“The Great Gatsby”, published 100 years ago, is regarded as my favorite author, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. It’s been analyzed and idealized by many writers, including me. It’s agreed that the novel was written when F. Scott was at the top of his game, a status I’d love to achieve. It shows
- a confident mastery of his material
- a fascinating, sensational plot
- a charismatic cast of characters
- the nuanced moods and feelings of the above
- a broadly romantic sense of place
It’s a satire of the American dream gone awry.
As stated earlier, this is my favorite book by my favorite author so I’ve written about it before https://www.pjcolando.com/hope-the-light/ nearly eight years ago.
The outsider narrator, Tom Carraway, keeps us removed from the blight of the vacuous, wealthy, and self-destructive main players, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, But he’s not able to save his friend, Jay Gatsby, whose delusional love for Daisy, causes him to take the fall for her – literally. One wonders if Scott Fitzgerald knew people like the main players – perhaps he’s immolating himself and his ultimately crazy wife Zelda, his muse and undoing. A parody of personalities he was uniquely qualified to write.
It’s said that “The Great Gatsby” expresses multiple themes of American literature
- the idealistic values of the Midwes (where the characters are from) vs the delusioned corruption of the East (where the Novel takes place)
- the ultimate American myth of the selfmade man
- the predatory power of rich and beautiful women (not me)
- torpedoing the ideal that ‘love saves all’
- attempts to recapture an innocent past by escaping the materialism of the present
- as well the doomed attempt to sustain the illusions and recapture the American dream
“The Great Gatsby” is a brilliant book.
While I don’t have the literary talent and technical skill to write such a momentous book, I can bask in my adoration of the writer and his opus.
I’m not alone in my veneration. The book has inspired at least four feature films, several TV episodes, an opera, two musicals, and more
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