dreamer112
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 103
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Post by dreamer112 on May 17, 2007 17:27:25 GMT -5
I just had to read this for school, and I LOVED it. Well, I didn't really like the story, and I hated every character, but I loved how much it makes you think, and how it portrayed the 20's perfectly. There was so much forshadowing, and things like that. I loved it. It was so well written. Any thoughts on it?
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
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Post by sagedautumn on May 17, 2007 18:29:31 GMT -5
The quintessential 1920s novel. I didn't really like it when I read it the first time but the second time was a little better. I think if i read it again I will completely appreciate the book. Reading Lolita in Tehran, the chapter we're reading now, is about the Gatsby
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Post by Dominique on May 17, 2007 19:43:51 GMT -5
I loved it. It's one of my all time favourite books. The writing is so beautiful and the story is great. I have a feeling we already have a thread on this somewhere though...
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Demirel
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 142
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Post by Demirel on May 18, 2007 7:16:57 GMT -5
I did not like it much. The story was okay, but the characters just didn't appeal to me. I didn't hate them, but I just didn't care about them at all. Gatsby was the only one who was at least a bit interesting from time to time.
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Post by Carma on May 18, 2007 8:12:19 GMT -5
I also just read it.. last week.. I think it was a nice book.. I like books that take place somewhere in history... I just didn't like the 'relationship' between .. eh.. Nick?? (the teller..) and that jordan... nothing ever really happened.. and I expected something to happen.. but it was nice to read..
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Post by Dominique on May 18, 2007 9:14:39 GMT -5
I didn't think the book was so much about caring about the characters as about depicting a superficial and self-absorbed class of society in the 1920's, I think it was actually one of the reasons I liked it! I felt for their victims, I felt for Gatsby, who died, and for the mechanic who dies. Daisy and her husband were so transient in their considerations and feelings for other people, everything they touched seemed to turn to dust. I think there was a good quote about that somewhere I will have to go looking for it.
Nice to meet you carma! The relationship between Nick and Jordan is a little odd, I remember hearing somewhere that they're implied to be gay? I will have to find out what part of the book this interpretation is supposed to be based on.
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Post by Dominique on May 18, 2007 9:17:50 GMT -5
Ok I found the quote, I had posted it and some others in the other Great Gatsby thread.
"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."
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Demirel
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 142
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Post by Demirel on May 19, 2007 1:52:14 GMT -5
Yes, I liked that quote. It's true, the book is not so much about the characters... As I said, I thought the plotline was good, I just couldn't get the right feeling for it. Maybe I'll like it if I read it again in a few years.
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zeldafitzgerald
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
ancora imparo
Posts: 1,948
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Post by zeldafitzgerald on May 19, 2007 6:19:22 GMT -5
This is my favorite classic book. Fitzgerald's writing is absolutely gorgeous.
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Post by Carma on May 19, 2007 11:44:16 GMT -5
gay!? haha, maybe.. I haven't thought of that! I also really like the way it is told.. cos somewhere in the book Nick suddenly 'talks' to you... I thought that was really good.
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Post by Dominique on May 19, 2007 22:59:10 GMT -5
yeah that was good. Ok I found some quick notes on the gay theory: A bizarre sequence at the end of Chapter 2, that puzzles many a reader, can perhaps be explained only from an understanding of Fitzgerald's ability to get into the character of others. Chester McKee is the bad photographer at Myrtle's party who is described as “a pale feminine man” who has a spot of shaving cream on his face. In all ways the man is set up as someone to avoid, particularly for a reader in the homophobic 1920s. But after Nick has his “within and without” experience looking out Myrtle's window, he walks over and wipes the lather from the sleeping man's cheek and soon afterward leaves the party with McKee.
I think we may only surmise from the last paragraphs in the chapter that Nick then had a sexual encounter with Chester McKee in his apartment, immediately below Myrtle's. It can only be a gay-sex reference when, in quick sentences, Nick takes his hat from the chandelier and Chester distractedly touches the elevator boy's lever. Next, Nick is standing next to the bed with Chester “clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.” In the last paragraph, Nick is still in New York, awaiting a Long Island train, half asleep in Pennsylvania Station at four in the morning.
I don't think that we are to conclude that Nick is gay (as Truman Capote did when he wrote his rejected screenplay for the 1975 film of “The Great Gatsby”); rather, we are to understand that Nick can fully understand and be sympathetic with anyone no matter how different that person is from himself. This is an echo of what Nick says of himself in the novel's opening pages: “… I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. … Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still afraid of missing something if a forget that …” There is also a discussion going on about it at the Sparknotes forum where people raise interesting points, such as Nick's fascination with Gatsby, here: mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=458&m=783004&p=8&t=244027&w=1I don't know if I do think Nick is gay or not, but it's interesting reading about how he could be
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rebecca
First piece published in the school’s newspaper
Posts: 63
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Post by rebecca on May 20, 2007 4:36:50 GMT -5
I study this book with my English teacher anf for French people, it's hard !
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Post by Carma on May 20, 2007 10:18:09 GMT -5
hmm, that actually makes sense... those parts described... and it is interesting.. but I guess we'll never really know.. as the writer is kind of dead...
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sagedautumn
Collection of short stories bought by Random House
You Might Need This!
Posts: 1,509
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Post by sagedautumn on May 20, 2007 10:44:07 GMT -5
i have to read gatsby again!!
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Post by andrea disaster on May 20, 2007 22:15:23 GMT -5
Serious must-read. Its interesting that This Side Of Paradise was more successful at the time than Gatsby. Paradise isn't bad, but I could definitely tell it was his first novel, especially in comparison to Gatsby. Has anyone read Tender Is The Night? It's on my TBR list.
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