The Great Gatsby (1925) - F. Scott Fitzgerald Audiobook

Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Read by Jake Gyllenhaal
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
Release date: 04-09-13
Publisher: Audible Studios

Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. There, he has a firsthand view of Gatsby’s lavish West Egg parties - and of his undying love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.

After meeting and losing Daisy during the war, Gatsby has made himself fabulously wealthy. Now, he believes that his only way to true happiness is to find his way back into Daisy’s life, and he uses Nick to try to reach her. What happens when the characters’ fantasies are confronted with reality makes for a startling conclusion to this iconic masterpiece.

Jake Gyllenhaal strikes the right chord as Nick Carraway, who exists within the hyper-privileged world of Long Island’s upper crust but manages to avoid becoming jaded and swept up by the materialism of his cousin, Daisy, and the titular Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s elegant yet simple prose still holds up, and Gyllenhaal treats it with the utmost respect, allowing the vivid descriptions of mansions, landmarks, and 1920s New York to flow at just the right pace. While ultimately tragic, The Great Gatsby is full of light and beautiful moments that kindle nostalgia for the Roaring Twenties.

First published by Scribner’s in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly; in its first year, the book sold only 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. However, the novel experienced a revival during World War II, The army quartermaster corps supplied not just food, clothing, and other necessities to the troops but books and other items to break up the boredom of life. They ran out of current books and began to resurrect mediocre and forgotten books.

The Great Gatsby seemed talk to lonely men away from home, became a sensation, and has became a part of American high school curricula and numerous stage and film adaptations in the following decades. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title “Great American Novel.”

My sister’s quick summary of the characters in this small novel …The Kardashians 1925