Interesting that so many people here don’t like the book, which is fair. Personally, I read on my own while I was in university (not as part of a class, was just curious about it) and thoroughly enjoyed the book.

The book is arguably most famous for taking a pessimistic view on the roaring Twenties, during the 1920s. Fitzgerald had trouble with successfully becoming a writer during his own lifetime. But, after the depression and after WWII, people really looked at history and saw the 1920s in America as a kind of cautionary tale of how unchecked optimism and hedonism can lead to disaster. So Fitzgerald’s take looked a lot smarter in hindsight. Was he really a prophet or was he just a pessimistic alcoholic, bitter that he himself had trouble keeping up with the supposed “high society” of his day? Probably more the latter than the former, although I still enjoy his observations in the book.

I don’t know if the book would mean as much to a non-North American - a lot of the book (at least, in my opinion) has to do with how the main character, and really most of the characters in the book, are people from the west who moved east, only to be overwhelmed and disturbed by how shallow and self-absorbed the lives of the rich and successful were. At this time in the United States, the wealthy of the east would be sort of a new nobility in North America - full of families like the Roosevelts, rich families that had been rich for generations. Out west you would have “new money” types, people who may have become wealthy through their business endeavours, but they aren’t elite the way old money types in New York are elite. So again, you need a hell of a lot of money to fit in with that crowd, but you need more than that, you need old money. Or as Gatsby found, a carefully crafted mystique.

It’s sort of a “don’t meet your heroes” story that I can get onboard with. I don’t think anyone needs to enjoy it but it always stuck with me.

Its a joy to read. If you don't find the style appealing, then I can see how it'd be hard to get through. Looking up some of the popular quotes:

>“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

That's a beautiful sentence.

This is a super common response to reading the “classics” in school. See e.g., Goodreads, and note how reviews for classics invariably are lower than thousands of objectively worse books. There are many reasons, but mainly because schools assign classics, which means you have lots of people reading something because they HAVE to and not because they WANT to. Nobody likes that.

Also: (1) Not everyone subjectively likes the same books, even great books. (2) Not everyone has enough reading experience/age/social-historical perspective to appreciate some classics. (3) A lot of classics are tragedies, and lots of people don’t want to read to be bummed out. And (4) some classics are dated and are taught today at least partly because of inertia.

Thus, I can predict (without checking beforehand) that The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, Middlemarch, A Hundred Years of Solitude, and most other “great books” almost certainly have much lower Goodreads reviews than the latest Brandon Sanderson “Cosmere” book.

Best closing line ever though.

High school or college?

Chasing the dragon.

I love the book personally myself! I think it’s very easy for people in my age group (I’m in my early 20s) to dismiss this book and others in classic American literature because we can’t look at it from the lens of its own era. Of course it’ll feel awkward with language - we’ve have 100 years of language since. Of course it’ll feel basic with social critique - we’ve had 100 years of critique and societal change since.

When I look at it for what it is, it’s an amazing novel with beautiful prose that sounds like music to me. If I was to compare it to my modern favorites, it doesn’t hold up because books from my generation will always hit harder.

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I enjoyed it when I read it in college. I just remember a lot of what we were reading that semester didn't seem to have much for plot, which made Great Gatsby a refreshing change of pace.

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I’m kind of in the same boat as you. I’m in 12th grade (my last year of high school before uni, which I think would still be sixth form) and I didn’t really like the book when I read it in 11th grade. I have to read it again for a different class this year, and I was able to pick up on a few more subtle things.

A lot of people say it gets a lot better each time they read it, so I guess I’ll have to take their word for it.

The book is kind of weird because you can’t take it super seriously but also have to look at it through a bunch of different lenses (new historical, biographical, Marxist, feminist, etc) to really get the big picture. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you, because it may get to a point where people are finding symbols that don’t really exist.

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I read it on my own and didn't really like it but I'm not American so I think that made it difficult to fully understand how it's supposedly a "critique/commentary on the American dream"? Still rated it 4 stars on Goodreads, though. It wasn't bad just confusing and kind of pointless *to me with my limited perspective*. I know it's supposed to be deep, though, and had heard some things about why it's significant before I read it, just couldn't pick out what any of the elements really meant when I read it, though.

I read the book at 15 for high school and just last month, decades later. I found and still find it a great but also sad book, especially because of the similarity with the writer's life. Read the Sun also Rises soon after, but that I found boring. Yes I understand... emptiness after WW1...Never understood why that is one of America's classics

I didn’t read Gatsby until college (2nd year of uni would be the UK equivalent), and even as a voracious reader I probably wouldn’t have taken much away from it without a great prof because on the surface not much happens (I never really looked for deeper meaning before when I was reading). What I did take away from it was that Americans (maybe just people, really?) are always in a state of wanting more. There’s always some unrealized goal, maybe not even fully formed, that they are reaching for. Once they attain it, another goal will take its place. If Gatsby had won Daisy, as if she were just some prize, he wouldn’t have known what to do with her. There is no way she could’ve lived up to the expectations he had built up in his head. That’s what the green light represents— those dreams that would die for the having of them. Gatsby’s (the character) is kind of an immature take on what happiness really is, the belief that getting what you want will actually bring happiness, rather than living in the present. If that’s your state of mind, you’ll never be happy, and for all his wealth, Gatsby wasn’t. He was just kind of… empty. Other than that impossible goal, he was just a cipher, completely defined by his wants than by his own accomplishments or qualities, and that was his own fault. Sorry for the wall of text, but I guess I commiserate with you— when I first read it, I was a bit like “wtf did I just read?” Without a lot of in-class discussion and the help of aforementioned prof, I would’ve probably binned it, but I ended up liking it. The Scarlet Letter, however, is another story, but I’ve already talked too much and that’s off-topic, lol.

"have to read it for school"
I am very pro higher education, but school ruins good books. I'm certain that if you read this in your 20's for fun you'd get more out of it.

I'm currently reading through War and Peace, which I would have hated to study, but which is a relatively enjoyable diversion when reading in bed for leisure.

Just assume everything you do between ages 14-17 are a wash and be sure to play video games with your friends. Unless you're my kids, Googling this some time between 2025 and 2030 in which case I mean "school is fun, especially if you study hard!"

If nothing else, it's the best gangster novel never written

It is not a critique of society, sure that's in it but that is not what the book it about.

The book is about the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, nothing more and nothing less. The book is about chasing that idealized, not even fully formed, fantasy in your head of who you want to see when you look in the mirror.

Sinclair Lewis is better at handling these themes, imo.

Main Street and Babbitt are his best works.

Tender is the Night is much better.

Much Like forced reading of Catcher in the Rye with Franny&Zoey being far superior.

they make you read the blandest works of the great writers

Read it in middle school and felt like I was watching some soap opera my sister used to love. Couldn't understand why my english teacher would recommend me something so unremarkable until I learned that it's actually a classic :-;

It’s honestly a mixed bag of a book

I've always thought it overated.

I don't believe that it is a bad book, just a very boring one. You're not alone in you're dislike of the book. I would personally say that the book is a 5.5/10.

Try reading the book as a commentary about what the real people at the top do with their lives. They aren't actually helping society, or using their money for good, they are selfish and they suck.

Gatsby comes into great wealth and blows it all trying to attract a girl. Tom Buchanan is a racist and he doesn't want to admit anyone into his class. Daisy literally married just for money and status. Nick is watching them all with disgust and he invites you to join him.

I studied this book for sixth form too and honestly I was bored shitless. One of my classmates (who was held back a year) kept going on about the green light and whilst I appreciate the value of said green light.. it was not the be all and end all. Ultimately there are better books out there by the same author. Books that have not been done to death by students around the world. While I enjoyed reading the book for the sake of reading a book, I did not enjoy analysing or critiquing it in the style an A Level student need to.

Good luck.

Never understood the adulation myself.

I've taught in in senior high school lit, and it's...fine, I guess.

I agree. What's the big deal?

I didn't either . I got half way through and just gave up

I couldn’t get through it. It was dull.

I agree. Granted, I first read it twenty years ago and liked it. Reread it about ten years ago and still liked it. My last rereading though a few years ago, I honestly couldn’t get past the first few chapters because >!I realized that everybody, with possibly the exception of Nick Carraway (the narrator) only care about themselves and lack basic empathy.!<

I think they assign certain books in school because nobody would bother reading them otherwise. The Great Gatsby was slightly less annoying than The Canterbury Tales, but then, so is a root canal.

I learned to love books before I was old enough to start school, and I've loved reading my entire life, but high-school really did almost cure me of it. I didn't really get back into the habit of reading for pleasure until later in my 20's, after college.

I didn't like it either. I thought it was a long ass pompous look at people in whom I see no redeeming value. I get that the book is supposed to make us reflect on the rich and their ways, but if it were up to me the lot of them (and the manuscript) would end up at the bottom of the pool lol

Terrible book. Thought maybe I was too young to appreciate it in HS, so I read it again. When I was in my forties. Still hate it. Terrible.