Il grande Gatsby

Di Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Introduzione di Walter Mauro
Traduzione di Bruno Armando
Edizione integrale

L’essenzialità, la finezza descrittiva e la nitidezza del procedimento narrativo (la storia è raccontata attraverso il punto di vista di Nick, vicino e amico di Gatsby), la creazione sapiente di personaggi indimenticabili hanno fatto ormai di questo romanzo un punto fermo, un “classico moderno”. Lo scenario è quello dei frenetici anni Venti, di cui Fitzgerald stesso e la moglie Zelda furono favolosi protagonisti tra New York, Parigi e la Costa Azzurra. Attraverso le sue feste brillanti e stravaganti, il lusso e la mondanità di cui si circonda, il «grande Gatsby», il misterioso, affascinante e inquieto protagonista, non mira tuttavia che a ritrovare l’amore di Daisy. Ma è possibile ricatturare il passato? Al di là della romantica suggestione, la vicenda di Gatsby diventa emblema di un sogno di assolutezza, come l’originario “sogno americano” di un Mondo Nuovo, che, come ogni ideale di purezza astratta, la realtà frantuma e disperde. Gatsby e Daisy hanno avuto, sul grande schermo, i volti di Robert Redford e Mia Farrow nel film del 1974 (regia di Jack Clayton) e di Leonardo DiCaprio e Carey Mulligan in quello del 2013 (regia di Baz Luhrmann).
Francis Scott Fitzgerald

nacque a St. Paul, Minnesota, nel 1896. Iniziò a scrivere giovanissimo, fin dai tempi della scuola. Pubblicò il suo primo romanzo nel 1920. Seguirono alcune raccolte di racconti e infine Il grande Gatsby (1925), che basterebbe da solo ad assicurare allo scrittore un posto di rilievo nella narrativa americana. Dopo avere goduto di uno straordinario successo, morì quasi dimenticato a Hollywood nel 1940. Di Fitzgerald la Newton Compton ha pubblicato Il grande Gatsby, Belli e dannati, Racconti dell’età del jazz, Tenera è la notte e il volume unico I grandi romanzi e i racconti.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Newton Compton Editori
• Data di uscita: 16 dic 2013
• ISBN: 9788854129047

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (Saint Paul, 1896-Hollywood, 1940) es considerado uno de los más importantes escritores estadounidenses del siglo XX y el portavoz de la generación perdida. El gran Gatsby se publicó por primera vez en 1925 y fue inmediatamente celebrada como una obra maestra por autores como T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein o Edith Wharton.

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Recensioni su Il grande Gatsby

[markm2315 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Ridiculously over-rated.

[incognito_1 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Admittedly not a bad book, but oh! I just want to slap everyone upside the head - some repeatedly.

[benkaboo-51322 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Summary: Great little book about a dreamer who doesn't give up.

Things I liked:

The writing is beautiful.
The story is succinct and efficient.

Things I thought could be improved:

No idea. I enjoyed it from start to finish.

Highlight:

The first time Nick sees Gatsby almost made me cry it was so beautiful. I got chills.

[polywogg · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

BOTTOM-LINE:Over-rated as a classic.PLOT OR PREMISE:A man observes the comings and goings of a 1920s party host who is both his neighbor and a paramour of his cousin. .WHAT I LIKED:It is weird to go back and read this book some 35 years after high-school. I remember thinking it was this glamourous world of parties and high society, where people really did act differently from the common folk. As an adult, I see it for what it is -- a portrayal of a shallow summer, without substance or value, leading to an inevitable tragedy of people over-estimating their self-importance and narcissism. Beautifully written, harshly portrayed as Nick Carroway observes the desire by Jay Gatsby for a married Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loved but lost years before. All of the summer reads like life without consequences, an embracing of hedonism and simple pleasures, but without anyone asking if it is really what they want or just what they think they want..WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:I find it intriguing that my young self saw it as a tragedy, but without particular indictment of the lifestyle of the secondary characters. They seemed more cliché or farce than real at the time, but now it just seems simply depressing across the board. I didn't care about any character anywhere in the book, not even Nick, who is mostly a blank slate..DISCLOSURE:I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review.

[pdcread · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

It is summer 1922, and Nick Carraway has just started as a bond salesman in New York. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the village of West Egg. His neighbour is the millionaire Jay Gatsby; a puzzling man who hosts lavish parties, but declines to meet the guests. Further around the bay live Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin, who introduce him to Jordan, a lady who Nick begins a romantic relationship with.

Finally one day, he receives a coveted invitation to one of the parties. He sees Jordan at the party, and he finally gets to meet him. Gatsby recognises Nick from the First World War; it turns out they were in the same division; later on he learns that Gatsby is still in love with Daisy from a liaison five years previously. He invites both of them for tea and after an awkward reunion, they rekindle their relationship and begin an affair. Ironically, even though Tom is having an affair, he is incandescent with rage at Daisy and confronts Gatsby at a plush hotel in New York. As these relationships unravel between husbands and wives and lovers, the story is set for the final, tragic events.

The America of the 1920s, and New York in particular, was an opulent place to be for the elite. Set in the time of prohibition, the parties were extravagant and this small privileged set lived like kings. But this classic American story for me was a little like diet coke and left a nasty taste. Not because of the writing, which is elegant, just for the hedonistic characters that I couldn’t really care less about.

[therebelprince · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Scott Fitzgerald is not a literary writer. He's the king of what I call faux-literature: fill your bowl with plot, add a dash of panache, a cup of nostalgia, three whiffs of yearning, and a drop of insight, and ice it with some fruity prose. Bang, you're done.

But people love him. And who am I to stop the people from having their fun? Like many young people, I adored Gatsby on first reading it during my 17th year. Its exquisite art deco finishing, its sublime sense of pathos, its richness without being threatening like all those disturbing Modernists... Of course, with each passing year, my appreciation of its values lessens, but my appreciation of that feeling remains strong. And perhaps that's the real secret of Gatsby? Like so many folk tales, we can never disassociate the book from the way it drew out our youthful sense of envy, of pain, of ambition, and ultimately of loss. This novel lives within me, and within so many, even though it no longer forms a conscious part of how I view the world. (And say what you will about him; few people have written a closing paragraph as perfect as what Fitzgerald does here.)

A towering piece of 20th century American fiction, nevertheless.

[wordbrooklyn · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

A classic for good reason, this book is practically perfect.

[jacketscoversread · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

The Great Gatsby is supposed to be the great American classic but I was surprised to find that the “great American classic” is about adultery, wild parties, and murder. However, I did enjoy Fitzgerald’s frank characters that were easy to understand and relate to.The Great Gatsby was required reading for my junior English class this year and while I finally managed to get into the novel towards the end, it certainly is not one my favorites. Yet, as far as required reading goes, this is by far one of the best, shortest, and easiest books my school has chosen for us to read. “People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away.” {pg. 41} “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” {pg. 189}

[adonisguilfoyle · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

I fell out with F Scott Fitzgerald after reading a biography about his wife Zelda, and how he 'borrowed' most of his stories from her life, but decided to give Gatsby another go. The only trouble is that, after studying this book at university, I can't see past all of the 'literary devices' to focus on the actual characters and plot, brief as it is (I'm sure I remember this being a longer novel). I did like one or two passages, including a description of poor old Gatsby's smile - 'It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life' - but the dialogue is ripe with artful nonsequiturs like 'Her voice is full of money' and 'It was only personal'. Short and sweet.

[lydia1879 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

I think The Great Gatsby was one of the first classic novels I ever chose to read ( i.e. something I didn't have to read for high school English) and it's also one of the best classic novels I've read.

I still, to this day, vividly remember reading quotations from the novel and falling in love with it completely. I think F. Scott altered the way that I read because he made me conscious that I was reading books for prose (among other things.) So not only did this book appeal to me as a reader, it also appealed to me as writer.

"She had a smile like money."

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I read this over a weekend - I was doing a 40 famine and raising money for charity, but instead of not eating, I chose not to speak. I didn't text, I didn't call anyone, I didn't go on Facebook. So to occupy my time I borrowed some books out from the library - the first that I read was The Great Gatsby.

So I had this very intimate experience with this book - one that I'm not sure I'd ever get back. But that doesn't matter. This man changed the way I read, and I'm very grateful for that.

[magadri-1 · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Eh. It was okay. Not sure that I would read this one again though; maybe in a few years when I can look at it through the eyes of a non-student rather than as a student forced to read it and talk about how "wonderfully moving" it was.

[bexaplex · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

The Great Gatsby, for all it's supposed to be about the American Dream, is really a good old-fashioned romance, with a Shakespearean pile of bodies at the end, a Great War, unsavory bootleggers, and several love affairs. Fitzgerald writes the characters so that you hate them all a little bit (Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air. "My dear," she told her sister in a high, mincing shot, "Most of these fellas will cheat you every time." [p. 31-32]) Writing a romance with characters that are not likable gives this book its tone - a sort of regretful, impersonal tragedy. I'm always sorry at the end, but I'm never quite sure who I'm sorry for.

[jacey25 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is my "comfort book" that I obsessively come back to every couple of years- like slipping into a warm bath. Fitzgerald puts you into the glamour and underlying dissolution of the jazz age as easily as slipping into a dream. For me this novel is the standard for love triangles and ill fated lovers as much as Romeo and Juliet .

[jesssh · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

I think it might have been better to read this in a class setting. I really don't "get" what is so great about this book. I found the characters dull, particularly the women, and all of them were pretty flat. Neither the story nor the writing were remarkable.

[chris_v_7 · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Quite possibly my favourite book of all time, a novella I return to every few years and marvel again at the pure joy of reading his champagne-dry prose. An American tragedy of the American dream. I bought this after seeing the film in 1974 and it caught me at just the right time as I was 15. Penguin reissued all Fitzgerald's books to tie-in with the film and I bought them all, reading them all over that summer. It is fantastic to discover a writer at that age.

[tngolden_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

The book that always comes up in literature survey courses. The American Tale of dreams, dissapointments and the mythology of the self-made man. But underneath the surface text lies a text that is readable through a number of lenses. Marxist, Feminist, deconstructionist, structuralist, postmodern... all are there to be found and the characters each inhabit their own unique spaces within the landscape of this novel of angst in a country struggling to define itself in a new post-modern world. Like most literary masterpieces every reader reads a different story, one which says more about them then the aims of the author. Quite simply it is America: a contrast between the haves and the have-nots, a place where the myth of the American Dream is the religion that all profess, and binary oppositions between conservative and liberal, between liberty and morals, between excess and conservation, between them and "us" (and the differing definitions of what an "American" is) holds the fragile, stressed composite into a whole that is hard to define.

[xmaystarx · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

Who doesn't love Gatsby? A classic I even enjoyed as required reading and am looking forward to reading again. Transports you to the roaring twenties in descriptions, speech, way of life.

[takeitorleaveit_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

ah, the classic CANT TRUST THE NARRATOR book.the best perspective book in the sense that Nick is not trusted but at the same time the reader is seeing everything from his perspective. this book is so well written and will always remain relevant.

[imperfectionist_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Considered one of the best literary classics of the twentieth century, The Great Gatsby is a symbolic story that takes a bit of deep thinking to fully comprehend. One has to look past the portrayals of the shallow characters in order to appreciate the depth of the novel. Narrated by Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby is a cynical novel portraying the superficiality, irresponsibility, and overall flaws of humans. After moving to West Egg, Nick befriends Jay Gatsby, his mysterious neighbor who loves to hold extravagant and huge parties weekly. Nick soon learns that Gatsby is in love with Daisy, Nick's cousin, and that she is the reason for Gatsby's ostentatious display of wealth. Gatsby had worked his way up the social classes because he believed himself to be inferior to wealthy Daisy. However, Daisy is now married to Tom, who has an affair with a woman named Myrtle. All these factors eventually lead to Gatsby's downfall. The characters of this book were not exactly role models. Gatsby himself did not accumulate his wealth in honest ways; Tom and Daisy are narrow-minded, shallow, and selfish people who create messes only to have others clean up after them. Gatsby's dream and love for Daisy made him a victim. What makes him great is his selflessness, passion, and determination for Daisy; he'd do anything for his dream though Daisy continues to reject him. Unfortunately, Gatsby never learned to be careful of what he wishes for. Personally, I thought this was a good book; I can definitely see why it's so famous. It's beautifully written; however, I have to warn you that the plot moves slow, so if you don't pay attention to some of the descriptions, you might miss some important details. Admittedly, I did have to reread some parts to understand it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who's easily bored, but if you're an advanced reader and you'd like to give this novel a try, I say go for it.

[smitkevi · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

I was very bored by this book. Yes, it says a lot about the American upper class during the '20s. Yes, its comments on people and society are classic, but in the end I find Scott's writing style to be lame. This book felt twice as long as it was, and worth about half the time I spent reading it.

[kateleversuch · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

I have just listened to The Great Gatsby. It was a re-read, I read it a few years ago while I was at college. Again, I enjoyed it. I love the seemingly curious character of Gatsby and his love for Daisy moved me. The way he was pining after her after 5 years apart was sweet (no he wasn't stalking her though! He merely lived near her in case of a chance-glance) . I love the description of his house. I have in my mind the image of this huge, stone house towering over all the little houses set around it, rather daunting all the people who live in those respected homes. Fitzgerald does touch on the American Dream, how Gatsby changed his name to change his destiny, but we see that even with the money, success and the nice house what he wants he doesn't have. It brings the American Dream into question: how realistic is it?I enjoyed this book. I liked the characters and there were a few lines which had me chuckling. A definite must-read.8/10

[jwhenderson_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Some claim this is the great American novel or at least one of them (Huckleberry Finn and Moby-Dick have been included in this list). If not the best depiction of the American iconic story it is still a great read and it was with heightened anticipation of this that I recently reread this book. That Fitzgerald's novel is a great book is demonstrated by the many layers of meaning and myriad ways that you can interpret the story. One approach is to focus on crime and there is plenty of that to be found in the book including: murder, bootlegging, financial theft, adultery, speeding and fraud to mention many if not all. Another interesting way of looking at the novel is that the real character, Tom Buchanan, dislikable as he may be, triumphs over the fake character of Gatsby. Throughout the novel Gatsby seeks to be something he is not and when his false front crashes there is nothing left. No friends, no possessions, no life. My favorite moments of the book also have to include the sheer poetry of Fitzgerald's writing. This, the narration of Nick Carraway, and all the rest made it a book I enjoyed rereading as much as any in recent memory.

[pulpexploder · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

A 1920s fairy tale. One man's obsession leads to extravagant love which leads to a few darker things. A lot more fun than the previous sentence makes it sound.

[seaghda · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

The story of the attempt at the All-American dream and how the attempt to get it can destroy what life you have. GRADE: A-

[joles_3 · Valutazione: 1 su 5 stelle]

School really ruined a number of books for me. Along with Gulliver's Travels and A Wrinkle in Time, The Great Gatsby falls there, too. I suppose not being particularly interested in this time period or the debauchery that goes on added to my discontent with this novel. Yes it is a classic but I don't plan to read it again.

[endersreads · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

Nick Carraway is our main character. He is a young man who graduated from New Haven, went in to the war, came out, and moved from the West to Long Island Sound's West Egg Village. He now makes a meager income selling Bonds. His neighbor is the supremely rich Mr. Gatsby, whom nobody seems to know much about, but whom everybody whose anybody has been to his outlandish parties. Just across the bay is the distinguished East Egg, where Nick has a cousin Daisy. He often visits her and her husband Tom, their small child, and their friend, the golf star, Miss Carraway. Tom also is supremely rich, and it turns out he keeps a mistress. Poor Nick is the unwilling observer to all. He becomes Gatsby's friend and finds that Gatsby has been chasing the past for several years. He is in love with Daisy, and in fact dated her 5 years ago. This all sounds a bit too romantic, but I promise you that between the alcohol and party antics, you will be kept interested. Borne back ceaselessly into the past indeed. At the end, tragically, the mystery of Gatsby is unraveled. A beautifully woven novel.

[phoenixcomet · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

It took 25 years from the last time I read The Great Gatsby to truly appreciate The Great Gatsby for the work of art it really is. The tale truly reflects the early 20th century on Long Island. Being a Long Island native, I know the places being used as backdrop to the essential story of love lost, found and longing during an era of radical change in social mores. Excellent, excellent, but I would say some maturity required to truly appreciate the tale.

[universehall · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

I was very perplexed when reading this novel because the forward said it was a classic because it was so much "fun" to read.Fun? I wouldn't call it exactly fun. I would say that it was an easy read - one wondered what was going to happen to the characters and would keep reading to find out - but I was left with that sick, half-disatisfied feeling that "and they all died" endings leave me with. This book made me question what the guidelines are for declaring a book a "classic of literature". Is it because it was well-written, and that's all? I can't see anybody coming away from this book feeling happy. The best I can imagine is that this book fairly accurately encapsulates the dissipated air of the monied lifestyle in the 1920's... But other than that, I'm not sure that the story was exactly great. It was interesting - but disatisfying and sad. Was that the whole point? Is there a class of people that enjoys reading books that make them disatisfied and sad, and I'm just missing the point because I don't? In the end, what I can say is this: The Great Gatsby is a well-written book about egotistic, monied people with morally bankrupt lives, grasping after dreams of happiness that their selfishness ultimately will not let them obtain. If that sort of thing floats your boat, then go with it.

[awfki_1 · Valutazione: 2 su 5 stelle]

Whatever it is that makes this is a classic totally went by me. The writing was fine but there was nothing compelling about it. None of the characters had any redeeming qualities. There was just nothing to care about. It was like watching a not very interesting documentary in school complete with stray thoughts of "isn't this almost over?".

[djupstrom · Valutazione: 5 su 5 stelle]

This is one of my favorite American classics. It is even with Catcher in the Rye. Great sympathetic characters. Interesting plot filled with symbolism.Read this book!