Book Review: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

It seems a bit absurd to even attempt to review a book as famed and lauded as F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic "The Great Gatsby". It's like criticizing Monet's brush strokes on his water lilies, or calling "Romeo & Juliet" not tragic enough. But at the same time, there are films, literature, and fine art that the world hails as classic works of genius that personally don't ring true for me. Some examples are Van Gogh's "Room at Arles", William Golding's "The Lord of the Flies", and the performances of Katharine Hepburn (with the exception of "The Lion in Winter", in which I think she is downright brilliant).

Luckily, there was no reason whatsoever for me to question the "classic" status of "The Great Gatsby". I found it to be wholly deserving of its place in the pantheon of Great Literature. Several months ago, I read my first Fitzgerald book, "Tender is the Night". I fell in love with that book, as well as the author's unparalleled gift with the written word. Though Fitzgerald's knack for crafting and fleshing out fascinating, flawed characters is breathtaking, it is his amazing ability to create and breathe life into various settings that I find more impressive.

The skeleton of the story in "Gatsby" is as old as the hills. A love triangle, which precipitates tragedy as great in scope as some of the finest Greek classics. But it is Fitzgerald's love affair with words that wrap this ancient story in a lush, beautiful new cloak. He paints a portrait of 1920s excess and inhibition that didn't simply give me the feeling of reading about a particular time in history.

I was actually transported there.

The glittering parties. The free-flowing booze. The dynamic personalities. The Flapper dresses and bob haircuts. The idle rich doing what they do best: be idle. Whenever I put the book down, I had to shake my head a little and jolt myself back to 2008. Fitzgerald's portrait of the world of Jay Gatsby is all-consuming and ultimately very rewarding. For we don't feel as if we just glimpsed an interesting character in an interesting time. We feel as if we have walked for eons in his unscuffed brown wingtips.