The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. The setting is New York in the 1920s, with all its glamor and style. While the first-person narrator of the novel is a young man by the name of Nick Carraway, the main focus is on his rich neighbor, Jay Gatsby, and his relations with a woman named Daisy. After having seen the novel’s fairly recent movie adaptation this year, I thought I would give the book a try. What are some positive and negative aspects of this novel?

            The novel mainly consists of dialog, in addition to a couple of references to the setting. The language used is easy to understand and at no point confusing for the reader. Sentences are straight-forward and short, always bringing the story forward. Sometimes, however, there are references to place names that are not further described. This makes the setting difficult to imagine for anyone not oriented in the New York area. References to songs and articles from the time were, luckily, explained in the endnotes (in the Wordsworth edition). When Fitzgerald uses a lot of dialog, he exposes the characters in another way. He also captures the setting more thoroughly, as there is a lot of small talk, especially among the minor characters. I liked the way Fitzgerald did it, but I felt he could have described more of the setting for those who do not know that much about the New York area.

            Nick Carraway is definitely an interesting choice of narrator. His role is to see Gatsby’s situation from an outsider’s perspective. Seeing as he is Daisy’s second cousin, the reader also sees the conflict from both sides. Nick seems easy-going and optimistic, and as opposed to Gatsby he seems more inexperienced. Nick has just moved to New York and is ready to start a new life; one may say that Gatsby represents this new, mysterious lifestyle that one is introduced to when moving to such a large city. The reader only knows what the narrator knows, and so we explore and experience the city at the same time as Nick. I appreciate the way Fitzgerald uses narrative voice to tell the story, and I think this is a positive attribute to the novel.

            The story itself is very interesting. Although it primarily concerns romance, it does it in a way I have never seen before (I must confess I have not read a lot of romantic fiction). The feelings of the characters seem so mixed and conflicted that one is left wanting to read the thoughts of the other characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and thought it was well structured.

            The novel never gets boring. Being only 115 pages long, it manages to keep up the pace really well. Toward the end, I could not put it down for an instant. The story builds up in a very satisfying way, and Fitzgerald has done a great job at creating dynamic and complex characters.

 

All in all, I thought the novel was great and I am giving it 4/5. I will definitely be looking for some of his other works, such as The Beautiful and the Damned and The Love of the Last Tycoon.

- Charlie.