# Great Gatsby - love it or hate it?



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

I had this discussion with a friend last night and wondered what others thought. I accept that Scott Fitzgerald writes beautifully and his story is well structured, well paced, characterization convincing etc. BUT – I really don’t like the book. I find the characters either selfish (Buchanan) or silly (Gatsby) or selfish and silly (Daisy) or incredibly silly (Myrtle). I tried the film, which was very beautifully made, but just couldn’t get through it: the whole ethos of spoilt, selfish “aristocracy” was just too cloying.  Happy to hear other’s opinions.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Couldn't finish it.  Bo-ring.  I know it's a classic and all, but... meh.  Not my cup of tea.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

I haaaaAAaaAaaAAAAaaAAAted it.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Half-Orc said:


> I haaaaAAaaAaaAAAAaaAAAted it.


That's what I meant. DD said it better.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

As usual, I didn’t love it or hate it, I was just uninterested in it and didn’t finish reading it.

Mike


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

I had to read this for school way back when and really hated it. As far as I could tell, it was just about rich people having parties. A friend of mine just read it recently and said it was the most romantic thing he had ever read. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was just totally uninterested.


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

jmiked said:


> As usual, I didn't love it or hate it, I was just uninterested in it and didn't finish reading it.
> 
> Mike


Been decades since I read it, but I remember being fairly indifferent about it, although I did finish it. My son had to read it for a class recently. He thought it was torture. Now I know how to punish him if he ever gets in trouble.


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## 13500 (Apr 22, 2010)

Jessica Billings said:


> I had to read this for school way back when and really hated it. As far as I could tell, it was just about rich people having parties.


That was the point of it -- Fitzgerald wanted to illustrate the pointlessness of the partying, exceedingly rich upper class in the 1920s, a time of what he thought of as decaying moral values, as well as the theme of old money versus new money and the crumbling of the American dream as the dichotomy between the rich and poor widened.

I agree some of the characters are unlikable, but, again, I think they were created that way for a reason.

It's a great novel.


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## Emmalita (Feb 24, 2009)

I loved it!  I haven't read it for awhile, but I loved every minute of it.  I also agree the characters weren't that likable, but loved that the book was so captivating.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

I loved nearly every book I was assigned to read throughout my entire schooling . . . save _one_. And you just named it. _The Great Gatsby_ may be a 'classic,' but I certainly don't get it.

I'm not a big fan of Westerns, but I loved _Shane_. _Les Miserables_ was incredible. _To Kill a Mockingbird_ remains one of my all-time favorites to this day. _Huckleberry Finn_, _Tom Sawyer_, and other works of the era were truly fascinating to read. Edgar Allen Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and other early American authors are still relevant and very readable to this day. _Fahrenheit 451_, _1984_, and _Brave New World_ taught me that there really _is_ good science fiction available out there, rare as that may be.

But F. Scott Fitzgerald? Sorry. The story is boring and overly long. The characters are unsympathetic in nearly every respect. The prose is flowery and pretentious without going anywhere or advancing what little story there is in any way. As far as I'm concerned, _The Great Gatsby_ is a treatise on exactly what _not_ to do while writing fiction, from start to finish. It is in fact and as previously described above quite simply torture to read and assigning it in school should be banned as a violation of the Eighth Amendment-cruel and unusual punishment.


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## mistyd107 (May 22, 2009)

Emmalita said:


> I loved it! I haven't read it for awhile, but I loved every minute of it. I also agree the characters weren't that likable, but loved that the book was so captivating.


Me too


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## Joel Arnold (May 3, 2010)

I read it in high school, and didn't particularly enjoy it - I didn't get what all the fuss was about. I re-read it as an adult, wondering if my perspective had changed. I did like it a little more - appreciated the prose, etc, but still was underwhelmed. I felt it was kind of like reading fluff.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

R. Doug said:


> It is in fact and as previously described above quite simply torture to read and assigning it in school should be banned as a violation of the Eighth Amendment-cruel and unusual punishment.


This had me smiling - and a generation of school boys here would agree with that sentiment. But glad to hear from the "loved it" side of the fence too.


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## Daniel Pyle (Aug 13, 2010)

I wouldn't say I _hated_ it, but I definitely think it's overrated. I can appreciate the writing, but it's much too boring for my tastes.


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## Gingy (Oct 15, 2010)

Daniel Pyle said:


> I wouldn't say I _hated_ it, but I definitely think it's overrated. I can appreciate the writing, but it's much too boring for my tastes.


I'm in this boat.

I felt bad about it too at the time because a friend bought me a copy because it's her favorite book. Luckily she never asked me what I thought.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I liked "The Great Gatsby" quite a bit.  I have read it a few times since high school and find the writing beautiful and the characters appalling, but that's the point.  They are ridiculous people.  It did make me want to read more of Fitzgerald, which I did some time after college.  I read all of his novels except "The Last Tycoon."  I enjoyed them all, though I haven't had a desire to re-read any of them.  I do remember coming to the conclusion that Fitzgerald was something of an anti-Semite, just based on the Jewish characters in his novels.

And "The Great Gatsby" does have one of those memorable final lines.  For some reason I've always been able to recite it from memory: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."


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## DavidRM (Sep 21, 2010)

I read The Great Gatsby as an adult. It was one of my wife's books from high school or college. I read it in a single Sunday afternoon, when I found it on a shelf and thought the cover art was damn cool.

I loved the book. I was blown away by the use of language and the "sense" or feel of the novel.

I agree, though, that it made a rather boring movie.

-David


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

Well now I feel old. I read it in high school, but can't remember if I liked it, hated it, thought it was =meh=, or what... All I remember is being asked the symbolism of the green light. 

Maybe I really hated it and have blocked the horrible reading experience from my conscious mind...


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Thumper said:


> Well now I feel old. I read it in high school, but can't remember if I liked it, hated it, thought it was =meh=, or what... All I remember is being asked the symbolism of the green light.
> 
> Maybe I really hated it and have blocked the horrible reading experience from my conscious mind...


If I remember correctly from my school discussions, the green light meant money, no? (Money is green.)


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## Keith Blenman (May 31, 2009)

I'm glad I read it once. The writing itself was wonderful, and there are several moments and details that have always stuck with me. But the overall story just isn't that remarkable. It's okay, but even with all the rich symbolism, it consistently felt like something more should be going on. I don't know what specifically. The characters were good. How they interacted always felt natural. But I always wanted them to be doing something more than going for a drive or having lunch. 

"It was then that Gatsby suggested we all play laser tag. I found it peculiar how some lasers were green while others were red, but who has time to ponder the issue while diving for cover?"

"We spent Halloween egging the houses of West Egg."

...Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be asked to rewrite the classics.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

LOL -- I'd read your Gatsby rewrite!

I read it in high school and hated it. I read it again this year and loved it. I just "got" the book much more. Boy, but I wanted to slap Daisy silly, though.


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## Oneironaut (May 18, 2010)

It was probably one of the first books that I had to read in school and ended up enjoying.  Most of the time I had to force myself through those books.


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## Alan Simon (Jul 2, 2010)

Read it about 15 years ago as an adult making a tour through "great books" I had either 1) never read, or 2) had to read in English class but got by with Cliff's Notes  . Just couldn't get into it and the setting and era are definitely within my sweet spot for the fiction I like to read. Still, I couldn't help thinking that "something" was missing...just don't know what.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

DYB said:


> If I remember correctly from my school discussions, the green light meant money, no? (Money is green.)


The green light is from Daisy's dock, and so it symbolizes Daisy and probably Gatsby's hopes and desires, and maybe more, including money. There's certainly been a lot of debate about what it symbolizes.

Personally, I don't love the book, but I admire it, and Fitzgerald's talent, immensely.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

alansimonbooks said:


> Still, I couldn't help thinking that "something" was missing...just don't know what.


Interesting to consider what the "something missing" was. As a lot of people, myself included, found the story just didn't really engage our interest, for all its merits - then the missing ingredient was an important one. Personally I think it is because we don't like/ care about/ empathize with any of the characters. In both books and films I have to care about what happens to the main character/ characters to really enjoy them, and in _The Great Gatsby_ I didn't.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Unlike many here, I wasn't forced to read _The Great Gatsby _ for school. I read it after reading Chris Bohjalian's _The Double Bind_, which gave me a different perspective when I went to read _The Great Gatsby_ than I would have had if I had read it before reading Bohjalian's creepy psychological thriller.



I think one of the main reasons I enjoyed _Gatsby_ was because I enjoyed _The Double Bind_ and wanted to read the classic that inspired such a twisted story.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

It's a great book. Gatsby is an American tragic hero; Nick the voice of conscience. (But if he hadn't been set up with a job at the time ... that's the best line in the novel, and you know it's true: he could've been doomed, too. And the flip side: If he had met Jordan in different circumstances, maybe it would've worked out and she would've been the love of his life.) Tom and Daisy are sociopaths, but genteel sociopaths. And T.J. Eckleberg knows all and sees all. I love the Gatsby universe. That said, I much preferred "Tender Is the Night." And my favorite Fitzgerald is the short story, "Cosmopolitan." As for movie adaptations, anyone interested in Fitzgerald should see "The Last Tycoon," which is stunning. Screenplay by Harold Pinter. Watch how he solves the problem of ending the unfinished novel without inventing anything, just reconfiguring an earlier scene in the story.


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## Sandra Edwards (May 10, 2010)

I was forced to read it for school (a very long time ago). The story was boring. There was nothing likeable about any of the characters.


Spoiler



Damn


tedious waste of time and energy.

Read that book again...? I'd rather watch water boil.


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## SuzanneTyrpak (Aug 10, 2010)

KarenW.B. said:


> That was the point of it -- Fitzgerald wanted to illustrate the pointlessness of the partying, exceedingly rich upper class in the 1920s, a time of what he thought of as decaying moral values, as well as the theme of old money versus new money and the crumbling of the American dream as the dichotomy between the rich and poor widened.
> 
> I agree some of the characters are unlikable, but, again, I think they were created that way for a reason.
> 
> It's a great novel.


I agree. I loved the book--read it a long time ago. Read all of Fitzgerald. I'm from New York and the area he writes about--the characters hold true for a lot of people I met growing up. There's a reason I moved to Colorado.


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## WilliamEsmont (May 3, 2010)

Probably my third-favorite book from HS, behind Flowers for Algernon and Native Son.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Good writing, painfully boring book. It should be used as an instrument of torture down at Guantanomo. I would rather go wait in line at the DMV than read that book again.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

chbunn said:


> I would rather go wait in line at the DMV than read that book again.


 It occurs to me that you could do both. . . . . . .


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Aargh. That's Spanish Inquisition territory.


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## HelenSmith (Mar 17, 2010)

I love The Great Gatsby. I read all of Fitzgerald's books when I was a teenager and thought they were amazing.

I haven't seen the film version of The Last Tycoon, thanks for mentioning it, Steve Silkin; I'll look it out and put it on my rental list. I prefer Pinter's screenplays to his plays - the same goes for David Hare who is a very talented dramatist.

I also saw your recommendation of the Wim Wenders version of Ripley's Game, The American Friend, in another thread. I hadn't seen it and I'll look that out as well.

I see that Carey Mulligan has been cast as Daisy in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming remake of The Great Gatsby. I'm not crazy about remakes but I'll be interested to see how this one turns out. I admire Baz Lurhmann and Carey Mulligan is a very good actress.


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## amira50 (Nov 10, 2010)

Read it a long time ago, but remember having been really impressed by it.


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## Holly A Hook (Sep 19, 2010)

I was forced to read it in school and didn't care for it, but that was just my taste.  I'll take fantasy any day.  Also, I remember the author seemed prejudiced against some religious groups/ethnicities, and it showed up in how he portrayed the characters.


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I believe I read The Great Gatsby in college, but it could have been high school.

At any rate, the sheer tedium I remember from that initial sampling, and also finding the movie excruciatingly boring, and as I remember finding the character of Daisy obnoxious and Gatsby's infatuation with her baffling...taken all together, they mean that there's little chance I'll ever revisit it.

I'll take R. Burton Matheson* over F. Scott Fitzgerald any day.

To those of you who adore the book, I don't mean to rain on your parade in any way! People respond to books in different ways and I'm happy you found a book that speaks to you.

*aka "Richard Matheson"


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## Walterrhein (Nov 19, 2010)

I'm supposed to teach this book in a couple months, so your comments are interesting.

The one fun fact about Gatsby that I remembered was that Hunter S. Thompson used to sit around typing it out so he could learn how to write.  I guess his theory was that typing Fitzgerald's words would help him learn the rhythm of good writing.

I read it once long ago and it didn't really grab me.  I happened to catch the movie at 1 in the morning about five years ago and I kind of enjoyed that.  I'm looking forward to figuring out a way to present it so that it's not torture.  I'm guessing that talking about what a bunch of jerks all the characters are will be a good method.

Thanks for the comments!


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Walterrhein said:


> I'm looking forward to figuring out a way to present it so that it's not torture. I'm guessing that talking about what a bunch of jerks all the characters are will be a good method.


the first thing i would do would be to read the chapters hemingway wrote about his time with fitzgerald in 'moveable feast.' then tell them a bit about what fitzgerald's life was like in those days. they'll dig that. at one point, they get separated during a trip to lyon to pick up a car. hemingway is waiting for fitzgerald in a cafe and meets a fire-eater. read them the paragraph about hemingway's chat with the fire-eater. they'll dig that, too. then read them what hemingway, completely exasperated by fitzgerald the person, says about gatsby after he's read it. some of them will get much more out of the book then. their antennas will be up.


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## askenase13 (Mar 1, 2009)

For those of you who are interested and are in the New York area, there is a fascinating 2-part, all day stage presentation of this work.  My close friends saw it (when it was in Boston last year) and loved it.  It entails a FULL READING of the text, and acting out major portions of the book.  Sounds strange, but my friends, who are major theater goers, found it to be very compelling.  The production is called "Gatz."  Google it.


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## HelenSmith (Mar 17, 2010)

Thanks, askenase

I had heard about Gatz but I didn't realise it was a 6 hour production. I live in London - I hope it transfers here.


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## Maygirl09 (Nov 13, 2010)

Loved it


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## Maud Muller (Aug 10, 2010)

Saw the movie years ago and liked it very much. Attended a writer's conference in San Francisco this spring and both The Great Gatsby along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were assigned reading. In my opinion both books are incredible. Not only is the writing stellar, both are classic tragedies with flawed protagonists who the reader knows from the onset will not survive. Remarkable works of literature and true classics.


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## Randy Kadish (Feb 24, 2010)

I don't love it. I don't hate it. I think it's a good book, but I do not believe it's a great book. The characters are one-dimensional, and not very empathetic. Too me a great character has a great goal that he or she has to achieve in spite of some flaws and/or inner conflict.

_The Great Gatsby_ has no such characters.

Also, I've never felt that the book presents a great message.

Yes, it has some interesting themes, but nothing groundbreaking.

I should say, however, that I've come to feel that many books highly touted by the academic community 
are overrated.

My two cents.

Randy


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## MelissaBuell (Oct 8, 2010)

I finally read The Great Gatsby  this year and...it was a collosial disappointment. I got to the end and said, "That's it?!" Blah. Don't get me wrong, it was well written and everything but I have to agree with previous comments about unlikeable characters and the plot line...blah again! So many better books out there to read! I just read The Count of Monte Cristo  this year and while the ending wasn't what I'd hoped for, it was well-written and I liked it so much more than Gatsby.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

My favorite book critic is the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley, and here's a link to his essay of a few years ago on Gatsby, which he thinks is the finest work of fiction by any American author ever:

http://tinyurl.com/cgagle

A key passage: _It seems to me, though, that no American novel comes closer than "Gatsby" to surpassing literary artistry, and none tells us more about ourselves. In an extraordinarily compressed space -- the novel is barely 50,000 words long -- Fitzgerald gives us a meditation on some of this country's most central ideas, themes, yearnings and preoccupations: the quest for a new life, the preoccupation with class, the hunger for riches and 'the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.' "_


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

Thanks, Steve Silkin, for mentioning "Tender is the Night" - I haven't read this for years but do remember liking it. Going to have to see if it is on Kindle and refresh my memory.


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## Maud Muller (Aug 10, 2010)

There has never been a book written that appeals to everyone. A novel that represents a feast for one reader may cause another indigestion.

For me, The Great Gatsby is a feast.


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## Steve Silkin (Sep 15, 2010)

Eric C said:


> " ... for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder."[/i]


oh how superb. great quote. fitzgerald in his existential poet mode. a spectacular sentence in a spectacular book.


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## squeaker (Dec 2, 2010)

Love it. Stylistically beautiful and open to a raft of different interpretations.

As for sympathetic characters, I see Gatsby/Gatz himself as one. He is a doomed idealist. In adhering to outmoded values (the values that "set him off from his guests"), to a romanticism that is incongruous with a modern, urban, materialist America, he represents an anachronism, and, it could be argued, a form of moral heroism.

But that's just me


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## Blodwyn (Oct 13, 2010)

It's been a long time, but I remember really liking it. I don't know if I still would or not but I did a few years back. I think it was Gatsby I liked. I felt sorry for him.


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## M. G. Scarsbrook (Nov 22, 2010)

As a writer, all I can say is that it contains some of the most beautiful descriptions of people/places that I have ever read. 

Anyone wanting to learn the importance of well chosen words and how to use them could do far worse than to study this book. In my mind, it's far better than any text book on creative writing.


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## libbyfh (Feb 11, 2010)

I loved it. Will never forget the 'careless" characters who peopled the book. Including Gatsby.


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

Like some others, I read this back in high school and I really don't remember much about it either. I know I didn't hate it. I seem to remember liking it. I liked or loved almost every book assigned, except I didn't read "The Brothers Karamazov" (not enough time--too much other stuff going on. That was a read cliff notes, watch movie--with William Shatner!--and hope for the best) and didn't like "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck.


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## TulipTrainer (Jun 6, 2010)

Love it. This is a marvelous work of literature that will stand the test of time. Fitzgerald bridges the gap between early American and modern American literature.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

O. M. G. Is there seriously a movie version of Brothers K with William Shatner!? I must see this!


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## Maud Muller (Aug 10, 2010)

Dave Dykema said:


> Like some others, I read this back in high school and I really don't remember much about it either. I know I didn't hate it. I seem to remember liking it. I liked or loved almost every book assigned, except I didn't read "The Brothers Karamazov" (not enough time--too much other stuff going on. That was a read cliff notes, watch movie--with William Shatner!--and hope for the best) and didn't like "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck.


Was so surprised to read that you didn't like the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. This is one of my all time favorite novels. I read the trilogy when I was very young and they left a lasting impression on me. I think it is because of these books that I have always felt an affinity for the Chinese people and their culture.


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## nmagel (Dec 7, 2010)

Hate.  I found it totally overrated.


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

Eileen Muller said:


> Was so surprised to read that you didn't like the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. This is one of my all time favorite novels. I read the trilogy when I was very young and they left a lasting impression on me. I think it is because of these books that I have always felt an affinity for the Chinese people and their culture.


I think it was "The Good Earth." It could have been something else. I read it in 11th grade, so that would have been 1981-82. Does it have -- in front of dialog instead of " ?


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

It was one of the only books in high school I didn't Cliffs note.

That said, I liked The Beautiful and the Damned best.


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## M. G. Scarsbrook (Nov 22, 2010)

By the way, did you know that there's a new Hollywood adaptation coming soon? Apparently it will be directed by Baz Lurman (who did Romeo + Juliet) and starring Leo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy.

http://www.slashfilm.com/carey-mulligan-cast-baz-luhrmanns-the-great-gatsby/

I don't think there's ever been a great adaptation of this novel yet. Could be interesting...


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

mgscarsbrook said:


> By the way, did you know that there's a new Hollywood adaptation coming soon? Apparently it will be directed by Baz Lurman (who did Romeo + Juliet) and starring Leo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy.
> 
> http://www.slashfilm.com/carey-mulligan-cast-baz-luhrmanns-the-great-gatsby/
> 
> I don't think there's ever been a great adaptation of this novel yet. Could be interesting...


Very excited about this! Hope the project gets made soon (that seems to be still up in the air).....


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

If Baz Luhrman does it, the movie itself may or may not be any good but the party scenes will be SPECTACULAR!


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## Forster (Mar 9, 2009)

I read it for the 1st time about 5 years ago.  Enjoyed it.  Any book that can transport me to a different era, different culture is all good to me.


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## KatieKlein (Dec 19, 2010)

Loved it! And I can't wait for the movie re-make!


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