I've never watched or read.

[Vodkaandlemonade]

I've never watched Sex and the city.
I've never read Harry potter.

Is there anything you haven't read or watched.
Sometimes I think things are over hyped.

I did English Lit at University, but really find both Jane Austen and Charles Dickens hard to get into. I think I only read Mansfield Park as part of my course. Dickens writes beautifully but is definitely better in small doses. Likewise, I had read lots of excerpts of Ulysses and analysed them, but found I couldn't get into it as a whole. Liked Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, though.

It just goes to show that literature/books are very personal.

Reading through this thread I realised I don’t know a thing about The Great Gatsby apart from it’s set in the 1920s. I’ve just watched the 2013 film. I could honestly cry. So incredibly moving x

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 mess they had made.

It broke my heart. The people who don’t even notice the damage they cause and wouldn’t care if they did.

The garage man, the dissatisfied garage man’s wife, Jay Gatsby… Tom and Daisy were oblivious, selfish and destructive and everyone in the vicinity paid the price.

It’s not about the glamour and the delight, it’s what the underbelly of that world cost everyone else

@MoistVonL Oh indeed. I was mesmerised and at the same time horrified. Do you think it also shows how we all need to keep moving forward and not try to recreate the past (as Gatsby did by holding on to his hope that he and Daisy could have their happy ever after)?

Strictly. The.concept seems to be teaching people I have never heard of how to dance for no discernible reason. Just no.

Poor Jay was a fantasist - creating a world in which he could belong, be loved and accepted. He dreamt he could be One Of Them and win Daisy, when they would only ever use him up and discard him. He’s full of hope and romance, a Marianne rather than an Elinor.

He loved a woman he’d made up in his head, not the woman she was.