The Great Gatsby is a novella by American writer Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald set in New York City and Long Island in the 1920s, published in 1925.
The protagonist, James Katz, is the son of a poor peasant in North Dakota who has dreamed of becoming a big man since childhood. After some hard work, he finally rose through the ranks and changed his name to Jay Gatsby. While serving as a lieutenant in a military training camp, he fell in love with Daisy Fei, a big girl in the South. But when he returned overseas after the war with a military merit badge, Daisy had married Tom Buchanon, a sturdy, wealthy but rude boy from Chicago, and indulged in the dream of love, Gatsby's hard work, from a poor officer to a millionaire. He bought a luxury villa at the western end of Long Island, across the bay from the Buchanon couple, who lived at the eastern end. His mansion was lit up every night, and hordes of guests drank and indulged. His only wish is to see his lover Daisy, who has been separated for five years, and when they are reunited, Gatsby thinks that he can go back in time and relive old dreams, but over time, he finds that Daisy is far from the person he dreamed of, but it is not long before this awakening, Daisy drives to death her husband's mistress, Tom marries Gatsby, Gatsby is finally killed, Daisy actually does not come to the funeral: the narrator Nick thus sees through the cruel cruelty and sinister intentions of the rich people in the upper class, leaves New York, and returns to his hometown in the Midwest.
When I was younger, which means more vulnerable, my father gave me a piece of advice that I keep coming back to my mind:
–When you feel like criticizing someone, think that not everyone has enjoyed the same benefits as you.
Jouir v. owns, enjoys
He doesn't say more, but since he and I have always been exceptionally communicative while putting a lot of reserve on it, I understood that the sentence involved much more than it expressed. As a result, I am inclined to reserve my judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me, not without making myself the victim of a lot of inveterate shavers. An abnormal mind is quick to discover this quality and to attach itself to it, when it shows itself in someone normal; that is why, at the University, I was unjustly accused of politicking because I was the confidant of the secret sorrows of disordered and unknown boys. Most of these confidences, I had not sought them – I often feigned sleep, concern or a hostile lightness when, at one of these signs that never deceive, I recognized that a revelation of an intimate order was on the horizon; for usually the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are tainted with plagiarism and spoiled by manifest deletions. To reserve judgment implies infinite hope. I would still be a little afraid of missing something if I forgot, as my father suggested with snobbery and as with snobbery I repeat here, that the feeling of fundamental decency is distributed to us by being born in an unequal way.
impliquer v. contains, meaning
Raseur n. Boring people
invétéré adj. ineradicable
déréglé adj. Unruly, mischievous
légèreté adj. Flippant, casual