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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald / PATRON-ONLY EARLY ACCESS (Patreon)

Published:
2021-06-15 01:46:57
Imported:
2026-09
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Content

A great book that I didn't enjoy. 

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The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald BOOK REVIEW (Ad-Free / Patron-Only)

BUY HERE: https://amzn.to/3pT6cvi Maureen Corrigan: https://youtu.be/AndFQjvGszU https://youtu.be/1nBsmURnXkc SUPPORT / PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/booksarebetterthanfood INSTAGRAM: @booksarebetterthanfood https://www.instagram.com/booksarebetterthanfood MUG: https://www.zazzle.com/better_than_food_coffee_mug-168249045611119837

Comments

Jeffrey Jackson

Clifford I’m about to listen to your review, but I can tell from the title where this is going. For years I have tried to understand why this book is so highly regarded. And today at age 59 I still don’t know the answer.

Hannah Gray

Great review - I really enjoyed the point about how a famous work can become so embedded in culture and replicated and refracted so many times that it becomes impossible to access the original genius of it. I felt that way about 1984 which I read recently. That said, 1984 still makes some fairly profound points about humanity, society, history and truth. This one? Not so much. I'm not a fan.

Brock Tetreault

The true beauty of this book to me is Fitzgerald’s use of the Iceberg Theory. Yes there seems to be multiples layers and veils to each dynamic of this novel which is a bit tiresome by the end, but the genius is the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. By the end of the story, the reader can very subtly notice Gatsby having the realization Daisy is not the girl he built in his mind during those years apart following their romance in Europe. The time apart caused him to create a Daisy that doesn’t actually exist. The DiCaprio version of this movie is not my favorite, but DiCaprio was spot on in depicting that subtle horror. It’s absolutely tragic and so remarkably real; especially so given what social media has become nowadays. Many times it’s easy to build an entire person based on one or two posts you’ve seen, and when you finally meet the person they are not at all what you’ve created in your mind…. Thanks a ton for another great review Cliff, hope you have a better second read through on this one!

Derrik

You're probably right about the age thing. I had to read it twice before I was 20 and I probably read it at least once since then. I was certainly taken with the Daisy-Gatsby dynamic, but like you say, it probably won't land if I read it as a crotchety 40-something. You might have a better time with Tender is the Night if you decide to give him another shot (pun intended?).

Andrew A

I tried reading it last year and failed. Like you, I felt perhaps I just came to it too late or just wasn't in the right frame of mind. It was like reading the Lord of the Rings after first reading the Tolkien clones that came after it -- through no fault of its own, it ends up feeling derivative of itself despite being the progenitor of the very ideas and themes it explores. I feel guilty for not liking it, but maybe I'll give it another chance someday.

J. Wisniewski

Really enjoyed the perspective in this review. I will say this, though. Every time I read "The Great Gatsby" I find something new and remarkable to appreciate. I haven't read it 60 times like Corrigan, but quite a few and will likely read it again in the coming months. If you do give it another try, I'd recommend to you (and anyone else) The Authorized Text version with the publisher's afterword along with intro and notes from Matthew J. Bruccoli. The intro essay is excellent and touches on some of the issues you had with the book and delves into some its layers: "[The Great Gastby] uses some 450 time-words, including 87 appearances of 'time.' Episodes are reinforced by time symbolism: the Buchanan lawn is described as 'jumping over sundials'; Nick's famous list of people who attended Gatsby's parties is written on a timetable; Gatsby knocks over a clock during his reunion with Daisy; ..." It might not seem like much of a deal, but it seems there are 70-plus textual errors in most printings of "The Great Gatsby." I would've thought they'd be minor, but going through the notes in The Authorized Text, they are significant changes in meaning and symbolism, not type-o's. Fitzgerald might have caught some of them but he was abroad while the novel was edited and printed. Even the famed line of "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future" was the result of an unwanted editorial intervention. The original line was "orgastic future." There were a number of shades of meaning lost and factual errors or unintended ones introduced by editorial interference and a smudged manuscript. I'm not saying any of those things would change anyone's mind about the book. But my reading was definitely enriched by the authorized version, and I learned a great deal about a book I already thought I knew. It's one of my favorites, in case you couldn't tell, but I still found the review engaging and insightful.

Donald Wright

It's been years and years since I read The Great Gatsby, but a few years back I did read This Side of Paradise. There Fitzgerald painted a picture of an empty, superficial generation that had no deeper thought than appearances and no greater interest than running here and there for cocktails and dancing, where affairs are entered into with the speed of a racehorse and dropped just as quickly. Utter narcissism reigns. I marveled at what kind of period for literature the early 20s must have been for that novel to have been so well received. But there were flashes of genius, and I found the ending breathtaking.

Donald Wright

I recently read a book about the 1920s that I greatly enjoyed and from which I learned a lot about the era: Calvin Tomkins's Living Well Is the Best Revenge (which grew out of an article from The New Yorker, I believe), about Gerald and Sara Murphy, expatriates in France, who seemed to know everyone, including the Fitzgeralds, from all of the arts. The Murphys loved the Fitzgeralds, but nonetheless, the book paints a rather unflattering picture of the Fitzgeralds. Neither seemed to have the slightest interest in the art, music, ballet, or even literature of the period (and that despite Zelda, in her late 20s or so, suddenly deciding that she wanted to be a ballerina)! Scott never bothered to learn more than a few words of French despite living there for quite a while (and having placed Zelda in a sanatorium in Switzerland), and made no effort to pronounce it correctly. He'd get drunk at their parties and hurl things at their guests, finding it amusing to do so. The Murphys kept inviting them anyway, though occasionally banning him for a few weeks when he became particularly outrageous. Seems like a rather awful person, but then, some geniuses can be quite awful people and yet produce masterpieces!