Cliff Notes for The Great Gatsby

Study Guides

Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Cliffs Notes) List Price: $5.99 Sale Price: $2.38 Used From: $0.01 Average Rating:

Description

A fascinating and tragic story of a man obsessed with the idea of success in America. Gatsby's singularity of purpose makes him a caricature of many American ideologies, all told in a spectacular, artful narrative.

Features

• ISBN13: 9780764586019
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Reviews

Received quicker than expected. Quality was great, just as if I bought brand new from a bookstore. would definitly purchase thru them again.

Here is an honest review of the book for what it is, not the ethical and educational implications of reading this book. In terms of the educational value received from the book, it's not too bad. Although their vocabulary isn't as great as the vocabular sparknotes employs, their guides seem to colloquially explain the subject material, which is the purpose of the book. I bought the book because I was at Target and needed a guide for an upcomming test where I wouldn't have internet access the nights before (I usually use sparknotes because it's free), and I was surprised by the writing quality of the book. Granted, it's not as good as Fitzgeral's writing, however it does relate the story, which is the primary purpose for a history class. Concerning the people who have condemned this book, they need to understand the multiple approaches to learning subject areas. Currently I maintain a schedule where on good days I receive 6 hours of sleep and on bad a receive 3 to none because of my busy schedule and heavy extra-cirricular activity. Reading cliff-notes doesn't mean we as readers won't look in the book for quotes (for example - writing a paper) to support our ideas. Simply condemning them because they're not the real book is unfair to the book, the authors, and the people that use cliff notes for ligitimate purposes. Overall, it conveys the idea well, however sparknotes does an equally decent job.

I am embarrased that someone is looking at this page and considering reading the cliffnotes for one the the best (and not to mention shortest) pieces of american literature. Try to use your brains for something other than reality television and choosing a fast food joint. Its not all that hard to read this book and understand it. ENJOY!

Stop right now. Do NOT buy this. Buy the actual book instead! I know, I know, crazy idea in this day and age, but Cliffs Notes are exactly what is wrong with the world of literature these days: too many people reading the Reader's Digest version, and not enough actually reading great literature! I mean, come on people, the book is less than 200 pages long. You can read it in one sitting. And it's not even that difficult to understand--the prose is limpid and the plot engrossing. Don't cheat; don't take the easy way out. Do the right thing. Read the book, not the Cliffs Notes.

"Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (Cliffs Notes)" is a great way to help you understand what you're reading, if you're having difficulties. If you're not having a problem reading "The Great Gatsby," this will give you questions to test your knowledge of the book. Of course, you should read the Cliffs Notes AFTER you read "The Great Gatsby," not instead of. I recommend.

Spark Notes The Great Gatsby List Price: $5.95 Sale Price: $5.94 Used From: $0.01 Average Rating:

Description

Get your "A" in gear!They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception SparkNotes™ has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles. SparkNotes'™ motto is Smarter, Better, Faster because:They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts.\They're easier to understand, because the same people who use them have also written them.The clear writing style and edited content enables students to read through the material quickly, saving valuable time.And with everything covered--context; plot overview; character lists; themes, motifs, and symbols; summary and analysis, key facts; study questions and essay topics; and reviews and resources--you don't have to go anywhere else!

Reviews

Very detailed. Seems to give you all that you need to know and less of what you don't need.

Full-Length

The Great Gatsby List Price: $14.00 Sale Price: $6.00 Used From: $3.19 Average Rating:

Description

Noted Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli draws upon years of research to present the Fitzgerald's Jazz Age romance exactly as he intended according to the original manuscript, revisions, and corrections--with explanatory notes. Reprint.

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743273565
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Reviews

...applied to the star rating of books. In brief, the Doppler effect addresses the perceived frequency of waves, such as a fire truck's siren, by taking into account the actual frequency, and the relative speeds of the source of the sound, and the observer. So too with books; your opinion is so often determined by your particular circumstances, perhaps rushing towards the source, or enjoying the lengthening perspective that life in its fullness can provide. Unlike so many of the now familiar 1-star reviews, written by students forced to read the book as an assignment, I first read this book, of my own free will, more or less, when I was in Vietnam, some 40 plus years ago. When you are living in a bunker, the whining of the rich, and their self-induced troubles, does not go down well, and if Amazon had existed then, the best I could have mustered would have been a 2-star rating. But a friend chided me into undertaking a second read. And I found a finely crafted novel, yes, concerning the rich, primarily; set in the early years of the "Roaring 20's." The story is told through the voice of Ned Carraway, standing in that proverbial inertial reference frame, a migrant from the Mid-West, attempting to scratch a living by selling bonds on Wall Street, and living in modest circumstances on Long Island. The book's essential theme is lost love, or more precisely, lost opportunities in courtship, and involves the title character, Jay Gatsby (né Jimmy Gatz), and his desire for Tom Buchanan's wife, Daisy, whom he had briefly known before her marriage. She requites, for sure. The "minor characters" do their share of suffering. There is plenty of philandering all around, and a somewhat predictable Greek tragedy denouement. Fitzgerald tells his story well, and it is relatively fast-paced and dense. There are sufficient insights to maintain the interest. Tom exudes much of the stupidity and bigotry that so often goes with wealth. Consider the following statement: "...Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard, and have intermarriage between black and white." At another point, Fitzgerald says of Tom: "As for Tom, the fact that he `had some woman in New York' was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his preemptory heart." But the primary focus is on Gatsby. And therein were some problems. Somerset Maugham did the "obsession with a woman" thing to perfection. Fitzgerald's explanation of Gatsby's obsession was substantially weaker. And then there is the matter of his rapid acquisition of wealth. Could it have occurred so quickly, under any circumstances, since the novel was set in the early 20's, instead of the late 20's? The Rich really are different than you and me, as the old saw goes. The concentration of wealth in the United States, even in the midst of the Great Recession, exceeds even that of the `20's, so the foibles, prejudges, and contrived problems of the lucky, or is it unlucky few, from that prior era, merit another look, as the wavelength of that receding period lengthens, along with perspective of the reader. A 5-star read, but not one of the 10 best American novels of all time.

I have yet to receive this purchase. I find this to be unacceptable. I purchased it over a month ago, and no longer need the book for my class has already read it in its entirety.

4 stars means: It was a great book and I would recommend it to almost anyone. This novel best epitomizes the 1920s in New York and the U.S. as a whole. Although it starts moderately slow, as a lot of 'classics' sometimes do, at least to the modern reader, it is a engaging read with genuinely interesting and extremely complex characters. On the characters: Few novels manage to create this depth of personality in such a large number of characters over so few pages. You come to, if not like, at least be interested in the fate of everyone in the novel. Although there are very few people you could honestly root for this becomes part of the fun of the book. The party scene is a seminal moment in fiction. It is one of the best captured moments through so few words. The prose is not fluffy but well crafted and meaningful. Fitzgerald manages to illuminate deeper issues in the plot through brilliant diction and subtle analogies. This and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are the only works of Fitzgerald which I have read, but both have made me want to enjoy more of them. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a good, but not to easy, read.

This class novel was mandatory reading material sophomore and senior year of High School, but I continued to read this book through out college in my leisure time bc I love it so much. Such a good story

i bought it new. but i could have just checked out the book at the library while i needed it instead of paying for it :(

Video & Audio

The Great Gatsby List Price: $9.98 Sale Price: $5.96 Used From: $6.98 Average Rating:

Description

Adaptation of the Fitzgerald novel about a dashing enigmatic millionaire obsessed with an elusive, spoiled young woman.Genre: Feature Film-DramaRating: PG13Release Date: 8-AUG-2006Media Type: DVD

This adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, scripted by Francis Ford Coppola, puts costume design and art direction above the intricacies of character. It's certainly a handsome try, and perhaps no movie could capture The Great Gatsby in its entirety. Robert Redford is an interesting casting choice as Gatsby, the millionaire isolated in his mansion, still dreaming of the woman he lost. And Sam Waterston is perfect as the narrator, Nick, who brings the dream girl Daisy Buchanan back to Gatsby. No, the problem seems to be that director Jack Clayton fell in love with the flapper dresses and the party scenes and the Jazz Age tunes, ending up with a Classics Illustrated version of a great book rather than a fresh, organic take on the text. While Redford grows more quietly intriguing in the film, Mia Farrow's pallid performance as Daisy leaves you wondering why Gatsby, or anyone else, should care so much about his grand passion. The effective supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Daisy's husband, and Scott Wilson and Karen Black as the low-rent couple whose destinies cross the sun-drenched protagonists. (That's future star Patsy Kensit as Daisy's little daughter.) The film won two Oscars--not surprisingly, for costumes and musical score. --Robert Horton

DVD Information

Binding: DVD
Aspect Ratio:
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Brand: REDFORD,ROBERT
Manufacturer: Paramount Pictures
Original Release Date: 1974-01-01
Actors:

• Robert Redford
• Mia Farrow
• Bruce Dern
• Karen Black
• Scott Wilson

Reviews

The Great Gatsby is a colorful, funny, panoramic book full of penetrating individual character studies and strong opinions about the lives of the wealthy. This movie version doesn't communicate any of the book's depth. The director focuses the movie on Gatsby's and Daisy's brief romance. It is the main focus of the movie. But in the book, their 'romance' is a minor point. It doesn't occupy many pages at all. In fact, one interpretation of the book is that Daisy doesn't truly love Gatsby. Rather, he's just another plaything for this bored rich woman, one that allows her to get even with her brutal husband's affair that he flaunts in front of her before Gatsby shows up. The actors in the movie don't fit the characterization of the book. Bruce Dern portrays Tom Buchanan as weak. Fitzgerald shows Buchanan as a physically imposing, 6'3", 220ib college football star, who turns every encounter into a contest, a contest he intends to win. Dern doesn't show Buchanan's sheer intimidation. Robert Redford is OK as Gatsby, but it's not a hard role, because there isn't much depth to Gatsby. The interesting characters in the book are Tom & Daisy Buchanan and Jordan. Mia Farrow portrays Daisy as weak, unstable and easily upset. Fitzgerald shows Daisy as uninterested, confident and manipulative of situations. This movie is a bust, but it's also 35yrs old. I hope a talented director and screenwriter see the opportunity for a new film interpretation about this magnificent book. - For film buffs, this movie is interesting in that it's a big money movie. Gatsby is released around the same time as Scorsese's & DeNiro's masterpieces of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Those two geniuses to take Jake LaMotta's autobiography, and turn it into a cinematic masterpiece, one that is the forerunner of how films were made for the next couple decades. At the same time, Jack Clayton takes a masterpiece of a novel about dreams and wealth and ambition, the Great Gatsby, and removes all the interesting aspects of the book, and hands us only a tepid love story. It's movies like Gatsby that show what a genius Scorsese is, because he takes everyday material and spins gold.

To see the extent to which the filmmakers misunderstood the novel, all you have to do is to view one brief scene. Recall this passage from the book: -- "About Gatsby! No, I haven't. I said I'd been making a small investigation of his past." "And you found he was an Oxford man," said Jordan helpfully. "An Oxford man!" He was incredulous. "Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." "Nevertheless he's an Oxford man." "Oxford, New Mexico," snorted Tom contemptuously, "or something like that." -- Tom quips "Oxford, New Mexico" here to mock the notion that Gatsby could have possibly graduated from Oxford. While Oxford University represents the ultimate in upper class respectability to blue-blooded Easterners like himself, anything having to do with New Mexico is no doubt considered vulgar and hopelessly lower class. Tom "snorts" the words "Oxford, New Mexico" because it is literally laughable to him that a nobody like Gatsby would try to pass himself off as an upper class elite. But in the movie, Tom does not "snort" the words. He looks at Jordan with a serious expression and and says "Oxford, New Mexico" in a chiding tone, like a father reprimanding his misbehaving young daughter. In other words, the filmmakers completely miss the point of that little exchange. And if they don't grasp something so obvious, well, they really don't understand the character, Tom Buchanan, do they? And if they don't understand basic stuff like that, they don't understand the book at all, and it shows. Not all is lost. I'll give the movie three stars for all the visuals: the lavishly decorated mansions, Gatsby's huge parties, the chic 1920s attire of the moneyed class...it's all beautifully filmed, looking the way you imagine it does in the book.

An excellent movie I saw when it first came out and thought it was so good, I wanted it in my collection! Terrific acting!!

One of the greatest pieces of American literature, but a soul less film. Mia Farrow is great for what she is doing for Darfur! But I wish I hadn't seen this. Glad I read the book first.

Frankly, I am amazed that the reviews for this exceptional movie version of F. Scott Fitzergerald's masterpiece novel didn't receive 5 stars across the board. The movie depicted his story so well, not like so many where I've had to say: "The book was a lot better than the movie." In this case, however, the movie actually enhanced the book's greatness. Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Lois Chiles, Bruce Dern, Karen Black & Scott Wilson were at their best acting performance and Sam Waterson was ideal as narrator. What more can I say? Perfect casting! Perfect settings! Perfect musical score! The costumes & dress were especially appropriate for the time period making me feel like I was right there among those reveling in the glory of the glamorous roaring 20s. Oh, to have another great movie like this come out in today's world where unfortunately, explicit sex and gross language are the norm.