The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Nick Carraway is a midwesterner who moves to Long Island in the midst of the Jazz age of the 1920's. His small home abuts the mansion of Jay Gatsby, a vague rich man who throws party that all of New York society attends. Nick is the narrator of the tale of Gatsby as it unfolds.

Nick is from a wealthy family but is on the edge of New York Society. He knows Tom and Daisy Buchanan from Chicago, meets Jordan Baker, and slowly learns the story of yearning for love and status of the people in the society. Gatsby is nouveau riches and his parties attract practically everyone. Tom Buchanan is rough and opinionated and at the height of society. When the two finally meet their lives will be changed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby over 80 years ago in the midst of the roaring '20s. It was a time of prohibition and excesses. He captures the era eloquently in The Great Gatsby. This tragic romance frames the conundrums of the era - the alcohol in spite of Prohibition, sexual promiscuity and the sanctity of marriage, the pursuit of wealth just to impress, the underworld kingpins of the 1920's, the white supremist attitudes that reigned in the North, greed, and other themes that still resonate today.

This is considered Fitzgerald's best work. It's amazing how much of it applies to today's attitudes. The types of prejudices change and the flaunting of wealth and sexual mores change, but it's the same now as then. People remain the same with different knowledge and technology. Carraway's outside obervations give the extra poignancy needed to have the reader identify with Gatsby's dreams and reality.

I readily admit I have avoided reading this novel. I don't remember why I first developed an aversion, but decided a few decades ago I wouldn't read this. That prejudice remained until recently when I finally picked it up to a strange set circumstances. Now I'll eat my words. I don't know what I expected, but I was proved wrong. This book is one to read to understand people, their emotions, and their priorities. Using Carraway as the first person narrator/observer makes this book personal without dragging the participants' emotions in the reader's face.

This is one of those novels that doesn't suck you in and never quite gets great, yet doesn't let you go and remains compelling. This is a good human study.

Notice: Suggestive dialogue or situations

Before Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald