Buch statt Net­flix: der Klas­si­ker „The Gre­at Gats­by“ wird vorgestellt.

Bore­dom is what pla­gues us all at the moment. Why not read a book once in a while, ins­tead of wat­ching Net­flix? The book I am going to pre­sent to you, is one of my favo­ri­te ones and a clas­sic, that I am sure you have heard about befo­re: The Gre­at Gats­by by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The sto­ry is told by Nick Car­ra­way, a young man who recent­ly moved to West Egg, a dis­trict of Long Island for the new­ly rich. His neigh­bor is a mys­te­rious man named Jay Gats­by, who is known for his extra­va­gant par­ties, that take place at his luxu­ry man­si­on every Satur­day night. Being despera­te­ly in love with Nick’s cou­sin Dai­sy, who lives across the bay with her hus­band Tom Buchanan in East Egg, Gats­by plans on win­ning back the love of his life. In effort of ful­fil­ling this goal, he builds hims­elf an illu­si­on of a life, while igno­ring the rea­li­ty around him. The con­se­quen­ces that fol­low are fatal.

A philosophical masterpiece

“It elu­ded us then, but that’s no mat­ter – tomor­row we will run fas­ter, stretch out our arms fur­ther… and one fine mor­ning – so we beat on, boats against the cur­rent, bor­ne back cea­se­l­ess­ly into the past.” This quo­te shows one of the major reasons, why I think, ever­yo­ne should read this mas­ter­pie­ce of a book: Fitz­ge­rald suc­cee­ded in com­bi­ning an inte­res­t­ing love sto­ry with a phi­lo­so­phi­cal depth. He per­fect­ly depicts mate­ria­lism and idea­lism, which are major cha­rac­te­ristics of the Roaring Twen­ties. The Book del­ves into the uto­pian natu­re of the Ame­ri­can Dream, repre­sen­ted by the cha­rac­ter Jay Gats­by, and reve­als the truth: We negle­ct the true rea­li­ty of our aspi­ra­ti­ons, not rea­li­zing we may alre­a­dy stri­ve for an unap­proacha­ble illusion.

Only some will enjoy reading it

In order to deli­ver this mes­sa­ge, the aut­hor uses a very vivid descrip­ti­on and lan­guage. Through many per­so­ni­fi­ca­ti­ons, meta­phors and com­pa­ri­sons such as “at his lips’ touch she blos­so­med for him like a flower and the incar­na­ti­on was com­ple­te”, you can exact­ly por­trait a pic­tu­re in your mind.

There’s only one aspect, I would cri­ti­ci­ze. None of the cha­rac­ters are lika­ble or per­sons you can iden­ti­fy with – at least I couldn’t. But the con­fu­sing thing is: You can’t dis­li­ke them either.

Now, if you’re someone that loses the over­all enjoy­ment for a book, if the cha­rac­ters aren’t likeable, this book may not be the book for you. Howe­ver, if you are someone who likes books that approach the topic love from a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent per­spec­ti­ve, I would defi­ni­te­ly recom­mend to you rea­ding this book. 


Bild: © Ver­lags­grup­pe Ran­dom House GmbH, Muenchen

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