The Great Gatsby: The Original 1925 Unabridged And Complete Edition (Original Classic Editions)

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Step into the glitz and glamour of the Roaring Twenties with F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful novel, "The Great Gatsby." Immerse yourself in a world of opulence, passion, and shattered dreams as you follow the captivating journey of Jay Gatsby, a man driven by an unrelenting desire to reclaim a lost love.

Set against the backdrop of vibrant New York City, this literary classic takes you on a seductive exploration of the American Dream and the illusions it weaves. Experience the intoxicating allure of Gatsby's legendary parties, where socialites and dreamers mingle, and secrets lurk behind every champagne flute.

Narrated by the keen and observant Nick Carraway, "The Great Gatsby" unveils a society intoxicated by wealth, yet plagued by moral decay. Delve into the lives of unforgettable characters, from the enigmatic and mysterious Gatsby himself to the bewitching Daisy Buchanan and her morally ambiguous husband, Tom. As their lives intertwine, the boundaries between love and obsession blur, leading to a tragic collision of dreams and reality.

Fitzgerald's lyrical prose transports you to an era of excess and longing, where the pursuit of happiness is tainted by a world grappling with its own hollow promises. With its timeless exploration of themes such as love, social class, and the corrupting influence of wealth, "The Great Gatsby" remains an enduring testament to the human condition.

Allow yourself to be swept away by the elegance and tragedy of this literary masterpiece. Discover why "The Great Gatsby" continues to captivate readers and stands as a testament to the power of Fitzgerald's storytelling. Open the pages and embark on a journey that will leave an indelible mark on your heart and mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Original Classic Editions
• Release date: Apr 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9781998114542

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American novelist and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His literature mainly focused on the Jazz Age in the 1920s and The Lost Generation. Best known for his legendary title The Great Gatsby, his other notable works include This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night, and the short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.

Book preview

CHAPTER I

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IN MY YOUNGER and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the creative temperament—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—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.

*  *  *

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, Why—ye-es, with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weatherbeaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

How do you get to West Egg Village? he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Mæcenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the well-rounded man. This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming-pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away; for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came East I don’t know. 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. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final, he seemed to say, just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are. We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

I’ve got a nice place here, he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half-acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore.

It belonged to Demaine, the oil man. He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. We’ll go inside.

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eye she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.

She laughed

Reviews for The Great Gatsby

[chirikosan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Now, this is definitely a book that is best enjoyed when the reader is an adult. I think teenagers would find the plot to meander a bit and get bored with the flowery writing. However, while I personally don't like flowery writing, this book is simply poetic, sublime and hearing Tobey Maguire describe his infatuation for the enigmatic Jay Gatsby in the film just makes me melt.

Many movies based on books are simply not good. Filmmakers either fully change the tone of the story for blatant marketing purposes (The Golden Compass being marketed as a kiddie film or stretching beyond plausibility the Hobbit into 3 insanely long films), or they put plot holes as a consequence of the script getting altered by a throng of so many different screenwriters that never read the book the film is only related to the source material by the title. The film adaptation of this book is simply fabulous and really underrated in my opinion. It captures vividly the story of a group of emotionally and morally vacant rich elite perfectly with the well-chosen casting of Tobey and Leonardo and the film is even better than the book at describing the debauchery and magnificence of Gatsby's weekly parties. I think the only other huge difference between book and films is how the movie paints Tom in a much more positive light and tries to avoid the blatant racism inherent in the book.

If you have seen the film, the book will be easy to follow as we travel through the POV of Nick, a guy from the Midwest from a moderately well-off family who moves to NYC more out of a whim than because of a true need. He rents a suitably described small eyesore house in Long Island nestled next to Gatsby's palace. Nick is a rather strange character: he is both the voice of reason among the superfluous whims of the super-rich socialites he befriended from when he lived in Chicago (among them the violent Tom and his ditzy wife Daisy), and yet he sets the bar low in the morals department for a huge portion of the book. He knows Tom cheats on Daisy (who just happens to be Nick's distant cousin) and Tom punches his mistress for a stupid reason, and doesn't think anything about it.

Moreover, he gushes over the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a sweet and very cunning man who simply has very bad taste in women. Why spend so much money to gain Daisy's love when he could get any woman he ever wanted is probably the central irony of this warped tale where nobody is a hero.

If there is one book that strung with me while reading this one, it would be Vanity Fair. Everyone in that book is a villain or antagonist in varying degrees. If you enjoyed The Great Gatsby, you should give this other great story a chance (just a warning: Vanity Fair is a really long book).

While imperfect (I never understood why Jay's father doesn't sell the gigantic house at the end, I always assumed Jay rented it in the movie but the book it is implied he was the rightful owner of a nice slab of prime real estate), I had a lot of fun reading the book. This author sure knew how to write!

[beauxarts79 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Since my first somewhat bewitched reading, some issues have emerged for me as this novel is concerned. Taken outside the sacrosanctity of its canonical status, it's bedeviled by moments of seemingly contrived profundity, typically signaled through opaque, purple prose. The overt symbolism and the quintessential Americanness of the novel have secured its place on high school reading lists, but it's not nearly as masterful as its reputation suggests.

[drt_4 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Book title and author: Great Gatsby (1925) By F. Scott Fitzgerald reviewed 7-3-23Why I picked this book up: This was the next book in the The Banned Books Compendium: 32 Classic Forbidden Books that I won in the April 2023 LibraryThing early review.Thoughts: This book published in 1925, covers several characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island during the height of the Jazz Age. It's the work for which F. Scott Fitzgerald is often best remembered, and Perfection Learning named it the top American literature title for the classroom. However, the novel has generated controversy over the years. Many groups--particularly religious organizations--have objected to the language, violence, and sexual references and have attempted to have the book banned from public schools over the years. This book was not my favorite. There was a lot of symbolism, had too much violence and too much pretentiousness. Why I finished this read: this had too much violence for me. I felt it was too underhanded, made me sick at times but was short for s single reading so I finished it Stars rating 1.5:of 5

[markm2315 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ridiculously over-rated.

[jonbrammer-788089 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There was an episode ofThe Wire in which, D'angelo Barksdale, in prison for his part in his uncle's drug ring, and refusing to snitch in order to reduce his sentence, discusses The Great Gatsby with the prison book club. His comments about the false nature of Gatsby's rise to affluence, and the facade that he presents to the world in order to fit in with Long Island elites. The quote from Fitzgerald they discuss, that "There are no second acts in American lives," is a concept that D'Angelo struggles with as he tries to imagine a future for himself after prison. Gatsby's death and the absence of mourners at his funeral shows that his attempts to reinvent himself did not make any difference in the world - and that the woman he loved was just as unattainable because the fundamental nature of their characters remained unchanged, regardless of changes in status or geography.

3/6/15 - What happened to Myrtle's dog?

[greeniezona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(this review was originally written for bookslut)When I started reading The Great Gatsby I believed two things: First, that Gatsby was on our 100 best books list, and second, that I had read it before in high school. I now know the first to be untrue and suspect the second. Although there are a great number of books I read in high school that I now only vaguely remember (Wuthering Heights being the other book that I can recall almost nothing of now), I really think I could not have read Gatsby before, as unfamiliar as it is to me now.But really, more importantly, how in the world did The Great Gatsby not end up on our list of books? Jessa just happened to call me shortly after reading it, as I had a list of the 100 books in my hands and had just realized that not only was Gatsby not on *my* list of books to read, but it wasn't on the list at all! Jessa was also shamed by our oversight, but neither of us are at all interested in changing the list now. As much work as it took to make it, I don't want to have to decide which book comes off to make room for it!So how about I just tell you what I thought of the book, as if I were reviewing it for the list anyway? By now, everyone should know the basic plot: Gatsby, a tremendously rich man, is terribly and secretly in love with Daisy, who is married and lives across the harbour on Long Island. The story is told from the point of view of Nick, Gatsby's neighbor and Daisy's distant cousin, who of course gets deeply enmeshed in the whole affair.Now this is a book to read slowly, which is difficult to do as it is so short and the temptation to race through it is overwhelming. (Especially if you do most of your reading, as I do, sitting in a chair facing a wall of unread and accusatory books.) However if you don't read it slowly, you'll regret it, as it will all race by far too quickly, you'll be left wanting more, and the only thing to do for it will be to read it again. Which I would do, if I were not already knee-deep in The Plague, which actually is on the list even though it is not nearly as enjoyable as Gatsby.The Great Gatsby is ultimately a tragedy, a beautifully wrought tragedy. It paints a not too flattering picture of the American Dream through a story as layered as it is simple, as off-putting as it is charming. It is one of those rare books that stays with you after you have put it down. I find that I am warming to it even now, becoming more fond of the characters, appreciating the storyline more.... Yes, I do think I will read this book again before the summer is over.The Great Gatsby is an American classic. If no one made you read it in high school (or if they did, and you can't remember it anyway), you should go read it now. If you do, look for the authorized text, which corrects some annoying mistakes in previous versions. And please, above all, read it slowly.

[therebelprince · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Scott Fitzgerald is not a literary writer. He's the king of what I call faux-literature: fill your bowl with plot, add a dash of panache, a cup of nostalgia, three whiffs of yearning, and a drop of insight, and ice it with some fruity prose. Bang, you're done.

But people love him. And who am I to stop the people from having their fun? Like many young people, I adored Gatsby on first reading it during my 17th year. Its exquisite art deco finishing, its sublime sense of pathos, its richness without being threatening like all those disturbing Modernists... Of course, with each passing year, my appreciation of its values lessens, but my appreciation of that feeling remains strong. And perhaps that's the real secret of Gatsby? Like so many folk tales, we can never disassociate the book from the way it drew out our youthful sense of envy, of pain, of ambition, and ultimately of loss. This novel lives within me, and within so many, even though it no longer forms a conscious part of how I view the world. (And say what you will about him; few people have written a closing paragraph as perfect as what Fitzgerald does here.)

A towering piece of 20th century American fiction, nevertheless.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Whew! This was one of the San Diego Public Library's read-alongs., and what a great choice! What good writing. Is this The Great American Novel? Is there such a thing? Anyhow, there's lots and lots to think about afterwards and that's the mark of a book worth reading.

For some reason I apparently reported to GR that I read it a year ago, but I sure don't remember doing it. And the ending took me completely by surprise. Deleted the earlier reference.

[spiritedstardust · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

For such a short book it took me a while to read. Although the writing was occasionally quite picturesque it also seemed to be as thick as mud; I'd have to re-read a paragraph to understand what it was actually about and what it contributed to the story. Most of the book was just drivel and fillers.

In terms of the characters, I found none of them interesting and all of them completely devoid of 'realness'.

Nothing really seemed to happen in the story until the final third. Even then the 'major' events didn't really seem to make much difference to the characters, they all just got on with their lives like nothing happened, and Caraway, who knew everything, said nothing and did the same.

I'm not eve really sure what the point of this novel is...

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Could have sworn I read this one ages ago but suspect I watched the movie. A treat.

[chris.wolak · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've read Gatsby three times now and it gets a little better with each reading.

[david_fosco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Shakespeare like story of love and tragedy.

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the second time I have read this book and like it better. I mean I liked the book when I read it in high school, but after I saw the Baz Luhrmann movie I had to reread the book. Now, I'm in love with the whole thing again. The first time I read the book I got OBSESSED with the Jazz Age, but reading it a second time I really fell in love with the writing.

The book nails it with descriptions and dialogue. The way the characters talk is so crisp you can almost hear they way they talk as you read the book. Even hearing Gatsby say "old sport" over and over just fits his character so well. Color is another huge importance to this book too. This book isn't just black and white, but it's filled with all the colors of the rainbow. Take Daisy's name for instance, she looks pure on the outside, but she's a coward on the inside and supported by money.

Most of the book I remembered and not even from the movie. Yes the newer movie follows the book really will, word for word almost, but that's not how I remembered the book. In high school we drew storyboards for each section we had to read and that helped me remember the plot of the book. However, this time around I read this in two days and could have been one day if I was focused. Thank God there's no easy for me to write now.

If you are looking to read this book or reread this book, like me, I highly recommend this book in the summer. There really is no other time to read it. It set the mood for a summer afternoon to summer evening perfectly. I can see why this is one of the most important books for Americans to read. There's something very magical about the Great Gatsby.

[benkaboo-51322 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summary: Great little book about a dreamer who doesn't give up.

Things I liked:

The writing is beautiful.
The story is succinct and efficient.

Things I thought could be improved:

No idea. I enjoyed it from start to finish.

Highlight:

The first time Nick sees Gatsby almost made me cry it was so beautiful. I got chills.

[incognito_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Admittedly not a bad book, but oh! I just want to slap everyone upside the head - some repeatedly.

[lunarsong · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It’s great, if you want to be slapped in the face with symbolism so glaringly obvious that comes off as patronizing, shallow, overly-simplistic, and trite. I found absolutely nothing interesting or redeeming about this book. I honestly have no idea why it’s considered so great. It’s certainly not an example of symbolism done right. It’s an example of symbolism so obvious it’s impossible to miss.

[angelalam-300700 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like this book when I first read it in high school. Twenty years later, the book makes sense. It's understandable. And it's amazing.

I can relate to the characters: the human foibles and weaknesses, the passions that drive people to become victim to a dream, and the ruthlessness of people who have or don't have money.

What a difference a book can make in the expanse of twenty years...

[kevn57-163679 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well it's a classic for a reason, no need to review just let me say that if you haven't read it you really should just to see what a great writer Fitzgerald was. The movie was good but you miss the language that Fitzgerald uses to tell the story. Also really timely as we see rich folks doing whatever pleases them no matter the cost.

[jorgeousjotts · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first found the language superfluous, but after a bit found it to be lovely. =P I'll have to watch the Redford and DiCaprio versions now that I've read it.

[akbouterse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Edit 5/2/2020
You can still read my original review below but I just wanted to add this the review because I recently spent a whole semester at my university analyzing this book as a part of a multidisciplinary program. We went to a ballet adaptation of the novel, toured St. Paul to see where Fitzgerald grew up, saw and analyzed many different movie adaptations, including an opera version, as well as learn about an off-broadway play adaptation. This program really gave me a new appreciation of a classic that I already enjoyed and I think really demonstrated to me why this book has been a part of high school literature classes and required reading for so long and how prescient it was, both in it’s time and in how it relates to now in our post-2008 funicular crisis world. I know this book isn’t for everyone but I really want to encourage people to pick this us and really think about what this book is saying and how it’s themes still continue to affect all of our lives.

————————————————————————

I genuinely enjoyed this book a lot. I still haven't read a lot of classics and I'm working to change that. This book was written so eloquently all while still delivering an incredibly powerful message about wealth and greed and what can become of obsession and centering your life entirely around another person. It's really incredible that Fitzgerald didn't know the Great Depression was coming when he wrote this novel because he delivers such a strong critique on the focus of society that would lead to the Great Depression. I don't think this book is hopeless however. I don't like that the movie cut out the fact that gatsbys father shows up at his funeral because I think it is a critical part of the message of the novel. Over all I think this book is incredible and has a very important message.

[nosborm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poignant. Beautiful language. I can see why it's a classic. A surprising story. I don't know how I hadn't read it before.

[completely_melanie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I went into this with really low expectations based on what a lot of people told me about the book, but it wasn't as bad as I was led to believe. It wasn't amazing either, but it was ok.

[librolindsay · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I never got into this book...perhaps I read it too late. Even a dapper young Robert Redford couldn't sway me. Eh.

[dzejncrvena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First part was very slow for me.
It got interesting when he visited his cousin.
Wanna know why?
Read it yourself.

[maryreinert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Each time I read this, I wonder why it's a classic, but then again, it is a complicated plot with believable characters and the setting seems a part of the story. Yet???

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had read this book many years ago but when I saw it was available as an audiobook download from my public library I thought it was worth a listen. I enjoyed it more this time around than the first time. Perhaps I've become more receptive to Fitzgerald's writing or perhaps the audio presentation suited the format better. I would recommend this audio verson whether you are a Fitzgerald fan or not or just never read any of his works.The story is told by Nick Carroway, a young man working in Manhattan but living on Long Island. His next door neighbour is the wealthy Jay Gatsby. Nick's cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom also live on Long Island. Daisy invites Nick to dinner where he meets Daisy's friend, Jordan Baker. Jordan tells him that Tom has a mistress who phones him at home during the dinner. Nick gets a chance to meet the mistress, Myrtle, and attends a party in New York with Tom and Myrtle. He then gets invited to a party at Gatsby's mansion and is soon hobnobbing with Gatsby. He learns that Gatsby and Daisy fell in love before the war but Gatsby was poor then. He went to fight in Europe and Daisy married Tom Buchanan. Now that Gatsby is rich he hopes to convince Daisy to leave Tom and he talks Nick into setting up a reunion. The resulting affair gives Gatsby hope that Daisy will leave Tom but when Tom confronts them Daisy won't choose between them. While driving back to Long Island Gatsby's car hits Myrtle, killing her instantly. When Nick finds Gatsby later that night he learns that it was Daisy driving but Gatsby is going to take the blame. If he thinks that this will cause Daisy to choose him he is about to be disappointed because Daisy and Tom leave town to return to the Midwest. Gatsby is killed by Myrtle's husband and none of the people who came to his parties can be bothered to attend his funeral.As a portrayal of the 1920s this book is really an historical novel now although, of course, it was contemporary at the time it was written. Perhaps that is why the book gained in popularity many years after it was first published in 1925. When Fitzgerald died in 1940 he believed that he was ultimately unsuccessful as a novelist but he is now read widely. This particular book has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times.

[allison_krajewski-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”I read this in high school, and then again in college, and saw the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio when it came out, and here are the only things I remembered before picking up this book:- a flashing green light- creepy eyes- mint julepsWhen I saw this new audiobook version, I decided this classic deserved another reread, specifically for the narrator, Samwise Gamgee - I mean, Sean Astin - as I received a copy of this audiobook from NetGalley. Overall, I liked his voice and style. Sean Astin was not a bad narrator. I liked his portrayal of Nick Carroway, the "guy-next-door". He added this sincerity to Nick's voice that was reminiscent of Sam in LOTR. While I overall liked his narration style, sometimes the delivery felt a little stilted, and it did detract from the story a bit.Even though the story is nearly 100 years old, it holds up relatively well, at least in overall message -- the desire to achieve the American dream. Rereading the audiobook was a nice change, though part of me wanted to reread a physical copy so I could notate all of the great quotes and symbolism like I was in tenth-grade English class again...Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

[equestrienne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book when I was 12 and have re-read it once a year every year since then, so I calculate that I have read it about three dozen times. I never get tired of it; the writing is superb. To me, it is simply the tale of the events of one summer in the 1920's, told from the viewpoint of Nick Carraway. This book has a few very wise observations on human nature. My favorite sub-theme in this novel is the transplanted-Midwesterner-in-New York; Carraway mentions that Tom, Daisy, Jordon, Gatsby and himself have all migrated from the great heartland. I can't help but thinking that Fitzgerald thought that this was a key factor for all the characters and their actions and reactions. After Memorial Day (this book is a summertime book, I can't read it in the winter) I will track this book down, get it out and enjoy it again.

[bbbart-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think The Great Gatsby is an amazing book. I put off reading it for a long time since I did not enjoy the movie with DiCaprio so much and due to my complete unfamiliarity with 20th-century American literature, I guess.

I found Fitzgeralds work extremely compelling, very dense and written in beautiful prose. I was especially amazed to find dialogue descriptions that were almost - dare I say it? - Dostoyevskian in style and pace.

The description of the early 20th century (upper class) life in New York was also fun to read and compare with the similar time period from Agatha Christies' English backdrops.

A wonderful read on so many levels, greatly recommended!

[payday1999-430350 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I remember reading this in High School and from memory I remember that it was a pretty good book. It is definitely a classic and people should read it.