Jay Gatsby is still in love with Daisy, whom he met during the war when he was penniless. Having made himself wealthy through illegal means, he now lives in a mansion across the bay from the home of Daisy Buchanan, who has since married for money. Holding on to his illusion of Daisy as perfect, he seeks to impress her with his wealth, and uses his new neighbor, Nick Carraway (our narrator), to reach her.
Daisy’s wealthy but boring husband is cheating on her. When his mistress is killed in an accident caused by Daisy, Gatsby covers for her and takes the blame. The result is a murder and an ending that reveals the failure of money to buy love or happiness.
Fitzgerald’s elegantly simple work captures the spirit of the Jazz Age and embodies America’s obsessions with wealth, power, and the promise of new beginnings.
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“In astonishingly beautiful, layered prose, what Scott Fitzgerald manages to do is to replicate some of the mystery of what it is to be human…One of those rare books that you can read at different times in your life, and each time it’ll do something different to you. When you’re young, Gatsby’s desperate pursuit of Daisy might break your heart. When you’re older, the fragility of Gatsby’s reinvented self might crack your soul. Whenever you do read it, though, you’ll never be in any doubt that you’re reading something extraordinary. If the book is tugging at your heart, you’ll find the language lush and iridescent and the imagery sensuous, with its calibrated system of blues and yellows, of eyes and water, of honey and straw. If it’s chipping at your soul, you’ll find the language weighted and resonant and the imagery quite simply unforgettable, with its poetic elevation of the quotidian to the level of the profoundly philosophical.”
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Independent (UK)