I didn't love it as a lot of people said I would, but I did really like it.

I've not been around much lately (eh, life), but I'm hoping to change that in the coming days. Is anyone even still playing snakes and ladders anymore!? I've been going ridiculously slowly (as is my norm), but I'll keep playing for another while just to see more puffins on my board!

I finished The Great Gatsby and Spide: The Lost Tribes, which I loved, for very different reasons. I could only roll 1 die and got a 3, which takes me to square 12. I now have to read a book where the authors last name begins with T, U, V, W, X, Y or Z and I'll either pick a classic or a non-fiction, as I'm really getting into them.

(Original review, 1981-04-30)



“The Great Gatsby” is essentially a love story. Daisy turns out to be as unattainable to Jay as Beatrice was to Dante but this being the US, the hero doesn't elevate his idol to muse status; instead he embarks on a ruthless pursuit that ends up destroying him.

It's difficult in the present era of throwaway relationships to comprehend the extent of Gatsby's romantic obsession. The questions are: 1) would he have taken to crime had Daisy returned his love and told her wealthy family to go to hell and 2) did he love Daisy precisely because she was a romantic chimera, a glamorous woman who represented a rarefied world he wished to conquer?

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

The Great Gatsby doesn't need a review from me or anyone else in 2018, but on a recent reread, I found it very compelling in thinking about today's world. It speaks to many of the issues we're coping with even now -- namely the super-rich or 1% and the frivolity of wealth as well as the American Dream and what it all means. It's always been the quintessential Jazz Age novel, and while the styles still belong in that era, the take-away felt more current today than the first time I read it. Perhaps I've grown up, or perhaps reading more Fitzgerald, including his correspondence, knowing he was dealing with being unable to pay his bills while writing this novel made me look a bit further (or maybe I just read things in.) It screamed "the American Dream is bullshit!" to me. I could be wrong. I doubt Fitzgerald felt that way for long, if he ever felt that way, given the massive change in circumstance he had from his early successes. I could be taking something I've been thinking about a lot from a book that didn't actually offer it. Either way, it's worth another read in 2018 and beyond.

I didn't expect to pity Jay Gatsby. But that is what I felt.

I never saw any of the movies, so I had the totally wrong expectation.

I really detested Daisy. She deserved Tom. They deserved each other.

But Jay Gatsby did not deserve what came to him.

A great story. About infatuation, a romantic heart and the cold pragmatism that rich little girl Daisy showed in this story.

I liked the narrator for his loyalty till the end although I didn't really understand his own romantic endeavours.