Hailed as Fitzgerald's greatest novel, The Great Gatsby has been adapted into a film 5 times in history as a classic portrayal of the Jazz Age.
It depicts the story of the protagonist Gatsby who makes all his efforts to pursue a dreamy love, but in the end he does not get what he wants. The story takes place in the United States in the 1920s, just after World War I.
People who have just gained a respite from the pressure of war, because of the prevalence of hedonism and the influence of specific historical eras, they are gradually lost in the life of the drunken gold fan, and finally lose themselves.
"The Great Gatsby" ten classics: everyone is a Gatsby, and reading will be full of power
1. The world doesn't care about your self-esteem, people see only your achievements. Don't overemphasize self-esteem until you're not accomplished.
2. If you intend to love someone, you should think clearly whether you are willing to give up the freedom of the heart for him, and willingly have a bond from then on.
3. When I was young and inexperienced, my father taught me a sentence that I still remember. "Whenever you want to criticize anybody," he said to me, "just remember that not everyone in this world has the advantages you have."
4. We continue to forge ahead, sailing against the current, being pushed backwards until we return to the old days.
5. All the glamour is timeless and never returns.
6. The sun shines on the earth, and the green leaves gush out of the branches, just like everything grows rapidly in a movie shot. That familiar belief came back to my heart, summer came, and a new life began.
7. I think honesty is the most important quality, at least I am an honest person.
8. No matter how fiery the flame, no matter how full of vitality, it is not as good as the emotions accumulated in a man's lonely heart.
9. In this hot weather, every extra gesture is a waste of life reserves.
10. He had no way of knowing that the dream had long since left him, abandoned in a boundless chaos outside the city, abandoned in the black fields of the United States in the long night of silence.
We are all ordinary people
The author draws on Nick's perspective to compare the eastern and western United States in the early twentieth century more than once. The east is like a gathering place for the aristocratic, rich and tasteful class, a trading market for stocks, bonds and futures, and a dream city for every young person who wants to get rich and enterprising.
Gatsby, a young man from a farming family in the West, is undoubtedly one of the young people. However, he differed from others in that he relied on "extraordinary" experiences and means to quickly become a "successful person".
Not satisfied with the status quo in life, want to improve, even if it uses different means, maybe this is really us, and we are our own Gatsby.
At the end of the 20th century, the authorities of American academia selected one hundred of the best novels in the long river of English literature in the past century, and "The Great Gatsby" ranked second, proudly ranking among the contemporary classics.
The book was the first step in the American novel since Henry James, because Fitzgerald wrote about grandeur, bustle, flippance, and pleasure-seeking, all of which were all the rage.
At the same time, it is Fitzgerald's best novel, keenly grasping the themes of contemporary social life and symbolically showing the irony and sadness under the legend of the "American Dream".
Murakami confessed: "If I had to pick a favorite book, I would not hesitate to choose The Great Gatsby." As a novelist, I see it as a yardstick, as a yardstick to measure myself. ”
Hemingway said he didn't have a good impression when he first met Fitzgerald, but after reading "The Great Gatsby," he felt that "the man who can write such a novel is a great guy."
The novel is beautifully written, thanks to the use of rhetorical techniques such as metaphor and anthropomorphism, and it is not conventional, and today's young people are too realistic in terms of love and material pursuit, and perhaps in this world we should be realistic.
Young people will always be frivolous, especially for ordinary people living at the bottom of society, and the desire to change the status quo is the dream of most people.
But in this society, the people at the bottom will always be the majority, because they have learned to face reality, become a person who is willing to be mediocre, and pretending to sleep and not waking up has become the choice of most people.
There are many ordinary people in the world, they are ordinary people, and you and I are all Gatsby. Reading Gatsby also understands life and himself.
This book is a Chinese and English version, not only can read the novel can also learn English, improve our English reading ability, not only that, but also let the child read, feel the charm of the world's famous works, by the way, you can also learn English, parent-child progress together.