The Great Gatsby
Paperback $24.95eBook $10.95
216 pages (approx)
Look Inside!
This is a literary classic that sparkles on every page. Daisy will make you want to love. Tom will make you want to earn millions. Gatsby will make you want to dream. Step into this fascinating and enthralling classic, as you become embroiled in the problems, and empathise, love, hate and enjoy every single situation, every word.
Synopsis
Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who lives on Long
Island but works in Manhattan, we learn the story of eccentric
millionaire Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s enormous mansion is adjacent to
Carraway’s modest home, and Carraway becomes curious about his neighbour
after being invited to one of his famous parties.
Nick soon learns that Gatsby is in love Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin
and the wife of Tom Buchanan, an acquaintance of Nick’s from Yale.
Buchanan takes his old friend for a day in the city, where Nick learns
that Buchanan has a kept woman, Myrtle, the wife of a long island
mechanic, George Wilson.
At a luncheon with Gatsby in New York, Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a
date between him and Daisy. Gatsby had loved Daisy five years ago, but
he had been sent overseas by the Army. Daisy had given up waiting for
him and had married Tom. As Nick complies he comes to see that Gatsby,
once a poor boy, has reinvented himself as a fascinating millionaire
purely to win Daisy back but the events of a drunken afternoon conspire
to bring about an ending which is anything but happy.
Book in Detail
Characters To Personalise:
Nick Carraway - The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota
who after being educated at Yale goes to New York City to learn the
bond business. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island
that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door
neighbour, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he
facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. Nick
views himself as a man of "infinite hope" who can see the best side of
everyone he encountered. Nick sees past the veneer of Gatsby's wealth
and is the only character in the novel who truly cares about Gatsby.
Jay Gatsby – Nick's wealthy neighbour and the title character and
protagonist of the novel. Gatsby owns a gigantic mansion in West Egg and
has become well known for hosting large parties every Saturday night.
Gatsby's lust for wealth stems from his desire to win back the love of
his life, Daisy Buchanan, whom he met and fell in love with while
training to be an officer in Louisville, Kentucky before WWI. Gatsby is a
self-made man who made his fortune through criminal activity. But to
Gatsby, the desire for love proves more powerful than the lust for
money.
Daisy Buchanan - The love of Jay Gatsby's life, the cousin of Nick
Carraway, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. She grew up in Louisville,
Kentucky, where she met and fell in love with Gatsby. She promised to
wait for him as he went off to war, but a habouring a deep need to be
loved, leads her into the arms of a wealthy, powerful young man named
Tom Buchanan and she decides not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a
beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the
fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and
somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her
husband’s constant infidelity.
Tom Buchanan - A former football player and Yale graduate who marries
Daisy Buchanan. The oldest son of an extremely wealthy and successful
"old money" East Egg family, his social attitudes are laced with racism
and sexism. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair
with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an
affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation.
Jordan Baker - Daisy’s friend who also become’s Nick’s girlfriend. A
competitive golfer, Jordan is beautiful and pleasant, but also
dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and
continually bends the truth. Still, there is some suggestion in the
novel that she loves Nick, and that he misjudges her.
Myrtle Wilson - The wife of George Wilson and the mistress of Tom
Buchanan. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately
looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she
chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire.
George Wilson - Myrtle’s husband and the owner of a run-down auto shop
at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle,
and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief
when Myrtle is killed.
Meyer Wolfshiem - Gatsby’s business partner and friend, a prominent
figure in organized crime. Before the events of the novel take place,
Wolfshiem helped Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor.
Wolfsheim is a gambler who made his name in organized crime by fixing
the 1919 World Series.
Klipspringer – A man who is such a frequent guest at Gatsby’s mansion
that he almost seems to live there. As soon as Gatsby dies,
Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he does call
Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion.
Feedback
I ordered this for my daughter who is training to be an english teacher. Gatsby is her favourite book and l wanted something personal as a gift that also included her fiance and her university friends. You have made us both very happy! Tears have been shed [happy one's] and no gift could have made her happier than this one. Thank you Christine Collins