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Editorial review
By Madeline Anthony, Audible Editor
HOW THE GREAT GATSBY BECAME THE QUINTESSENTIAL JAZZ AGE NOVEL
If you ever find yourself pondering the correlation between the greatness of a work and it’s commercial success (or lack there of), and whether or not the first has anything to do with the latter, here’s a case study to wrap your mind around—F. Scott Fitzgerald died thinking that his third novel, The Great Gatsby, was a dismal failure and that his body of work would soon be forgotten.
While the novel sold only 20,000 copies during Fitzgerald’s lifetime, The Great Gatsby stood the test of time and is now widely considered Great American Novel canon. Largely seen as a literary masterpiece, the novel has made its way into high school and college curriculum as required reading, inspired multiple critically acclaimed films, and set the stage for creative spin-offs set in the world of Gatsby (such as Daisy, a reimagined take on the novel from the perspective of Daisy Buchanan herself), and has generally inserted itself into American vernacular.
There are other authors and novels with similar stories; for instance, Moby Dick was a critical and commercial flop until it finally gained popularity 30 years after author Herman Melville passed. Sometimes an author is ahead of his or her time, and sometimes chance works in mysterious ways. In Fitzgerald’s case, copies of Gatsby were handed out freely to soldiers during World War II. The renewed interest in the book breathed new life into it, and from that moment on, Gatsby soared.
Today, the nostalgia conjured by the Roaring 20s is in a kind of renaissance. Or maybe, the truth is that a sort of longing for the romanticism of this era never really died. In lower Manhattan, guests can venture into The Gatsby Experience for instance, which is an interactive theatre of sorts equipped with a speakeasy tour and live performance. The Great Gatsby, a new musical, is running off-Broadway, and a general appreciation of not only the classic novel but also the time in which the novel was set is alive and well. Don’t we all want to live in a time where the champagne flows, and life, for a brief moment at least, seemed easy?
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Featured Article: 50+ The Great Gatsby Quotes on Life, Love, and the American Dream
Written and set in the 1920s, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic work of literature that isn’t easy to categorize. You could say it's a love story, but Fitzgerald entangles this yearning with tales of epic parties, commentaries on classicism, and existential probing. The plot is thick, the characters are profound, and the prose: unforgettably gorgeous. Discover quotes from The Great Gatsby that demonstrate the depth of this timeless tale.
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Fabulous narration of The Great Gatsby!
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Jake Gyllenhaal Absolutely Nails It
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Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing
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