nick never did anything by himself or furthered the plot in any way. Almost every line of dialogue Nick had was either observational or reactionary. Besides him encouraging Gatsby to be alone with Daisy, Nick didn't do anything to move the story along. He was always just there while everything was happening around him. I thought that was a cool narrative choice.
As for the main plot, though, it was mostly just everyone cheating on each other without consequences. Tom was cheating on Daisy and then later Daisy was cheating on him with Gatsby, but at the end of the book it seemed like their relationship was perfectly fine again.
The characters in this book were either unlikable or uninteresting. Tom was the worst - he was racist, kind of sexist, and a bad husband. At the end of the book, a couple of Gatsby's "friends" were jerks when they didn't come to his funeral. Characters like Daisy and Jordan Baker were bland and not characterized much. As he's the titular character, it makes sense that Gatsby is the most characterized. After him, though, I actually think Nick has the most characterization. Despite him being a neutral observer, we learn about his personality through his reactions and observations.
There was probably a lot of symbolism and hidden themes in this book that might make it more enjoyable if you understand it, but I'm not very good at finding that kind of symbolic stuff. The most symbolism I gathered was about the green light on the last page. I thought that symbolized the ambition and goals Gatsby had; he could always see it across the horizon as something to reach for.
The last line of this book is often praised, and I do agree that it sounds very pretty and poetic.
Content Warning
There was a ton of drinking and smoking, as was the norm for the time period, though. A big part of the plot was people cheating on each other. There were a few times where kisses were written about, but there was nothing beyond that and they weren't described. Stuff beyond kissing is possibly implied but never shown. There is some mild language, but nothing awful - d**n and one instance of son-of-a-b**ch.
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