During the following five absent years, Daisy marries the rough but wealthy Tom Buchanan, who treats her badly, but supplies her with the lavish lifestyle she requires. The story goes that a young and poor Jay Gatsby fell in love with Daisy, but was soon moved to serve overseas. The reader is guided by the narrator Nick Carraway into the rich and superficial world of people living in mansions along Long Island shore. This was a post war era that exuded defiance and freedom, and was a time when jazz came alive and prohibition in America changed the way society cooperated forever. ‘The Great Gatsby’ (published post WW1) is considered by many to be Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest novel, and is an undisputed classic in American literature, largely due to the fact that it’s considered as an illustration of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. But, when we had a moment (and it is a relatively short moment in the grand reading scheme of things, the book only being 180 pages long) we took a deep breath, pushed our classroom prejudices aside, and had a read.Īnd unfortunately this is the part where World of Books says – “ we’re on the fence” (“ cowards!” we hear you cry!) But we just can’t decide how we feel about this book. You know the type – that classic fear of the unknown and therefore potentially direly boring, well, classic. It’s one that’s been on our reading list for a long time.

Scott Fitzgerald has been described as many things over the years – timeless, disappointing, beautifully written, intricate, boring, perfection – this conflicting list goes on.

De grote Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald