Monday, March 24, 2008

THE GREAT GATSBY - 50 GREATEST BOOKS

Gatsby? It really is great

How much poorer would our culture be if F. Scott Fitzgerald had, as he originally intended, set The Great Gatsby in the Midwest in 1885, and called it The High-Bouncing Lover? Such a question is impossible to answer, for we can only guess at how barren the U.S. literary landscape would appear without Gatsby's West Egg mansion in it, just as we can scarcely conceive of a U.S. canon of literature without Fitzgerald himself.

There are reasons why this book is engrossing, and then there are reasons why it is important. Among the former are its impeccable style, its nearly flawless execution and its brilliant, charged prose. [more]

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