The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Bland at best
Book cover blurb
Nick Carraway rents a property on Long Island, where the new moneyed class are given to ostentatious displays of wealth. None more so than the mysterious Jay Gatsby, a man who throws lavish parties for uninvited guests. After befriending his enigmatic neighbour, Nick helps reconnect Gatsby with his lost love Daisy Buchanan, now married and living tantalizingly close by. The rekindling of their passion has explosive ramifications, and the secrets of Gatsby’s murky past are finally revealed.
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My Review
I'm afraid this has to be a half-hearted review, simply because I can't work out what all the fuss is about.
The writing is nice and the characters are quite interesting, but the story itself seems lacklustre to me. There's nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly fine, but it's nothing special, it baffles me why this is marked as a 'classic'. I'm obliviously missing something.
But, the physical book itself, this Chiltern edition of The Great Gatsby, is a very special item in my opinion. It looks utterly beautiful and feels like pure indulgence to hold. The cover is a fabulous metallised embossed gold, silver and red. The page edges have a very dense gold spray, and the paper itself has a sheen to it and is off-white in colour, making it very easy on the eyes. The printing is incredibly sharp, no bleeding at the edge of the lettering at all, I assume because the paper is so smooth and doesn't drink the ink. And the ribbon placeholder nicely finishes off the quality.
I will definitely be buying more Chiltern collection.
My copy of this novel
Chiltern hardback edition.
Published in 1925
171 pages
ISBN 9781912714063