The Great Gatsby - Mille feuilles

No cover — The Great Gatsby (Paperback, 1995, Scribner Paperback Fiction)

Paperback, 222 pages

English language

Published Nov. 3, 1995 by Scribner Paperback Fiction.

ISBN:: 978-0-684-80152-0
OCLC Number:: 873286449

(1 review)

This is the definitive, textually accurate edition of a classic of twentieth-century literature, The Great Gatsby. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan has been acclaimed by generations of readers. But the first edition contained a number of errors resulting from Fitzgerald's extensive revisions and a rushed production schedule. Subsequent printings introduced further departures from the author's words. This edition, based on the Cambridge critical text, restores all the language of Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Drawing on the manuscript and surviving proofs of the novel, along with Fitzgerald's later revisions and corrections, this is the authorized text -- The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald intended it. --back cover

69 editions

4thace@books.theunseen.city reviewed The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A quick reread to get a feeling of his style

4 stars

I am pretty sure I read this long ago but this time I remembered virtually nothing about it. I picked this up as a second-hand paperback heavily highlighted by its previous owner(s), probably for a school assignment. All I really recalled was how the story was told from the point of view of a secondary character, Nick Carraway, who knows as little about the title character initially as we do and has to work out his attitude to all the principals as he meets them. What I was mainly interested in was the reputation it has had since its publication in 1925. The writing shows its age but I did notice the care the author took with each of the characters to establish a clear voice, and with the settings to help the reader imagine what it felt like to experience along with the characters. There are a few flourishes …

I am pretty sure I read this long ago but this time I remembered virtually nothing about it. I picked this up as a second-hand paperback heavily highlighted by its previous owner(s), probably for a school assignment. All I really recalled was how the story was told from the point of view of a secondary character, Nick Carraway, who knows as little about the title character initially as we do and has to work out his attitude to all the principals as he meets them. What I was mainly interested in was the reputation it has had since its publication in 1925. The writing shows its age but I did notice the care the author took with each of the characters to establish a clear voice, and with the settings to help the reader imagine what it felt like to experience along with the characters. There are a few flourishes of colloquial, non-academic speech I noticed and some passages of emotional description to enhance the mood, whether during a boozy party, a tense situation rising toward violence, or the deep melancholy at the end. Carraway is taken with his enigmatic friend Gatsby and we the readers have to work out how far to go in along the same direction, or to instead reject that point of view as we are presented with that character's flaws. All the characters are messed up in various ways and the social environment can also come in for criticism. This book was closer to a novella, with just the Carraway/Baker subplot against the main story with the two love triangles. I wasn't drawn in as much with this as with the novels I enjoy the most but appreciate the chance to renew my acquaintance with this 99-year old standard.

Subjects

Traffic accidents -- Fiction.
First loves -- Fiction.
Rich people -- Fiction.
Mistresses -- Fiction.
Revenge -- Fiction.
Long Island (N.Y.) -- Fiction.