Gatsby is a fool, and great.
With the release of the new film adaptation of Gatsby by Baz Luhrmann, bookstores have been stocking up on F. Scott Fitzgerald books. Penguin Modern Classics, inc. the box set of Fitzgerald’s novels, available at National Bookstores.
First time we read The Great Gatsby in high school, we were dazzled by the glamour. New York in the Jazz Age, champagne fountains, beautiful people staying up till dawn.
The next time we read it we were beguiled by the romance: the poor boy who does everything for the love of a rich girl.
In college we gained from it the understanding Gatsby never got: Dreams and reality are two different things entirely.
When we read it again, we were floored by the language, its beauty and eternal wistfulness. Afterwards we read it as a criticism of the American Dream.
These days we see Gatsby as the tale of a romantic fool who pursues a dream, only to find that it’s not worth it. All the hard work of reinventing himself, and for what. And yet he IS great, because he had the power of his convictions, even if they were a fool’s convictions, and the courage to become what he wanted to be. He is better than his dream.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
May 17th, 2013 at 21:05
I dusted my old copy of TGG some weeks and planned to read it for the third time… And here we can find the great GRR Martin’s review of the movie.. http://grrm.livejournal.com/324330.html