F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (Paperback, 2022, India Penguin)
Paperback, 144 pages
Published June 15, 2022 by India Penguin.
Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts.
"There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.... It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again."
It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous entertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan – a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused …
Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts.
"There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.... It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again."
It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous entertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan – a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe.
It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism.
--first edition jacket
Also contained in:
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
It is certainly the simplest modernist novel I've read, both in plot and execution. What it lacks in the modernism bells and whistles it somewhat makes up for in its insightfulness and near-supreme subtlety. It is these two qualities, mixed with its accessibility, that make it a classic that American readers return to time again. Hemingway portrays debauchery and wasteful materialism better in The Sun Also Rises. Ford Maddox Ford portrays a sense of being dislocated by the times and the frustrations of unrequited love better in Parade's End. And yet, you do not hear these works quoted as often in these themes as you hear The Great Gatsby mentioned in relation to them. This is the case because the greater majority of the reading public (particularly American) can relate to the characters in Fizgerald's work than in Hemingway's overly manly (if impotent) protagonist and certainly more than …
It is certainly the simplest modernist novel I've read, both in plot and execution. What it lacks in the modernism bells and whistles it somewhat makes up for in its insightfulness and near-supreme subtlety. It is these two qualities, mixed with its accessibility, that make it a classic that American readers return to time again. Hemingway portrays debauchery and wasteful materialism better in The Sun Also Rises. Ford Maddox Ford portrays a sense of being dislocated by the times and the frustrations of unrequited love better in Parade's End. And yet, you do not hear these works quoted as often in these themes as you hear The Great Gatsby mentioned in relation to them. This is the case because the greater majority of the reading public (particularly American) can relate to the characters in Fizgerald's work than in Hemingway's overly manly (if impotent) protagonist and certainly more than Ford's Christopher Tietjens.
