Customer Reviews

The Great Gatsby CD

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of my all time favorite novels. I have read it a few times and decided I would like to have an audio copy for my car. I should have heeded the advice of another reviewer who complained of Tim Robbins' reading of the characters.
First of all, he gave every single woman character a dimwitted Southern accent while most of the men had a New York accent.While I admit the characters were written as somewhat vain and shallow, they were not intended to sound perpetually drunk and/or stupid. He did a fine job as Nick Carraway, the narrator, but to hear this guy do Gatsby is a disappointment to say the least. To hear Tim Robbins tell it, Gatsby sounds like each breath is to be his last as if he is suffering the onset of a stroke or some such unpleasantness. Also, he is a little sloppy when switching from dialogue to regular prose.
I still enjoyed the CD because the story is so phenomenal, but a different reader would have made it much better.
On another note however, the sixth and final CD contains the readings of some of F.Scott's letters to publishers and others writers etc... The reader is someone else (sorry, I forget the name) and he does a nice job of the readings. One feels as though they are listening to the real Fitzgerald. For diehard fans, this little extra makes the whole thing worth the $19.
I hate to rip on Robbins as I find him to be an excellent and versatile actor, this however, is simply not his cup of tea.

The quality of F. Scott Fitzgerald's immortal masterpiece is so self-evident that it would be almost hubris for me to comment on it--those of you who had it imposed on you during high-school owe it to yourselves to taste it again as free-willing adults.

Still, here are a couple words on The Great Gatsby (the book) for the benefit of those who have not read it. This work has become one of the literary symbols of the Jazz Age: it deals with the friendship between the narrator, honest and prudent Mr. Carraway, and Jay Gatsby, the young millionaire whose mansion on the New York sound is the theater of dazzling and fashionable parties.

But who is Gatsby? How does he make his money? What in his mysterious past links him to Mr. Carraway's circle? And what shape will Gatsby's future take once his quest to revive ghosts of the past succeeds? The story unfolds on a powerfully dramatic stage--one that now breathes fashionable inanities on a young flapper's golden hair, now heaves with powerful omens that carry the story forward with inexorable force.

Indeed, trying to describe this book and what makes it so magnetic is a monumental task, surely not the province of a review on its audio-CD version. So I will confine the next part of the review to Robbins' performance and the set as a whole.

I find that Fitzgerald's prose possesses a particular melodic quality; this is why it is very effective when it's read aloud--especially by a professional actor. I am not a great consumer of audiobooks, but I find that Tim Robbins' interpretation of this classic is superb. You never have the feeling that you are being "read to" - he acts the novel out in a manner reminiscent of the radio-drama performers of the olden days.

The point-of-view character of Mr. Carraway is interpreted in Robbins' normal voice (as it should be), while the other personae are colored by the tasteful addition of well-chosen idiosyncrasies. For instance, the voices of the two main female characters (both from Kentucky in the story) are rendered with a pleasing Southern inflexion. Furthermore, the reading is never rushed, and a judicious use of pauses, hesitations and other acting devices make the words come alive in what is in my opinion a very successful edition.

Also a nice touch are the glimmers of 1920's dance-music played at the beginning and at the end of each CD, as well as the informative background on the novel's history (in Fitzgerald's own words) at the very end.

Recording quality is very good, and chapters are easily found by choosing between tracks. Overall, I found this edition to be very well put together, and I am extremely happy to have it in my CD collecion.

...There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights...

The fourth star is actually for the quality of the novel itself; "The Great Gatsby" is one of my favorite novels and surely the best in American literature. Every line in Fitzgerald's novel has a meaning and a purpose. The reading on this audio book was not the worst I've ever heard, but Tim Robbins needed a good director to work out the many problems in his reading. While there were generally good voice characterizations (except for the initial chapters' readings of Daisy and Jordan--who sounded like a very exaggerated version of Southern women but improved as the novel went on), the narrator's voice varied from sounding bored to a tempo more in keeping with Nick Carraway's feelings about the people in the story. Sometimes there were problems differentiating Nick's voice from Gatsby's, and Gatsby mostly sounded like someone falling asleep. In addition to characterization problems, there were small problems in sentence phrasing--perhaps caused by turning the page--and in pronunciation consistency. I suppose it's all right to have a character's name pronounced in a non-traditional way (as Wolfsheim's was), but to have it move back and forth between two pronunciations even when the same character is supposed to be saying it seemed to me a problem that a good and conscientious director could have solved.

A dreadful version of the timeless classic, this ill-considered reading by Robbins dulls the novel's sharp social criticism. Robbins is best suited to comedy, to loveable boobs who stumble through life without a hint of tragedy or despair. These human conditions weigh heavily inside the black heart of Fitgerald's work, which is unsettling not only for its accurate portrayal of patrician soullessness but also for its message that the American Dream is a rotten carrot dangled before us. Robbins is the wrong voice for the job. As other reviewers have noted, his female characters come off like opium addled Mississippians. This Louisvillian can attest that our women, here represented by Daisy and Jordan, do not talk like deep fried lotus eaters. How disappointing to get yet another unsatisfactory rendering of Fitzgerald, arguably our best writer, if not the best chronicler of the class stratification that we Americans try so desperately to deny. The film with Mia Farrow and Robert Redford remains an umwatchable dud, but this reading is equally poor.

Fitzgerald's book is one of the greatest books I know of, but this isn't the forum to comment on that too much. This place is to review Tim Robbins' reading of the work, which, I have to admit, was greatly disappointing.

From early on, I found it difficult to relax and be swept away by the story and Fitzgerald's powerful narration and language. The reason for this isn't Robbins' voice in itself, which is quite pleasing to the ear but rather his sense of characterization as well as tempo. At first I found it fascinating, as I felt it might have been a subtle reference to music and jazz in particular in its free-flowing relaxedness, but quickly this sense of wonder turned into anxiety and irritation. What wasn't helping, either, was his characterization of the differnet dramatis personae, as well as the way he merged the narrative into the voices themselves, making it occasionally mighty hard to distinguish where a line of dialogue ended and narration took off.

This is, I think, a shame, since there are some instances where I really enjoyed the vocal rendition. For the most part, however, there was always something distracting present, be it the ill-suited accents or certain decisions on delivery (phrasing in particular). It's very surprising, really, since Robbins is a wonderful actor and I think he has an amazing voice that I thought I could listen to for ages. His Carraway is good, however.

I had this in my car since because of work I drive an hour and a half a day and an audiobook is the excellent device to make the time fly. This particular version, however, did not do the trick.

(This review is specifically for the audio CD, not the novel itself)

Tim Robbins, while a fine actor, doesn't exactly make this novel come to life in his reading of The Great Gatsby. I wouldn't say he does an awful job; it's just that there isn't much variance from one passage to the next in his narration, as he reads with the same tone throughout. I realize that some of the characters in The Great Gatsby are superficial, and probably should have a "stuffy" voice attached to their lines, but Robbins seems to speak in a soft, tired, trance-like way that doesn't give any power to the reading. For instance, the end of the first chapter, when Gatsby first is seen by Nick is given the same dream-like intonation as the rest of the chapter. There is no emphasis. It's as if he has run a race and is out of breath and is about to lie down for a nap. I don't mind it so much because I like the novel, and can get past a little of this, but using this audio as a resource for class defeats the purpose because students lose interest. Part of listening to a CD is to make variations of the story come to life and emphasis words and passages that students might not understand, something that doesn't happen often when a student is reading. However, I have found that reading most of the novel aloud better than the audio CD, because listening it tends to be a slow, tedious process and doesn't really justify the power and meaning the Fitzgerald's story is suppose to have. Therefore, I'll use this CD sparingly for class, but most of it is just read aloud. Overall, it is an average reading, and you probably are better off looking elsewhere for an audio book for The Great Gatsby.

I've listened to Robbins version of this fabulous book twice, and i'm relistening to parts of it again. I think he does a great job of emphasizing the key points. His Tom Buchanan is exceptional. And since Tom Buchanan is a key figure in the book, for him to ace this character really helps this reading shine. Robbins also does a good job bringing to life Fitzgerald's exceptional dialogue skills. To write good dialogue is hard. I'm amazed how modern Fitzgerald's characters sound, how they talk to one another like people i know and talk with each other. I'm not seeing much difference between the wealthy of 1920 and those of 2000.
There are two scenes that show how well Robbin's gets this book. In the key confrontation scene between Tom and Gatsby at the hotel, Gatsby says he wants to tell Tom something. Robbin's voice conveys Tom's welcoming this challenge, even enjoying it.
Compare that to Redford's movie version, where Bruce Dern says it, then pleads with Daisy to take him (Tom) back. In the book, Tom doesn't plead to Daisy. Robbin's portrayal is more effective than the movie.
A second scene happens on the drive drive to the hotel. Tom, Nick & Jordan are driving, and Tom says "I've been looking into this Gatsby fella." And Jordan jokes "What, you hired a medium?" And tom says "What? What? A medium?! No. Like i said, i hired an investigator." Robbins portrays how an irritated alpha-male would sound at such a flighty, feminine joke. (You've got to hear it, but it cements Tom's character as a strong alpha-male.)
Robbin's has a lot of moments where he makes the dialogue effective.
I gave 4 stars because a few times, he mixes up the voices, which makes it confusing about who just spike. Also, the female voices are so similar, so he doesn't delve into the character differences between Daisy and Jordan. But all in all, recommended.

We love to listen to audio books in our car which is reasonably new and fairly quiet on the road. I've read the other reviews and agree with the comments about Tim Robbins. The biggest problem we had was that his volume would trail off at the end of just about every sentence. I was constantly turning the volume up and down so we could hear the words but not get blasted out. Luckily I have a volume control on my steering wheel so I didn't have to reach over to the radio every minuet. The problem could have been fixed by a good sound guy but it seems that the gain was set only on one level. If you used ear phones our plaid it on your home stereo it would be OK.

While some listeners/readers have objected to Tim Robbins' rendering of this modern classic, I found it quite listenable (?). It's eviden that Robbins has taken voice articulation in his acting training (something you wouldn't necessarily decipher from his acting roles). The central characters he renders distinctively, and that is no easy task. Some non-actors can do it well; some actors can do it well. Many actors, and non-actors don't do it well. As part of the intrigue of the book is the difficulty in really getting a hold on just who these characters/people are, an interpretation that is competent should be good enough. To the point, in a letter to Max Perkins, Fitzgerald admits not being able to fulfill his obligation as a writer in rendering satisfactory emotional threads for his characters.

It's easy to see why The Great Gatsby has become such a classic. The plot is simple, yet Fitzgerald's writing is so lyrical that I felt like the story was layered with deeper meanings and symbolisms that maybe I wasn't quite getting. Perhaps I need to listen to it again.

Robbins' narration is excellent; he gives each person their own distinct voice which fills out and complements Fitzgerald's characterization. And Fitzgerald's narrative style is so timeless that it's hard to believe this was actually written over 80 years ago. It is this timeless quality that makes a true classic.

The book reminds me strongly of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's -- a outsider looking back and telling the story of the brief and magical time that he crossed paths with dazzling but tragic people, the simplicity of the plot, the symbolisms and deeper meanings. Perhaps Capote was more than a little influenced by Fitzgerald's earlier work -- ??