Why it’s essential
This exceptionally crafted tale of America at the height of the Roaring 20s is full of wit, charm, and a deft critique of the American Dream.
Featured in The Audible Essentials Top 100.
What is The Great Gatsby about?
Fitzgerald details an alluring way of life centering the wealthy Jay Gatsby who throws dazzling parties at the height of the Roaring 20s in an attempt to reconnect with his long-lost love. The novel unravels to reveal the arrogance of the rich, stark class disparities, and the thinness of most relationships.
Editor's review
Editor Madeline loves memoir, literary fiction that tackles the existential, and all the sapphic stories she can get her hands on.
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?
Like so many, I first read the novel in high school and was recently reacquainted when the story was brought up in casual conversation as though it were new. (This is, I think, how the classics remain the classics, right?) Part romance, part glamour, and part nostalgia for a present that was already somehow lost in its own prime, The Great Gatsby is a snapshot of what life was like back then, for some—and it’s the all-consuming vicarious escapism that makes for an enthralling listen (and it doesn’t hurt that the tale is narrated by none other than the multi-talented Jake Gyllenhaal). While we follow the deliciously wealthy Jay Gatsby as he tries to win back his long lost love, Daisy Buchanan, the listener becomes lost in the all-consuming culture of an age when everything seemed possible, if only you were lucky.
Listening to it now, it’s not only exciting, tender and heartbreaking, but it also provides a case study—How much have we grown as a society since those days? How has our treatment of women changed? Our view of gender? Our communal values? Is capitalism still king or have we finally evolved past that? Are we all doomed to relive the same stories until the end of time? What have we lost, and what, if anything, should we aim to bring back?
A deeply interesting but also historic novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic remains, undeniably, a work of significance, one that so easily could have been lost—and one we ought to hear, more clearly, again.
Did you know?
It is said that The Great Gatsby was party inspired by the 1913 French novel, Le Grand Meaulnes.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald moved to Great Neck on Long Island after their daughter Scottie was born in 1922. This provided much inspiration for the novel's setting.
The beloved Daisy Buchanan was based on Fitzgerald's first girlfriend, Ginevra King.
What listeners said
"Gyllenhaal was an inspired pick for the Great Gatsby. He has the range to subtly capture the different characters, but the charisma and the energy to embody the dialogue of Gatsby and the easygoing narrator Nick." —Darwin, Audible listener
"Gyllenhaal’s performance isn’t a flashy one, and I think that’s a wise choice on his part – it matches the understated power of the book. He’s received a lot of praise for his reading of this novel, and it’s well-deserved." —Dave, Audible listener
"Gyllenhaal’s narration allowed me to fall in love with the characters." —Lauren, Audible listener
"I own the book but Gyllenhal adds something to the narration that just reading it doesnt have." —Ian, Audible listener
Listen if you loved
Quotes from The Great Gatsby
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."
"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."
"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."
"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others--young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life."
Adaptations
The Great Gatsby has five film adaptations which came out in the years 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000, and 2013.
About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, and went to Princeton University, which he left in 1917 to join the army. Fitzgerald was said to have epitomized the Jazz Age, an era inhabited by a generation that he defined as "grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." In 1920, he married Zelda Sayre. Their destructive relationship and her subsequent mental breakdowns became a major influence on his writing. Among his publications were five novels, This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and The Love of the Last Tycoon (his last and unfinished work): six volumes of short stories; and The Crack-Up, a selection of autobiographical pieces. Fitzgerald died suddenly in 1940.
About the performer
Jake Gyllenhaal is a celebrated American actor. He made his movie debut at 11 in City Slickers (1991). From the late 1990s through the early 2000s, he starred in October Sky and Donnie Darko (2001), receiving an Independent Spirit Award Best Actor nomination for the latter. His performance in the world renowned film Brokeback Mountain (2005) won him critical acclaim. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role while also being nominated for the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role SAG Award, the Best Supporting Actor-Motion Picture Satellite Award and the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He has also starred in Zodiac, Brothers, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Love & Other Drugs (2010), for which he was nominated for the Best Actor-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe Award.
In the 2010s, he starred in Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Prisoners (2013), Nightcrawler (2014), Southpaw (2015), and Demolition (2015). For Nightcrawler, he was nominated as Best Actor for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award.
