"So We Drove On toward Death in the Cooling Twilight"

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	• The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald Scribner, 1999 - 180 pages average customer review:based on 1123 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"So We Drove On toward Death in the Cooling Twilight"

The main story -- a romantic man's doomed attempt to recapture the love of an immature woman -- was less enthralling than expected. Daisy seemed hardly worth all the trouble Gatsby took, and for that matter, neither did entry into her world. She was a cipher. The use of a narrator to connect the various characters was interesting; how could the book have been written otherwise? But at times the plot felt contrived, as with the switching of cars and an accident, and the symbolism around the valley of ashes seemed heavy-handed. Other than the passive narrator, the people lacked even a small degree of self-awareness. The one who seemed the least conflicted and most sure of himself was the brutal, self-centered Tom.

It was the lesser details in this novel that were enjoyed most. A montage at the end of the second chapter in which the drunken narrator moved from an elevator, to a bedroom, to Penn Station. How Gatsby's smile affected those who saw it. A mansion housing a library of books with their pages uncut. The vapidity of a man who tried to act out his limited idea of the good life but had little of interest to say and thought San Francisco was in the Middle West. Dogged efforts at self-improvement linked to shallow goals. A shady character eating with "ferocious delicacy." The way Daisy conveyed her love for a character in just a few words said lightly in front of her husband. The class disdain someone like Tom felt for the main character -- he couldn't be an Oxford man because he wore a pink suit. The gust of hot shrubbery from Central Park wafting through the upper windows of the Plaza Hotel. The author's description of how it felt to reach 30. And the concluding paragraphs, which can still move despite the superficiality of the people portrayed.

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Simply the Greatest Novel Ever Written

Simply the Greatest novel ever written. Long before the hamptons and hedge funders...Fitzgerald captured summer on long island: a story of love amongst those who are rich and those who want to be rich, mix in sunshine, sand, water and some rum. Still going on nearly 100 years later.

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Breathtaking

It has been a while since I read a book in one sitting. It has also been a while since I first read "The Great Gatsby". Since then, I read articles and saw movies about F. Scott Fotzgerald and his wife Zelda. It is hard not to draw some similarities between Fitzgerald's best work and the way his own life ended. Without going thru the plot, this is all american story about difference between old money and new money. Not all rich are created equal. It is also a story of obsessive love that will not let go. Can a man love so much that getting rich in order to be close to the woman of his dreams can consume his entire life? How much does it take for a person to understand that one cannot live in the past? Love story is set in it's moment, time and place. Once any one of the components is not there, love is not the same or there is none at all left. And then of course, there is pure love and there is recklessness - way of using people and there emotions as means of reassuring ourselves - with always disasterous outcomes. This book talks about all of that in a way that feels like being said in one breath. Storytelling is so compelling and language so beautiful, you cannot put this book down until you are finished reading it.

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In his introduction, Harold Bloom states that The Great Gatsby "has become part of what must be called the American mythology." This volume offers a complete critical survey of the novel, including examinations of its structure and narrative stance, redefining of the hero, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts presents critical essays that reflect a variety of schools of criticism on the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature. Each volume also contains an introductory essay by Harold Bloom, critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index.

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