Review by Choice Review
This fine critical edition of The Great Gatsby is a desirable acquisition for all university libraries and will prove quite useful to both scholars and college students. Editor Bruccoli, a preeminent Fitzgerald scholar, has made numerous appropriate changes in the original text, many of them desired by Fitzgerald but overlooked in the haste with which the 1925 edition was rushed into print. The scholarly apparatus is accessible and often fascinating. Stages of composition and revision from manuscript through galleys are explained chronologically. Substantive emendations and typographical "accidentals" are catalogued. Explanatory notes are succinctly provided throughout the text. Various appendixes dealing with the novel's early titles, dust-jacket illustrations, chronology, and the geography of East and West Egg (with illustrative maps) are provided, as are facsimiles of sample manuscript and galley pages. Throughout, the editor explains and justifies the difficult decisions he has made as to what to change and what to let stand. In sum, this is a meticulous and necessary work of scholarship, a valuable addition to Fitzgerald studies and to any library.-B. H. Leeds, Central Connecticut State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Readers in that sizeable group of people who think The Great Gatsby is the Great American Novel will be delighted with Robbins's subtle, brainy and immensely touching new reading. There have been audio versions of Gatsby before this-by Alexander Scourby and Christopher Reeve, to name two-but actor/director Robbins brings a fresh and bracing vision that makes the story gleam. From the jaunty irony of the title page quote ("Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!") to the poetry of Fitzgerald's ending about "the dark fields of the republic" and "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," Robbins conjures up a sublime portrait of a lost world. And as a bonus, the excellent audio actor Robert Sean Leonard reads a selection of Fitzgerald's letters to editors, agents and friends which focus on the writing and selling of the novel. Listeners will revel in learning random factoids, e.g., in 1924, Scott and Zelda were living in a Rome hotel that cost just over $500 a month, and he was respectfully suggesting that his agent Harold Ober ask $15,000 from Liberty magazine for the serial rights to Gatsby. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Fitzgerald's classic novel depicts the times, sounds, attitudes, and lives of many Americans in the 1920s. Upon moving to the West Egg area of Long Island to sell bonds in New York, unassuming narrator Nick Carraway becomes involved with, though never quite a part of, several segments of the alternating languid and furiously paced lives of individuals with money and time to spend. When he meets his neighbor the mysterious Jay Gatsby at a wild party in the neighborhood, Nick becomes entwined in Gatsby's hopeful plan to rekindle his continuing love for Nick's cousin Daisy Buchanan. Themes of reality vs. fantasy, hope vs. obsession, the idle rich, and the American dream are beautifully threaded to offer readers a tapestry that has come to embody the time period. Narrator Jake Gyllanhaal gives an understated performance filled with nuance and a thoughtful appreciation of the written word. Never overpowering, Gyllanhaal allows time for readers to draw their own conclusions and investigate their own interpretations of the novel's many facets. This fresh audio production will inspire readers to experience the classic anew. VERDICT This is an essential purchase for libraries not owning this novel in audiobook format and for those wanting to use the popular movie poster found on the audiobook cover as a conduit for enticing new listeners.-Lisa Youngblood, Harker Heights P.L., TX (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 UpAn initial biographical essay and closing chronology introduce Fitzgerald, his era, and his place in American literature. "For Further Research" includes Web site sources and provides helpful primary and secondary references. Spanning more than 50 years of criticism, the 19 pithy essays, one by Fitzgerald himself, are divided into three chapters that successively focus on Gatsby's character, American culture, and literary structure. Additional quotes, boxed and placed throughout the text, provide additional support for the authors' positions. There is little overlap of other Fitzgerald or Gatsby volumes in similar series, and although comparable titles written by one author exist, this volume's multi-authored critiques afford a highly varied, even conflicting, dialogue that's necessary for stimulating classroom discussion.Kate Foldy, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This thoughtful, well-developed, highly academic volume includes some background information about Fitzgerald, then presents a chapter-by-chapter summary of his novel. Eleven brief essays and snippets from longer critical works follow, exposing readers to a variety of scholarly perspectives and approaches. An annotated bibliography will be useful to young Fitzgerald scholars. Bib., ind. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
