Book Post Part II

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he was part of the group of authors known as the Lost Generation. The Great Gatsby was an interesting novel, it had many different meanings, and the whole novel is focused around the American Dream. A reader of this book could easily read it and understand it, without getting the second half of the text. The second half is wrapped up in the different representations of colors, symbols, and material goods. To start off, the novel’s base plot is a centered around two egg shape peninsula named West Egg and East Egg. East Egg was made up of people with “old” money, they inherited their money and have an abundance of it; while the people in West Egg have “new” money, they have come into their money as young entrepreneurs. All of the main characters live in either East or West Egg. Nick Carraway is the narrator of the book. He lives by himself in a small common house in between two mansions in West Egg. Nick’s next-door neighbor, Jay Gatsby was a very mysterious man, nobody really knew him. They all knew him as Gatsby, he held extravagant parties almost every night. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are married and live in East Egg. Daisy is Nick’s cousin, twice removed, Nick went to college with Tom; Tom was an extremely good lineman. Throughout the novel there were many different conflicts. Daisy was very conflicted with the true purpose of women, Gatsby was also conflicted about his feelings for his long lost lover, and Nick was always analyzing the characters of the people around him. In addition to internal conflicts, there were many external conflicts in particular Tom was involved in many of them. Tom was always bickering with Daisy, he didn’t like Gatsby, and then at one point he was fighting with Daisy and Gatsby in public at the same time. This book was full of messages connecting to greed, materialism, and it all connected back to the true meaning of the American Dreams.

I researched this book on Amazon.com and found that there were not many reviews, but the few that I read were very appreciative of Fitzgerald’s talent and the quality of his work. Mostly all the comments liked the book and talked about the shallowness of the characters. Many of the people that bought this book also bought The Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and War and Piece. In addition, Amazon.com recommended Tender is the Night, The Sun Also Rises, and Of Mice and Men, which are all novels by authors from the Lost Generation.