Who has read 'The Great Gatsby'?

[notnowbernard]

Am struggling a bit and don't know whether to persist

I was taught The Great Gatsby for A-level. It was the first book that inspired me; it gave me a real love of literature - It's FAB.

I looooooovvvvvve this book. I love Fitzgerald in general, even after a 16000 word dissertation on his writing!

Gatsby started off my love of his stuff and the party description is the best section of creative writing ever. IMO!

oh I just loved it - elegant tragedy

I love The Great Gatsby, but I can see why you don't feel like it grabbed you. It's not an arresting kind of book - the reader is held at arms' length to watch the glittering action from a distance, like Nick from across the sound. You don't feel close enough to any of its characters to feel real sympathy for them, but that's part of its charm. The surface - so sheen and dazzling, but so brittle - is everything. If you like it, try Fiesta or The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway (same book, published under two different titles). GG and it were published around the same time and both give that sense that untold tragic depths lie just beneath the surface (while still managing to make us envy the lives they lead).

Mind you, if you didn't like it, I wouldn't persevere. There are too many good books.

Read it at school - I must have been about 14 - and liked it a lot at the time.