Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
I was looking for some light reading, both in terms of content as well as the weight of the book, for I wanted to finish this in a few days before I embarked on a vacation where a few long plane rides would enable me to read longer and denser material without distraction. This book fit the bill perfectly and was readily available at my local library so I made a quick trip to the Los Altos Woodland Library and picked up a copy.
I had recently read Hemingway's "The Sun also Rises" and the more recent retelling of his life in Paris with first wife Hadley Richardson in Paul McLain's "The Paris Wife: A Novel". The latter described the bohemian lifestyle of the many American literary expats in Paris and Scott Fitzgerald was one of the prominent ones. So not only did I start this book with high expectations, since it is one of the all-time American Classics, but I also had a view of the colorful life of the author Scott Fitzgerald at the time of the writing of this book and so was expecting some inspired writing.
As is often the case, the higher your expectations about a book or a movie, the more likely you are to be disappointed, and this book did not provide the exception to this rule. It described the lavish lifestyle of the super-rich Gatsby in Long Island in the 1920s. Reading this around the time of the depression, might have had quite a different impact on folks, however, I was not particularly drawn into the descriptions of the fancy parties that Gatsby threw at his mansion in Long Island. The book describes Gatsby's attempt to woo Daisy Buchanan, a rich young married lady who lived across the Long Island Sound. The story is told by Nick Carraway who provides the perfect foil to the rest of the characters and it is definitely well written and a quick read. However, I really could not identify with any of the other characters and read the book more as an observer and didn't really get immersed in it. Overall, I was disappointed with the book and it didn't live up to the hype for me.
I was looking for some light reading, both in terms of content as well as the weight of the book, for I wanted to finish this in a few days before I embarked on a vacation where a few long plane rides would enable me to read longer and denser material without distraction. This book fit the bill perfectly and was readily available at my local library so I made a quick trip to the Los Altos Woodland Library and picked up a copy.I had recently read Hemingway's "The Sun also Rises" and the more recent retelling of his life in Paris with first wife Hadley Richardson in Paul McLain's "The Paris Wife: A Novel". The latter described the bohemian lifestyle of the many American literary expats in Paris and Scott Fitzgerald was one of the prominent ones. So not only did I start this book with high expectations, since it is one of the all-time American Classics, but I also had a view of the colorful life of the author Scott Fitzgerald at the time of the writing of this book and so was expecting some inspired writing.
As is often the case, the higher your expectations about a book or a movie, the more likely you are to be disappointed, and this book did not provide the exception to this rule. It described the lavish lifestyle of the super-rich Gatsby in Long Island in the 1920s. Reading this around the time of the depression, might have had quite a different impact on folks, however, I was not particularly drawn into the descriptions of the fancy parties that Gatsby threw at his mansion in Long Island. The book describes Gatsby's attempt to woo Daisy Buchanan, a rich young married lady who lived across the Long Island Sound. The story is told by Nick Carraway who provides the perfect foil to the rest of the characters and it is definitely well written and a quick read. However, I really could not identify with any of the other characters and read the book more as an observer and didn't really get immersed in it. Overall, I was disappointed with the book and it didn't live up to the hype for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment