The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgeraldf

Sometimes you just gotta go back to the classics; or in my case, read it for the first time. I’m fairly certain this was required reading in my high school English class, but if so, I used CliffNotes to skate by - sorry Mrs. Elvin (although she probably knew).

Okay, back to the Great Gatsby or rather, the Great Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wow, what a writer! His sentences, so verbose, so colorful, so full of adjectives. It’s interesting how current writers seem to do their best to choose one or two descriptive words, or better yet, one big one that many of us need to look up in Webster’s, and mock those who use more, easier to read words. I say, bring back the Fitzgerald style!

As for the book, another wow. How could I have gone decades into my adulthood and not read this book? So much to it: love, fake-love, romance, adultery, murder, and a cover-up; this is good stuff. Written through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the self-proclaimed honest story teller. He narrates the ups and downs of society high-life that he touches the outskirts of by happenstance - he lives, for a short season, next to J. Gatsby.

Nick tells us of the going ons of the Buchanans, Tom and Daisy; how Tom is seeing Mabel Wilson, who is married to the mechanic at the gas station, and how Daisy is in love with Gatsby, and of the parties - oh, the grand parties.

Nick himself is with Jordan Baker, socialite and golf pro, as a means to fit in and pass the time with the likes of those in society. At times, all those beautiful words get jumbled in the reader’s head, but still craft a fantastic story, one that never gets old: Love, jealousy, and murder.