bethany88
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 142
|
Post by bethany88 on Oct 14, 2006 13:07:08 GMT -5
My two Favorities!!!! lol
|
|
Kristie
Novel turned into BBC miniseries
"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
Posts: 7,214
|
Post by Kristie on Oct 14, 2006 13:08:59 GMT -5
haha we're just opposites i suppose...what are your least favourite books? maybe i love those...
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 6, 2006 18:27:44 GMT -5
Ok I just finally started reading this... and I'm totally loving it so far. The writing is so good, you can really get a picture of the hollowness of the people in society.
|
|
Kristie
Novel turned into BBC miniseries
"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
Posts: 7,214
|
Post by Kristie on Dec 6, 2006 18:38:17 GMT -5
they all seemed like airheads to me. lol it seemed like a bad soap opera to most of my class when we read it.
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 6, 2006 18:42:53 GMT -5
I think that's kind of the point though, it's supposed to show the hypocrisy of the upper class and stuff so they're supposed to be airheads, even the main character to an extent, but I think the writing in it is just beautiful, like prose.
|
|
|
Post by bookaddict on Dec 6, 2006 19:37:00 GMT -5
I agree I love his style. It's a simple style like Hemingway but there's so much meaning to it.
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 7, 2006 6:55:39 GMT -5
I'm looking forward to reading more of his work if his writing is always this good. I have a copy of Tender is the night somewhere but I havent read it yet.
|
|
|
Post by bookaddict on Dec 7, 2006 10:18:17 GMT -5
He has great short stories I really liked "The Baby Party" it also deals with materialism and money.
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 9, 2006 0:33:29 GMT -5
I just finished reading it and I have to say I thought it was wonderful. You get such a feeling for the atmosphere of the 1920's upper class, trivial and full of gaiety on the surface, but cold and hard underneath with no care, consideration and little if any remorse for wrong doings. An ultimately lonely class of distant people.
Some of my favourite quotes included:
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastical future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms further... And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mass they had made."
" 'Her voice is full of money,' he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood it before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustable charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it... High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl..."
"Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season." I thought the choice of Daisy's name was interesting, a beautiful flower, but transient and impossible to hold captive for very long. This quote highlights this, and shows how variable and inconstant she is, she changes with the seasons.
|
|
|
Post by danithebookworm on Dec 21, 2006 22:52:02 GMT -5
We had to read it for school. Can't say I enjoed it one bit. It just bored me.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 28, 2006 23:33:26 GMT -5
lol I really don't see how so many people find this book boring! What's dull about it? I didn't think it was slow, it had an ok plot etc etc etc? you're gonna have to elaborate guys cos I'm in the dark
|
|
Bina
First novel published
Posts: 2,472
|
Post by Bina on Dec 29, 2006 6:37:29 GMT -5
Wow, I had no idea people consider it boring. I really like it but I didn´t have to read it in school
|
|
|
Post by Dominique on Dec 29, 2006 7:16:35 GMT -5
yeah i didn't read it in school either, maybe that's got something to do with it.
|
|
Isa
Administrator
Posts: 6,995
|
Post by Isa on Dec 29, 2006 9:02:52 GMT -5
The first time I read it, it was in French and the translation was horrible!! I didn't think much of it then, but when I read it again in English I loved it. I like reading about this jazz-era world, where everybody looks like a beautiful empty shell, but in reality they are full of pain and suffering. The idea that a man could build his entire life (and an extravagant one at that) around a woman he loves is pretty amazing too.
|
|