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F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

I just read this book and I really don't understand what the hype is all about!?
Sure it was pleasant to read but for me there was nothing more.

So guys why do you love it?

Cheers :D
I actually don't love it, but I wanted to see what people thought of the movie version. I'm hearing it was pretty true to the book.
 
Where can I get me some of that "emptiness of wealth"?

LOL-Escapism by any other means just wouldn't be the same.

I love this theme that comes out through and through. It starts out mildly through the parties and then works to a libertine peak where you leave a path of destruction in the path of your car(quite literally in this book's case) It rubs counterintuitive to the "Horatio Alger myth" that was popular in America and the gilded age that preceded the '20s. I love reading critical articles from The New Republic, The Nation, and other news sources that tried to sound an alarm about unsustainable development in the economy at the time.
 
I do love the book. Its message should be heard loud and clear even today. Just look at one of the last lines:

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Though Gatsby has the illusion that he can be one of them, the class system in America (something most of us deny even exists), is quick to put him back in his place. Daisy toys with him, but would never betray her class for a flirt. Gatsby was a crook, but he was not a villain. Tom and Daisy were not crooks, but they were the novel's villains. Things are not black and white, not as they seem. Isn't that a lot more like life than most novels?
 
. . . Gatsby was a crook, but he was not a villain. Tom and Daisy were not crooks, but they were the novel's villains. Things are not black and white, not as they seem.
That's a great summary! I like it. :D
As for "most" novels, I think that depends on the kind you read. Most that I read seem to be about life and the conflicts in it. But yes, it is what makes Gatsby an interesting and good read.
 
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