Great Gatsby — Reviews from an Author
The birth of the American dream.
Fitzgerald might not have created it. But he certainly did contribute to it.
What is The Great Gatsby about?
The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Cannon, who has recently moved from Minnesota to Long Island, New York to pursue a career as a stockbroker. He rents a shanty next to a magnificent palace “modelled after some Hotel de Ville in Normandy,” owned by the eponymous and enigmatic Mr. Gatsby.
Nick happens to be the cousin of Daisy Buchanan, wife of Tom Buchanan, who, for all intents and purposes, appears to be richer than Croesus. Little does he know that Gatsby has been enamoured with Daisy for the longest time and everything he does is for her, all the wealth he’s amassed and the lavish parties he throws are simply to catch her attention.
Real-life inspiration behind Gatsby
Fitzgerald based most of his protagonists on himself and their romantic interests on his beautiful but mad wife Zelda. What is less known, however, is that Daisy wasn’t based or, at least, not entirely based on Zelda, but rather on Ginevra King, a wealthy woman that Fitzgerald loved before Zelda.
But the two were never meant to be together, despite their mutual feelings. Ginvera’s father allegedly refused FItzgerald’s proposal of marriage to his daughter by saying “Poor boys shouldn’t marry rich girls,” and that was the end of it.
But an idea, a distant apparition lived within F. Scott’s mind, an idea that later came to fulfilment in The Great Gatsby. Down to the subtlest detail of their somewhat shared psyche — both were malcontent with their humble beginnings and both imagined themselves to be children of forgotten royalty.
Great drama
Without giving too much away, Fitzgerald stays true to his unparalleled skill of creating some of the greatest conflicts in literature from things not out of the ordinary. He does so by imbuing his characters with such enormous depth of emotion and charisma that one can’t help but want to be like them, be with them, to be them.
A mesmerizing adaptation
Let me be frank. Leo was incredible. The decorations were out of this world. The music gave me chills. It is one of the few adaptations that can stand on par with the original manuscript. Either because of how short it is or how well the movie was done, it never hurts to see such eccentric characters come out onto the silver screen.
Conclusion
Not only is The Great Gatsby a masterfully written novel, but also a window into history, which helps the attentive reader understand the mentality of the most powerful nation on Earth.
If you liked this review, be sure to check out my reviews of other Fitzgerald books:
