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The Great Gatsby (Penguin Critical Studies Guide)

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This is a tremendous indictment of the superficiality of elite society. Surprisingly, it is Gatsby himself who is both the most real and the most fake of the elite described within. Gatsby utterly invents himself to become a part of elite society, and as a result his pretensions of cultured society remain mere pretensions. However, throughout all of this pretended culture Gatsby has a singular very real purpose in mind, and in so doing becomes thoroughly real because of those pretences. By showing us Gatsby's defined purpose, F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us the reality of Gatsby far more than is ever seen of Jordan Baker or Tom and Daisy Buchanan. (Admittedly, Nick Carraway is the most real character within the novel, but he not actually part of the elite he describes.)

That indictment of elite society aside, the real beauty of "The Great Gatsby" is its lesson that life cannot be relived. Gatsby devotes his life to recapturing a period of happiness from his life and recreating it exactly as it was, trying in the attempt to obliterate the years and events that have fallen between. In this attempt he comes very very close - close enough to be forgiven his belief that it was possible - but in the end his dream is impossible. Had he been willing - or able - to accept the changes that the intervening years necessitated then this more realistic dream might possibly have been achieved, but by insisting on a return to events as-they-were Gatsby dooms himself to an inevitable failure of his dream. It is said that you can't go home again; "The Great Gatsby" is an almost perfect metaphor for that maxim.

Ultimately, this is a beautiful and tragic novel. It is eminently readable, and its status as an American classic is well-deserved.

I thought this was the real Great Gatsby book with additional commentary, but it is primarily a commentary with little of the original text.
This version does not include the complete text of the book like some of the other editions do.


The commentary is okay, but not as helpful as some other study guides.

Well written and researched book on the Great Gatsby by an insightful and thoughtful scholar. I found it interesting to see her take on a major, popular, male American author during an intriguing time of change in American society. For the Gatsby afficcionando, the Fitzgerald student, as well as the individual interested in American social thought post WWI, will find this study, particularly since it is done from a British viewpoint, a valuable perspective. Many insightful footnotes and asides. References are made to Penguin's edition of the Great Gatsby but it is not necessary to have this edition. For the general reader who wishes more understanding about this tremendous novel I suggest Kathleen Parkinson's fine study an important companion.

As a teacher of high-school-level American Literature for the past fifteen years, I often feel that I have placed certain works on the back burner. After all, one year in high school is scarcely enough to explore American Literature in-depth, and much time is spent filling in the gaps created by substandard or even lapsed instruction in students' middle-school and early high-school years. _The_Great_Gatsby_ by Fitzgerald is one of the most important, most deeply American novels studied at the high school level, but it is a work which, for reasons which would take more space than a review allows, I felt has not been given the attention it deserves on my part. The fact that students still find it deeply intriguing is all the more reason that I, as instructor, should give it the attention it deserves. It is for this reason that I ordered a copy of this critical study.

What this critical study will do: It will provide a refreshing, if not original, exploration of the important themes in _The_Great_Gatsby_, including those of time, location, and even a brief glimpse of feminist criticism regarding Fitzgerald's women. This being said, Kathleen Parkinson's forte seems to be historical criticism, and her research on Fitzgerald's life is strongly reflected in her work.

What this critical study will not do: It will not provide new or fresh insight to those who have studied the novel in-depth, who have read the criticism on _Gatsby_ and the author's other works, or those who have experience teaching the novel at the post-secondary level. Conversely, it is not a simple gloss on the text,à la Cliff Notes, and will not be useful to the reluctant (i.e., lazy) reader.

This critical study was a nice refresher for a secondary teacher trying to prevent his teaching from going stale. It would be just as useful to a serious post-secondary student studying the novel in-depth for the first time. I suspect that those who have read the serious criticism on this text would be disappointed. In conclusion, for me, it was worthwhile; for others, not so much.

The Great Gatsby is one of those books which on the first time you read it, it goes right over the top of your head. The plot is in total only a few pages in total, but the characters and the point and theme are what make the story. The characters, except for Gatsby and Nick, are very careless; they don't care what happens around them, or what they cause. They spend their life visiting other careless people, or lying around doing nothing, or going to parties.
You do not finish this book with a sense that you have read all 170 pages... most of the story is thought, character and description. However, the window this book gives on the time of post first world war wealthy America draws you in to experience the hopeless state of the society and the tragic results of their carelessness on other people.

I read this in high school and remember wishing the book would end quickly. That was fifteen years ago. By some whim, I picked it up again...and wished it would never end. Maybe it's a sign of maturity. God willing.
Fitzgerald's writing style is so fluent and enjoyable that you want to read his words aloud. I began to read Tender is the Night after being so enthralled with The Great Gatsby, and though it still had the same poetic flow of words, the story seemed to crawl unbearably (I didn't get past page 75). The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece though. The more books I read, the more I realize that there are no "great authors," only authors with moments of greatness. The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald's great moment.

Nick Carraway is an unsuspecting Long Island-dweller living in a small house that is in between mansions. Through two old friends, Tom Buchanan and his wife, Daisy, he learns that one of his neighbors is the rich, flamboyant Jay Gatsby, who soon invites him to one of the late night parties on his property. At this party, he befriends Gatsby and soon becomes entangled in his story. He finds that Gatsby's money was earned through illegal methods, and sees his friend's impractical character. Finally, he watches as Gatsby is confronted by his past in the form of Daisy Buchanan.
I would recommend this book to everyone, although some slight racism and sexism common at the time the novel was written may discourage sensitive readers. The literary style and word usage is incredible, and the book's plotting is superb. The Great Gatsby realistically portrays both the best and the worst of human attributes and allows any reader to identify with the characters, no matter how far-fetched this might seem. F. Scott Fitzgerald's book is the epitome of American literary accomplishment and a must read.

I finished reading "The Great Gatsby" two days ago, an endeavor that took me more than a week to complete. Not that the novel is voluminous; in fact it's a rather slight 172 pages. It took me that long because for the most part I was bored silly. I didn't care a whit about the characters, and that's all there really is to the book: a bunch of vapid characters. You'd think that a book so highly acclaimed for so long would have at least some semblance of story to hang its hat on. Alas, it is not so. And Fitzgerald's prose, and I know I'm in the minority opinion here, never reached me. Many times I caught him trying too hard, reaching for poetry but landing short on dogged doggerel.

That being said, after 48 hours of contemplation, I realize that I really do like the book. Mostly.

Why? First of all, it features a finely realized paradoxical title character. Gatsby (both the character and the novel, as it turns out) isn't so great. Is the title ironic? He doesn't appear for the first fifty or so pages, and then when he does he's introduced through a misunderstanding: it turns out he was sitting right there all along! He's a cipher, filled to the brim by the gossip and stories told about him during the parties in his own house. But nobody, save for narrator Nick and delicate Daisy, really gets to know him. The reader does, and finds him to be a prissy and pretentious fakir, prone to calling everyone "Old Sport" without ever meaning that term as an endearment. Not great at all, I'd say.

The book's second saving grace is that it ends on a spectacular note. The last thirty pages or so hold some of the best writing I've ever read. While the novel opens with a constant barrage of strangers welcomely crashing the elaborate parties that Gatsby gives every night, the novel ends with a scenario exactly opposite to that. I'll leave it to your reading to discovery what that might mean. Without giving away any of the content of these chapters, I will say that they are filled with tangible pathos, visceral emotion, spare but vivid prose, and heartbreaking reality. It makes me wish that Fitzgerald had focused his pen more on these poignant moments than on the abject flightiness that dominates the book's first three quarters. He does show throughout that he is more than capable of this. His flair for dramatic moments sporadically rears its head. There's a moment when Tom suddenly breaks Mrs. Wilson's nose. It comes out of nowhere for the reader, but upon reflection, it doesn't feel contrived. It's one of Fitzgerald's strengths that I wish he'd have utilized more often.

His other strength, and the third of the book's great features, is the way he uses his narrator. Nick Carraway at one point says, "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." It's a curious statement for a narrator to make. "Believe me," he appears to be saying. "All of this is true." It's the unreliable narrator (his recollections may or may not be clouded by his affection for Gatsby) protesting against his inherent unreliability. Nick is beneath, in terms of class, the people he socializes with, which makes him less self-involved and more perceptive of others. At one point he suddenly remembers that today is his 30th birthday! Imagine this story told through the eyes of that uber-solipsist Daisy Buchanan? Or, for that matter, the self-deluded Gatsby himself? We'd never have gotten past the narrator's own eyelids. Nick goes much further than that, and is very effective in his role. And so is, as it turns out, Fitzgerald.

Before I commence my review, let me first interpret the final verse of this wonderfully written book:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

If you read the context, it is referring to Gatsby's dream of the future, of reaching Daisy and the green light that she represented. This passage simply means that he is a boat riding against the malevolent currents of the future and how they are unrelenting and implacable, never capitulating to his endeavors, and so he is endlessly pushed back to his inescapable past.

This is my simple and terse exegesis of this passage. If I am wrong, then so be it, but I consider it a very plausible explanation given the themes of the story and the immediate context in which we find the sentence.

Now that that's out of the way, I will voice my opinion on Fitzgerald's magnum opus. I will spare you the details on the story since you can read the synopsis above. Fitzgerald's style and phraseology leave some baffled and sometimes vexed, but it's these two controversial elements that make his works so magical - not just Gatsby, but also The Beautiful and Damned and his other novels. In Fitzgerald's era I do not believe he is matched in his brilliance. While his stories may not be as creative and ingenious as Hemingway's, the talent and artistic prowess of Scott is palpably, in my view, far greater than Steinbeck or Hemingway.

There are few, if any, endearing characters in The Great Gatsby. I almost commiserate and lament Gatsby's ( spoiler ahead! ) demise, but really he is a rather shallow man at best, with a hint of loyalty and dignity. Nick is too insipid and lifeless for me to care one way or another. Daisy and Tom are nearly rehashes of Anthony and Gloria Patch and are utterly pathetic and contemptuous people, stereotypically xenophobic and parochial in their outlook of the world.

Then we are simply left with majestic prose and prolific use of vocabulary. I cannot tell you how many words I have learned from Fitzgerald's books, not so much this particular novel, but especially The Beautiful and Damned.

Regardless of the profusion of imagery abundant in the text, the book never gets tedious or garrulous; itself the book is only 170 or so pages long - calibrate this with The Beautiful and Damned and Tender is the Night, two books which ARE verbose and overdone, in my view.

Overall I would rank this book as the best tale told by the most proficient and deft writer of the twentieth century. I shudder to consider what might have been if he used his skills to the full and actually wrote more ambitious works in the vein of Hemingway. I do not regard The Great Gatsby as a work as complex - and somewhat convoluted - as The English Patient, for example, but Scott's talent is so astronomically high that he overcomes his lack of creativity and is able to tell the same stories over and over again with infinite variety - this, in my opinion, is the apotheosis of the great writer. Ingenuity is merely a part of it and perhaps Scott doesn't compare to his compatriots in this regard, but I've not read anyone as capable with the English language as he was.

I reread this recently and loved it so much more than when I had to read it in high school. Fitzgerald's humor is so much more subtle than most humor writer's today and the funny lines are tucked between such beautifully crafted prose. The story is so simple - basically just describes a few parties at a mysterious Gatsby's mansion - but the humor and just enough foreshadowing keep you wanting to move forward. His observations of the young rich would fit in almost perfectly today. Inspired me to get back to writing my own book!

By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha