The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerland)

The Great Gatsby is in many ways similar to Romeo and Juliet, yet I believe that it is so much more than just a love story. It is also a reflection on the hollowness of a life of leisure. Both stories are obsessed with controlling time: Juliet wants to extend her present, as her future prospects with Romeo are bleak and Gatsby wants to create a beautiful future by restoring the past. This is what leads Gatsby to say his most famous line "Can't change the past? Why, of course you can." I could very much relate to this - there have been many moments where I've wished that I could go back to the past and just remain there, for it was a better place. Similarly to Romeo and Juliet, Fitzgerald's writing is almost like a work of poetry, with waves of literary brilliance creating a rich and lush rhythm which you can almost tap your foot to. The descriptions are jarringly, magnificently beautiful so that it almost made my heart ache. However, unlike in Romeo and Juliet, the characters in The Great Gatsby are in themselves very flawed and very hard to sympathise with. But that is the beauty of the book. Of course you hate Daisy Buchanan! Of course you hate Tom! You even begin to slightly dislike Gatsby, to whom it is not enough for Daisy to say that she loved him, but requires her to state that she never in her five year marriage loved her husband Tom. But Gatsby, to me, remains Great right until the end of this book.