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I read it over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised. The story is thin, the underlying themes are a bit richer, but it is the style that is extraordinary.

I read it over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised. The story is thin, the underlying themes are a bit richer, but it is the style that is extraordinary. I have highlighted many, many sentences just for their delightful form, rich descriptiveness and poignant observational value. Other than that, the place in time and bottled up description of the roaring 20s are other reasons people keep referring to it.

thundergolfer 6y ago
I’ve just read Tender is the Night, and while I didn’t love it like I loved The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald knocks it out of the park with “poignant observational value”. “Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind.” That was a favourite sentence.
- hycaria 6y ago
  I'm not native and also am blown away by Fitzgerald writing, reading the great gatsby and tender is the night afterwards. They are rather different books, but I loved the characters in tender is the night a lot more, so my preference would go to this one I guess.
- teorema 6y ago
  What's funny to me — and I mean this sincerely, not as a troll — almost all the examples of good writing in Gatsby in this thread and the target article seem overwrought to me. If you'd present them to me out of context, I'd think they were examples of comically bad writing. I'm sort of neutral about The Great Gatsby. It's not my favorite but I think it's become a popular testament to its era. Because that era in many ways is the dawning of our own, it has special relevance.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > almost all the examples of good writing in Gatsby in this thread and the target article seem overwrought to me. If you'd present them to me out of context, I'd think they were examples of comically bad writing Evocative, overwrought, comically bad in hindsight—in a book about the 1920s.
  - yuriko_boyko 6y ago
    They are. I for one hate the style. Fitzgerald seems tone deaf about the number of multi syllabic words he uses in a sentence, as a result the rhythm becomes monotonous. I think people who are more visual in their reading like him.
    - thundergolfer 6y ago
      > as a result the rhythm becomes monotonous. Surprises me, as Fitzgerald has about the least monotonous prose of any author I've read. It's about as varied as Vonnegut, to me. I don't really know what it means to read visually, but I read about of a quarter of Tender is the Night out loud to myself, which would be 'audio reading', if anything.
billfruit 6y ago
I kind of feel Fitzgerald gets a lot more press than his contemporaries like Dresier, John O' Hara and Sinclair Lewis. How does Gatsby hold up against 'Sister Carrie' or 'An American Trajedy' or 'Main Street' or 'Babbitt'?

thundergolfer 6y ago

I’ve just read Tender is the Night, and while I didn’t love it like I loved The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald knocks it out of the park with “poignant observational value”. “Intermittently she caught the gist of his sentences and supplied the rest from her subconscious, as one picks up the striking of a clock in the middle with only the rhythm of the first uncounted strokes lingering in the mind.” That was a favourite sentence.

hycaria 6y ago
I'm not native and also am blown away by Fitzgerald writing, reading the great gatsby and tender is the night afterwards. They are rather different books, but I loved the characters in tender is the night a lot more, so my preference would go to this one I guess.
teorema 6y ago
What's funny to me — and I mean this sincerely, not as a troll — almost all the examples of good writing in Gatsby in this thread and the target article seem overwrought to me. If you'd present them to me out of context, I'd think they were examples of comically bad writing. I'm sort of neutral about The Great Gatsby. It's not my favorite but I think it's become a popular testament to its era. Because that era in many ways is the dawning of our own, it has special relevance.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > almost all the examples of good writing in Gatsby in this thread and the target article seem overwrought to me. If you'd present them to me out of context, I'd think they were examples of comically bad writing Evocative, overwrought, comically bad in hindsight—in a book about the 1920s.
- yuriko_boyko 6y ago
  They are. I for one hate the style. Fitzgerald seems tone deaf about the number of multi syllabic words he uses in a sentence, as a result the rhythm becomes monotonous. I think people who are more visual in their reading like him.
  - thundergolfer 6y ago
    > as a result the rhythm becomes monotonous. Surprises me, as Fitzgerald has about the least monotonous prose of any author I've read. It's about as varied as Vonnegut, to me. I don't really know what it means to read visually, but I read about of a quarter of Tender is the Night out loud to myself, which would be 'audio reading', if anything.

billfruit 6y ago

I kind of feel Fitzgerald gets a lot more press than his contemporaries like Dresier, John O' Hara and Sinclair Lewis. How does Gatsby hold up against 'Sister Carrie' or 'An American Trajedy' or 'Main Street' or 'Babbitt'?