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F. Scott Fitzgerald

Books

What Was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Attitude Toward Homosexuality?

By Emily Temple on

There has been much ado about The Great Gatsby in recent months, for obvious reasons. And with that ado has come a resurgence of interest in Nick Carraway’s unclear sexual orientation — something you probably missed as a high school sophomore, but is obvious with even a little attention as an adult reader. Earlier in the year, in an article at Salon, Greg Olear pointed out that nagging passage that suggests Nick’s homosexuality, nestled in between those ellipses and coming directly off of a blatant penis joke. And today in The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky argues that Baz Luhrman’s new film adaptation suffers from not being gay enough, and thereby undermining Nick’s character and eliminating his connection to Gatsby based on “their shared need for deception.” … Read More

Film

The Complicated — And Troubling — Role of Race and Class in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Gatsby’

By Tyler Coates on

Now that The Great Gatsby has opened to favorable audience reviews and not-so-ecstatic critical response, there seems little left to be said about Baz Luhrmann’s garish 3D romance. As expected, Luhrmann’s picture is a mostly faithful adaptation of the book, if not a completely obvious one. And sure, for every shot of Leonardo DiCaprio practically tripping over his wing-tipped feet to reach for the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock, there are thousands of frames filled with fireworks, confetti, champagne, and even the typewritten words of F. Scott Fitzgerald (by way of the ludicrous framing device suggesting that Nick Carraway wrote The Great Gatsby as a memoir to cure his “morbid alcoholism”) flying into the faces of the bespectacled audience. (It’s surprising that the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg weren’t behind Dolby-branded 3D glasses.) You don’t see a Baz Luhrmann film for the subtlety, but one aspect of The Great Gatsby that is surprisingly nuanced is the complicated role that race plays in both Lurhmann’s and Fitzgerald’s cynical treatment of the American class struggle. … Read More

Film

Why Can’t Hollywood Get ‘The Great Gatsby’ Right?

By Jason Bailey on

Hollywood took its first stab at adapting The Great Gatsby for the screen only a year after its publication, and has been trying intermittently ever since — and, for the most part, failing. What is it about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic that makes it so impossible, so utterly untraslatable? It’s certainly not that the film industry hasn’t been trying hard enough: Baz Luhrmann’s new film is the fifth official adaptation. In the course of a week, I watched all of them that can be seen (and another, looser adaptation besides), and came up with a few theories. … Read More

Books

The Best ‘Great Gatsby’ Merchandise for Living the High Life

By Emily Temple on

If there’s anything Jay Gatsby went in for, it was capitalism. So if you’re getting excited for the film adaptation of your favorite book, or planning a Gatsby-centric theme party that’s just dying for some chic decor, why not follow in your favorite fictional character’s steps and spend a little green? It’s what a man with sweaters so nice they make girls cry would want. After the jump, you’ll find some of the best Gatsby merch — from rare books to earrings — available, so get shopping, and get a little literary glam in the process. … Read More

Books

Was ‘The Great Gatsby’ The Last Great New York Novel?

By Geoff Mak on

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby stands out as the finest of his four completed novels because it’s an empathetic satire that delivers the author’s most aggressive attack on New York’s high society. I’ve read it maybe five times, although I prefer the first half because I think that’s where the magic happens. It’s when all three of the novel’s parties take place, and where Fitzgerald’s psychological complexity thrives most — the simultaneous worship and disdain for wealth and celebrity that characterizes his body of work. It’s often praised as a top contender for the Great American Novel, but Gatsby also remains as the best New York novel I’ve ever read because it so fully embodies the city in the time during which it was written, while continuing to speak to readers (and especially New Yorkers) of every generation. … Read More

Books

15 Awesome ‘Great Gatsby’ Tattoos

By Emily Temple on

You may think you’re a fan of The Great Gatsby, but how committed are you really? Lots of folks have proven their love of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece by inking its words and images on their bodies — the floating face of the classic cover and the final lines are perennial favorites in this regard. After the jump, check out some of the greatest Gatsby tattoos from around the web. … Read More

Architecture

20 American Mansions Fit for Jay Gatsby

By Tyler Coates on

While The Great Gatsby is filled to the brim with powerful symbolism, houses play a particularly important role in defining F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters. Gatsby himself built a gigantic mansion at West Egg that purposefully looked classical, giving the illusion of long-standing prominence. Fitzgerald based Gatsby’s mansions on many real-life homes (including the now-demolished Beacon Towers and Land’s End, which both stood on Long Island’s Gold Coast), but there are a handful of castle-like mansions on the Eastern Seaboard that would be perfect for a number of lavish, Gatsby-style… Read More

Books

What It’s Like to Read ‘The Great Gatsby’ for the First Time at 37

By Jason Bailey on

With Baz Luhrmann’s splashy adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel contender hitting theaters Friday, Flavorwire is devoting this week to all things Great Gatsby. Click here to follow our coverage.

I’m still not sure how I’d made it to age 37 without reading The Great Gatsby, but this much was for sure: I was going to have to. It’s never a bad idea to read the source material when gearing up to review the film adaptation of a highly regarded literary property (though the finite number of hours in the day certainly prevent that notion’s translation from theory to practice), but my editor’s suggestion for a “Gatsby Week” piece on the difficulty of adapting Fitzgerald’s classic to celluloid sort of cinched it. “Ha, ha, funny story, I’ve never read it,” I chortled, and her nonverbal response to that ill-timed bit of mirth made it clear that I’d be doing so sooner rather than later. … Read More

Books

45 Wonderful Fan-Designed Covers for ‘The Great Gatsby’

By Emily Temple on

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has one of the most iconic book covers of all time. Francis Cugat was commissioned to design it while Fitzgerald was still working on the novel, and when he saw the artwork, he liked it so much he told his publisher he had “written it into” the book. This has not prevented Gatsby from being published with multiple jacket treatments over the years. Some are quite lovely indeed, the recent movie tie-in edition not included. The novel has also been a wellspring of inspiration for writers and designers alike, and there are quite a large number of wonderful fan-designed covers floating around on the Internet — created by everyone from established designers to students. Click through to see some of the… Read More

Books

Required Reading List: Jay Gatsby

By Emily Temple on

With Baz Luhrmann’s splashy adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel contender hitting theaters Friday, Flavorwire is devoting this week to all things Great Gatsby. Click here to follow our coverage.

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously quipped, “even so, they have made me.” In this bi-weekly series, Flavorwire plays professor to some of our favorite pop culture characters, assigning reading lists tailored to their temperaments or — in some cases — designed to make them into slightly better people. After all, even fictional characters can have their lives changed by books. Or so we imagine. This week, we recommend a reading list for the man of the moment, one Jay Gatsby. … Read More