Product Details
- Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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- Binding: Paperback
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- Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
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- EAN: 9780743273565
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- ISBN: 0743273567
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- Label: Scribner
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- Language: English
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- Manufacturer: Scribner
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Number of Pages: 180
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- Product Group: Book
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- Publication Date: 1999-09-30
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- Publisher: Scribner
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- Studio: Scribner
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- Title: The Great Gatsby
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.
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Customer Reviews
Beautifully written, but I still don't particularly like the story
I read this book because I'm trying to read a lot of the classics on the various "Top 100" book lists floating around out there. This book is on most of the lists so I added it to my list of books to read. Having never seen a movie adaptation either, I knew absolutely nothing about the story before I read it. I recognize that this book is beautifully written. I was amazed at the way Fitzgerald created art with words. However, the story itself did nothing for me. I realize that it was a story about shallow people living shallow lives but I finished it with the thought "Is that all there is?" I wanted somebody to get some comeuppence or something. I'll rate it a four for the art of the words alone.
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Great writing that didn't Sweep me Away
This is not a bad book but it doesn't have the compelling story to me. I found the author very capable of crafting words, but I did not sense a "I can't wait to know" moments. Of course like all classics you have to over look the vernacular. The author also used a few words that I was not familiar with. This would make this book better for a more sophisticated reader. I am interested in reading other reviews by more learned people to see just how much I might of missed.
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Classic romance and tale of a man who isn't exactly what he seems
Set in the Roarin' Twenties, this unforgetable classic is a romance as well as the story of Jay Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald told the story in a unique way, through the voice of Nick Carraway, an impartial aquaintace of both Gatsby and Daisy.
Details of the golden era come alive in vivid descriptions of fashion, music, and decor, carrying the reader back to a time of bootleg liquor and the newly invented automobile. Jay Gatsby lives in a luxurious mansion. He sometimes stands on the beach in his backyard gazing across the water at a green light marking the home Daisy Buchanan, the love of his life who is, unfortuately, married to someone else. Daisy's two-timing husband Tom is not impressed with Mr. Gatsby.
As the tale unfolds, we see that Jay Gatsby is quite a different man than the most people think. Beautifully written, I highly recommend this classic romance.
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Classic
Deceptively simple...beautiful language, memorable story and characters, many layers...i've read this three times. very quick, enjoyable read. learn something new every time.
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An American Classic and Great Read
The Great Gatsby is a book that you will appreciate for a long time after your done with it. I couldn't put it down from the second I started reading it. The characters are finely crafted and the storyline a hit as you meet Nick and Gatsby and the different lives they lead until one day they are both wonderfully and tragically intertwined. I found myself saddened to both the book ending and the outcome of the story but I have a greater respect for both F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920's because of reading it.
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