svnh's Reviews > The Great Gatsby

Violently negative? Really? I think his writing is usually very predictable, boring and filled with uninteresting details that don't drive the story in any way.

Violently negative you certainly were. If Scott Fitzgerald's writing is "predictable, boring and filled with uninteresting details", as you claim, that does NOT justify the abusive language you used. Prompted by me, you made three criticisms of his writing, one of which is that the writing is "boring". "Boring" is a highly subjective word to use and often one employed by someone to decry something which he or she does not understand. It is the typical reaction of someone who is confronted by something above them. I have read "The Great Gatsby" and long ago "Tender is the Night" -I do not recall "uninteresting" (another subjective description) "details that don't drive the story in any way". Depends how you look at it-you could say that about "A la Recherche du temps perdu" with a vengeance but it would be missing the point. Your comments might have some validity to them but unless you are prepared to flesh them out with references to passages in the works, your comments on Fitzgerald appear abusive, childish and arrogant.

Siera wrote: "I absolutely love this review, by the way. I know you wrote this a long time ago, but this is a disgusting love story full of lies, selfishness, and superficiality. Thank you."

In what way is the love story "disgusting"?

Esdaile wrote: "Violently negative you certainly were. If Scott Fitzgerald's writing is "predictable, boring and filled with uninteresting details", as you claim, that does NOT justify the abusive language you use..."

Sorry I don't carry around his works to copy passages for people, since his writing is not very good, I would give away any of his books, had I bought them.

Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "I absolutely love this review, by the way. I know you wrote this a long time ago, but this is a disgusting love story full of lies, selfishness, and superficiality. Thank you."

In wh..."

Mostly because none of the parties involved are in any way faithful. To me that is disgusting.

Siera wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "I absolutely love this review, by the way. I know you wrote this a long time ago, but this is a disgusting love story full of lies, selfishness, and superficiality. Th..."

Now I understand you better, but Gatsby himself is hopelessly and entirely faithful to his first love isn't he?

I actually like Gatsby. Those other characters, aside from the narrator, are terrible human beings.

Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "I absolutely love this review, by the way. I know you wrote this a long time ago, but this is a disgusting love story full of lies, selfishness, and supe..."

It's true - I'm not saying Gatsby himself is disgusting, it's just hard to have a sweet love story when one of the parties is shallow and unfaithful to at least one man, and the other is helping her be, and doesn't really see her clearly. But you have a good point - his devotion is commendable.

I agree!

Siera wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Siera wrote: "I absolutely love this review, by the way. I know you wrote this a long time ago, but this is a disgusting love story full of lies, selfi..."

I don't see a problem with Daisy being unfaithful to her husband, since he was already cheating on her.

I too really disliked this book. I found it a bit too tedious and the characters were corrupt and confusing to understand.

This book has little to no substance. I honestly have no idea why it's so widely acclaimed. I agree with your stance on it.

What's up with all the ladies dissin the Gatsby? I always pretend I'm Nick when I read it. Perhaps I'll read it from a female perspective.

I think it is pretty good, he has nice style and rhetoric, i can agree with the hot headed 21 yo that it was kind disconnect, i mean i didn't grow up in the 20's either and i don't really want to hear about how everybody could get drunk and there never seemed to be consequence. On the matter of making an 8th grader read it, I say no. I am in my final months of High School in the highest English class offered, I don't get all of the references; to an audience of my younger self, that would just piss me off. And that is all I have to say about that.

The point of writing a novel is to convey some sort of truth in some way. Making characters "likable" as opposed to realistic and human is a practice that only serves to dilute the truth the novel is meant to convey.

I completely agree with the original review! I find this book to be boring and pointless! I do not see what so many others see, a "landmark" of a novel, that speaks so truthfully to a generation? Blah blah blah.
It's about whiny, rich, white people who are restless in their sedentary lives.
They are releasing a remake of the movie and after watching the trailer I am convinced: it will also be about NOTHING.

Yes Huston, having 3 motion pictures about Gatsby, a remake with Leonardo Di Caprio sure is NOTTHING. Awkward opinion from a George Martin fan according to "boredom". Its strange how a person can write 6k + pages of Notthing and gain such a huge fan base. But yes, Fitzerald novels goes a little beyond George Martin, mb thats why it's difficult for you to comprehend.

In general no one gives a nickle about your opinion.

Is there any way to unssubscribe from this review?

After reading this book, I couldn't believe that it is considered a "classic". A classic piece of crap is what it is!! I couldn't agree with your review any more... I love to read and have read all kinds of different books. I even made it all the way through "Crime & Punishment", which was a bit confusing and dark at times, at least it was interesting and enjoyable. Gatsby has none of it... I absolutely hated it

Cause Stevie King is "classic"...

It's Ok not to like things. I did not like Ulysses, Midnight's Children, Wolf Hall, Vernon God Little, Cloud Atlas and many other books. it does not matter that we don't like stories. And I don't think we have to justify not liking something. I am re-reading Gatsby after about 30 years and i am loving it. But the first time I read it it made such an impression on me that I cld barely remember anything about it.

I'm currently reading this book and having just read your review, I don't feel half as bad for not loving it as much as everyone tells me they do! As I read, I just continue to get more uninterested. Perhaps it's just not for me!

This is a facinating debate. I have no problem with anyone not liking a book, picture, band at all.

I have re-read The Great Gatsby carefully and written a review based mostly on the language. It is on my blog if anyone is interested.

It is the view of an English poet who finds pleasure in fine wording. I underscored about 240 passaged in Gatsby that won my eye. I have not listed them or anything like that but have put my back into making as interesting and insightful comment on the work.

Check it out. See what you think. Tell me. I can take it. If you still hate the story, tell me why.

I think there is a stong case in favour of the book. I didn not set out to make it when I reviewed it, but merely to suck the marrow from the bones of its genius.

It is an astonishingly sensitive book and an astonishingly bitter book also.

There are two passages of outrageous anti-semitism in it also.

I also think the core argument in the story, between the lying, dreamer who deludes himself and the brutal hypocrytical realist is a universal issue.

So there is much to be had from the story which is not just about a period in American history.

The review is on my blog here if you are interested.

And I would never, never, never argue with a reader who says of any book, poem, play or whatever, 'Perhaps it's just not for me'.

Here's the link to the review if you are interested

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

Cheers, Old Sport!

R.J. wrote: "This is a facinating debate. I have no problem with anyone not liking a book, picture, band at all.

I have re-read The Great Gatsby carefully and written a review based mostly on the language..."

I agree with you about not arguing with people who have a subjective reaction, unless one thinks they are missing something which they could appreciate if they were older, or were familiar with a background or whatever.

I do not recall the anti-semitism. Do you mean of the author or of one of the characters in the book?

There are two passages in the book where Gatsby's business partner, Wolfshiem, is described in very unflattering terms. The first is in Chapter 4 - Gatsby's dream is being unravelled now after the pomp of Chapter 3 and this brutal description feels to me like a part of that unravelling: "A small flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair withch luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half-darkness." This is an astonishingly offensive passage. Wolfshiem features again in Chapter 9 where we are told the name on his place of business is - I found this staggering -'The Swastica Holding Company'. Wolfshiem refuses to have anything to do with Gatsby in death, refuses to go to his funeral, at which point F.Scott Fitzgerald writes: "The hair in his nostrils quivered slightly, and as he shook his head his eyes filled with tears." My guess is that he was using the figure of Wolfshiem in some way to show the brutality of the real, business world. But in doing so he, F.Scott Fitzgerald, also shows a certain brutality in his own soul. But then his story does pitch into some very dark places as The Great Gatsby's delusional state unravels and ends in death, disillusionment, retreat and a sense of the defeat with the last words of the story being: "So we beat on, boats agains the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Thanks for pointing these passages out, I could not remember the first one at all. I must go back and check. It goes to show that when we think we have read a book because we have read it just once or even twice we may not have read it completely after all, especially if it is a good book. I find the description you qoute lurid more than offensive-everyobody seems to find anti-semitism per se offensive these days, which leaves not much room for differentiating between degrees of anti-semitism. "Regarded me with two growths of hair out of either nostril" is singularly bizarre. Before I comment further I shall have to go back to the book again and I am trying to read so much at the rpesent I do not know when that will be but thanks very much for pointing out the passages.

I think you are missing the point of the novel and should reread it. The point of the book is not the love story its Gatsby's story. This man lived his life for his past and his future and never for the present. Daisy is somewhat the opposite and also lives a miserable existence. I also don't think you are supposed to love the characters, they are all a bit messed up in their on way and that is also very intentional. In addition to all the social commentary of the story, it is also brilliantly written.

My people!!! You exist!!! Hooray!!!!

Esdaile wrote: "Thanks for pointing these passages out, I could not remember the first one at all. I must go back and check. It goes to show that when we think we have read a book because we have read it just once..."
I agree on how we can read a story and then find we have missed half of it when we re-read it. I found this when I was helping one of my kids who had to read Lord of the Flies for an exam. I was shocked at how much I had missed on the first read. I got tons more from the book on 2nd read. I also think that re-reading at different times in out life can deterrmine what we get from a book. I hadn't read Gatsby for years and it was like reading the book anew. I agree on the degrees point, too. Also FSF was writing before the dark events of WW2. I sense he was trying to make some point about the faithlessness of materialism, capitalism, realism, etc. Maybe the dabs remind us of The Merchant of Venice, a play which some find too difficult to watch now. That said Meinsheim is not a key character in Gatsby and is only referred to in a couple of places. Maybe FSF was just reflecting something of his time there.

Sarah wrote: "I think you are missing the point of the novel and should reread it. The point of the book is not the love story its Gatsby's story. This man lived his live for his past and his future and never f..." I agree it is about Gatsby's delusions. There is no love in how he manipulates Daisy. She seems like a key to the promised land of honey and money, the american dream made real. Maybe he did love her the first time round and maybe his delusion, in which she is elevated to a goddess figure, is a sort of shadow of ghost of what love there was previously. And I don't think it matters that we don't like or love the characters. The point is, as you say, that they are brilliantly drawn. That said, I do identify with Gatsby at least creativily because I am living a delusional life in which my story Watching Swifts sells a zillion copies and wafts me into some magical world of airy success. The realist in me says that this is nuts. But the romantic persists with the dream. FSF solves the prob for Gatsby by getting him killed off by a guy who is hardly alive, had no dreams. This is tragic, not because we love Gatsby, but because it is prosaic life killing off poetic life. Now then, as I am firmly on the poetic side of life, I clearly find this deeply depressing. We need delusional people. Most will never achieve their aims. Some will prove seriously unhinged and dangerous. But it is from the pool of delusionality that creative ideas spring, some of which will make it into new products or, dare I dream it, successful stories.

Dawn wrote: "My people!!! You exist!!! Hooray!!!!"

See what you've started! Bravo!

R.J. wrote: "Dawn wrote: "My people!!! You exist!!! Hooray!!!!"

See what you've started! Bravo!"

iM gonna repost this, just one more time:
The Book goes a little beyond Harry Potter, George Martin and Stevie King. Maybe thats why its difficult for some people to comprehend.....

R.J. wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I think you are missing the point of the novel and should reread it. The point of the book is not the love story its Gatsby's story. This man lived his live for his past and his futu..."

I think it was in another of his novels ("Tender is the Night"?) that Scott Fitzgerald via the main protagonistm states that the Great War was a war fired by intense disilluioning romanticism.

Esdaile wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I think you are missing the point of the novel and should reread it. The point of the book is not the love story its Gatsby's story. This man lived his live for his past..."

Ach, romanticism is an ambivalent force. Too much of it and we head off on viking quests to conquor Russia. Not enough and we become dull 'consmers' or 'units of production' or 'human resources' in the great materialism which seems to worships efficience and the god of Gross Domestic Production. As a poet, I will always be drawn to intellectual romanticism. Reason is a little on the limited side for some of us. But we have to be careful that we do not lose sight of the practical, too. I believe Byron said, 'one can't be rhapsodically in love all the time - when would one shave?' The arch pragmatist!

Just so ya know... I also hate this book

The old story is key here: I had to read it for school...gatsby is one of my favorites, but when young adolescents are told to read it (or any book) the seeds of dislike are sown. My opinion is that it would be well nigh impossible to like/appreciate this book until one has had some life experiences...

Michael wrote: "The old story is key here: I had to read it for school...gatsby is one of my favorites, but when young adolescents are told to read it (or any book) the seeds of dislike are sown. My opinion is tha..."

I agree up mto a point but I think it is also true that these days many young adolescents are so spoilt that they expect to be spoon fed with everything including pleasure from reading, and decline anything which may require effort on their part. If they are given a book to read then they should still give the book a try. In my opinion, condescending to the feelings of young people is a cause of many social ills-always thinking that young people are cool and having to take their sensitive feelings into account, always kow-towing to the feelings of the young and opinionated and paying such feelings a higher tribute than they deserve. If someone is given "The Great Gatsby" as a set book, that is not the book's fault and not Scott Fitzgerald's! For someone to subsequently claim that he/she doesn't like the book "because I was made to read it at school" sounds to me like a pretext: "I was too stupid/lazy" to understand it properly. If the book is overestimated, and perhaps it is, then a person should present their case for claiming it is and if they do so, their experienc eof school is irrelevant to whether the book is overrated or not.

You called yourself during this review an egoist; I would classify myself more along those lines than the elitist, inherited, entitled characters in the novel. Even though I did not per say connect with the characters statuses, etc. I found that to be wholly the point. I had a professor last year who challenged us to read a novel where we don't relate or identify with it -- After all, it's in those instances we learn and grow for better or for worse.

Food for thought but I disagree. I doubt it is possible to appreciate or enjoy a novel with which one cannot identify in any way. Maybe the learning or growing which you talk about is a sign of new or undiscovered recognition or association-discovering a part of onesself which one did not know existed.

I think syntax may be getting in the way. I think one must be able to understand (whether you empathize or not), but not to personally identify with a novel, its characters or situations in order to appreciate it. Some people lack the ability to draw parallels. Others can do nothing but. Some can but don't. That's not something that I believe to be important. It's only in understanding the what associated with the why or how of a character or situation (or both) that is important....and that I think of as distinct from identifying.

The teenage me would agree with you 100%, but when I read it again in my 30s I connected with it (and Jay Gatsby) and all the characters have rolled around in my mind ever since. It is always subjective...we bring ourselves and our experiences along for the ride. Read it again in about 10 years and let us know how you feel then. Oh, and I still cannot stand Daisy.

I feel sorry for you. this book is tragic and above all else, shows the sad truth about human nature before its time. a book wasted on you.

Alexandra wrote: "I feel sorry for you. this book is tragic and above all else, shows the sad truth about human nature before its time. a book wasted on you."

That comment, Alexandra, was not necessarily in good nature. She had a rational reaction to the book. Not my own, nor yours it would seem rather apparent, though it is not deserving of pity. There's nothing to be sorry for. She doesn't relate. So be it. You did. She read it, and seems she will read it again. That's more than anyone else who has not read it or chose not to read it when required.

Razael wrote: "R.J. wrote: "Dawn wrote: "My people!!! You exist!!! Hooray!!!!"

See what you've started! Bravo!"

iM gonna repost this, just one more time:
The Book goes a little beyond Harry Potter, George Mart..."

That's a bit hypocritical coming from someone who has Percy Jackson and the Book of Mormon on their favourites list. :)
(Huh, on the other side, that's kind of annoying, isn't it?)

Percy > Harry, Mormons > Song for Fire and ice

Heya! Nice to comment...you. So, this story for me fills a great need. And that is to understand jerks. I don't like any one of the characters. Because everyone in this story is self centered. I see this as genius on Fitzgerald's part. He wrote about the most noxious group of people and let us into their private me fests. I got to see why self centeredness works, and ultimately doesn't work, in society. Everything is fake, and to see the fluff that makes fake flies astounds me. Intricate and truly unfortunate.

The book is about the great deception that is the American Dream, about how it's all an illusion. That's it. That's the message.

Currently reading this book, and I agree partly with some of your comments about this book.

Matt wrote: "Bravo. 'The Great Gatsby' is largely crap, and I consider suspect the tastes of anyone that thinks otherwise.

It's popularity is I think the convergence of HS school students feeling relief at ge..."

100% agree Matt. This book was lackluster.

I love this book, adore it. I don't look at it as love story, because it isn't . It's a story for the fictions of one dreamer and put question isn't this fiction better than the real life of some other rich people?and what is the life?
To be born as rich but to be without soul, honor and honesty or to be rich as purpose to achieve your fictional love, became a dream, more beautiful than reality. The author is a third hero in this story. Finely became a friend of Getzby and knowing him better he concluded that like him better than own cousins and says" they were empty people, go from plays to plays to escape from themselves " .