The Great Gatsby

not thee great but a verry good.

I'm reading Norwegian Wood at the mo, just so I can say it's not his best work.

i thought the style was way more flaubert than conrad. < /asshole >

Oh man, this book used to be a major point of debate between myself and a friend...she was always complaining that she had to read it for English class. "What the fuck? It's a great book! You try reading fuckin' Os Lusiadas instead, now there's a dull book!" I'd say. "But this book is just about rich people whining!" she'd reply. "Rich people have feelings, too!" I'd say, and on it went...

This probably wasn't helped by the fact that I'm relatively well off and her family struggles to make a living. Insert Ironic Manic Street Preachers Quote Here.

I'm both surprised and impressed that you got assigned Pynchon in high school ahead of either of those two though.

I had one heck of a creative English teacher for 11th grade...

The best ending ever, of course. no recommended for anyone pondering to become a writer him/herself, as John Irving hinted in "The New Hampshire Hotel": it is a heavy weight on your shoulders, because you finish the book with the impression you will never be able to scribble anything like that, to crystallise a feeling so perfectly with so little wording behind.

This Side of Paradise on the other hand is a very tedious read, completely lacking in the romance and depravity, just focussing on the rich-boy crap.

- the narrator not being the main character

- the fractured time sequence

- having the main action of the story take place at sea during a storm

the first 100 or so pages of 'tender is the night' were excellent, after that it went straight to shit and i couldn't even be bothered to finish it.

Which version did you read? Fitzgerald's intended version where the story begins at the beach, or the version where the parts are swapped to force the story into chronological order?

His intended version reads better - the other version gives too much away too soon.

Am I losing my mind? I don't remember anything like this happening in Gatsby.

I read it a couple of years ago on my own. For some reason I never got assigned it in school. I enjoyed it quite a bit, especially the chapter early in the book where Nick goes into the city with Tom and Myrtle and they get plastered and fight. I would recommend it on the strength of that chapter alone.

I think it's among the most perfect, polished novels ever written, and he wrote like an angel. There are very few better American novels - one of those few, Ned, is Huck Finn. And quite a bit of it really is set on the water.

This may take some convincing. ;-) Keep in mind I love Twain and all (but I'm probably more of an Ambrose Bierce lover at heart).

I'm actually with Ned on Huck Finn. I read it in high school the same year as Gatsby and thought it was okay, but haven't been able to get through it again.

The original or the seventies version?

Fear and Loathing and Great Gatsby - both have large amounts of mint juleps.

Yes, one of the best books ever. I don't really have anything to add to that.

he takes old-time footage from back then and turns it into 3D, theres a lot of planes that fly overhead and then all of a sudden ur zooming in from 10000 feet to ground level in 3 seconds like in that old trailer they'd show in front of IMAX science films at the franklin institute, it's really inexplicable

― 乒乓, Monday, May 20, 2013 1:01 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he literally asks WEGA or w/e studio effects house to recreate NYC for him, and long island, so he can have shots of just zooming along the water through mist

― 乒乓, Monday, May 20, 2013 1:02 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

i really cant get over how wild + inappropriate yet appropriate baz's camera is in this film, it's really quite inexplicable. supper's ready, all the doors to the sunroom open at once, white cloth billows sunlight leaps in. the camera moves through the door, you're zooming across the sound now, to new york! through mist, to wall street! who is the audience suppose to be? what kind of wild god is she. is this how third person omniscient should be told on the screen. the book was first person! what is going on.

probably because the last few movies i've seen have all been very 'stately, plump buck mulligan came from the stairhead' in their camerawork that i felt so disoriented and wracked by all this

after australia and moulin rouge i'd have to be tricked by a trail of ice cold beers into entering a theater showing a new baz luhrmann film

lol

last 2 posts are ✓

uh, xp

baz luhrmann's ulysses

h4a otm. I didnt mind Moulin Rouge but Australia idk wtf that even was

i know this isn't what luhrmann's australia is but i would def watch an enormous batshit terrifying all-stops-pulled movie about the colonization of australia

i really cant get over how wild + inappropriate yet appropriate baz's camera is in this film, it's really quite inexplicable.

haha i was arguing with a friend that everything i could see him doing was perfectly explicable, the way the camera moves, the use of 3D, the arrangement of the actors in space, its all kinda on-the-nose at all times. although i did like how they were constantly recording themselves on film during the various amazing party montages, its 2013

yeah for sure, the party was pure busby berkeley, also made me feel really anxious because at real parties someone invariably knocks the punch bowl into the pool

at real parties now someone invariably passes a bowl

i think that happens too

there's room for zefirelli, branagh, and baaaaz, not just for shakespeare, but for eveeeeerrrrrryyyyythhiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg~~~~~~!!!!!

is how i break it down to an extent

so when will Gatsby be musicalized? inevitable, no? propose song titles.

John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, 1999

the last few movies i've seen have all been very 'stately, plump buck mulligan came from the stairhead' in their camerawork

i find this claim suspect

Also http://northernballet.com/index.php?q=the-great-gatsby

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2013/3/6/1362572480464/Great-Gatsby---Northern-B-009.jpg

pretty regretful that I never got to see Gatz, hope they revive it at some point. I'd make a trip for it.

乒乓's lush descriptions of this though have removed any need I might have had to actually see this movie

feel like I will be able to navigate thru both literary & cinematic discourse with only the book and this thread under my belt

http://i.imgur.com/rxmKw8N.jpg

^^ i approve of this adaptation, better than the original

The new Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?

Pride and Psyduck

for whom bellsprout tolls

http://i.imgur.com/eH73hnX.png

I keep thinking about this film? I actually really like Carey Mulligan's performance - I think it's super successful at suggesting a different & more feminist reading of the story.

I wonder what this movie would be like if you just removed Toby Macguire competely.

This trailer is so so good - love this kinda nonchronological buildup style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqxmhJU4nk4

just saw this, the first 20-30 minutes are ultrabad, like "hmmm maybe i could sneak into the next theater and watch the internship" level bad. it does sort of come together after that, decaprio is really quite good, and tobey mcguire alternates between being prtty decent whan actually acting with humans, but awful when doing voiceovers, like crazy awful. other than the party scenes, the apartment party in particular, and the car scenes, luhrmann is oddly subdued a lot of the time, and there are other bright moments as well (the floral arrangements in the daisy/nick/gatsby tea scene is a pretty howlingly funny moment actually). most of the female leads are better than expected, although carey mulligan is pretty flat. tom is very well cast and works really well in the part. its def flawed, but much better than i expected while still somehow not being great in any way. music is mostly (with a couple notable exceptions) buried and unobtrusive thank god. weird organ player dude annoyed the shit out of me. no leguizamo.

so yeah theres my review

weird organ player dude annoyed the shit out of me. no leguizamo.

plz say this is supposed to be read in the manner of the problematic "no homo" idiom

haha

http://i.imgur.com/SHiFzUl.jpg

dicaprio is actually a genetic mutant who has double the number of facial muscles that a normal human would have

As if he were Hollywood's bully whippet...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7287/8739186504_4fe7f2a405.jpg

http://vimeo.com/68451324

The first hour is the comedy of the year. Best moment: Tom's slo-mo slap of Myrtle; CUT TO black guy playing trumpet.

I'm disappointed that as Leo said "we're goign to meet Meyer Wolfsheim, one of the city's most distinguished businessmen" we didn't get CUT TO HUGE SILHOUETTE OF WOLFSHEIM'S QUIVERING JEWISH NOSE instead of THE EYES OF DR. ECKLEBURG or whtaever

I'm about halfway through and jjjusten is otm, first 20 minutes made me want to tear out my own eyes...but it has kinda surprised me so far. Like, it's not as horrible as I expected. I'm pretending not to hear most of the music. *barf*

Tobey McGuire's narration is distractingly bad. From the initial voiceover I thought I was going to see him in horrible old-man makeup because he sounded so frail and doddering. And the line readings are really weird, strange pauses in weird places...cmon dude

But I dig Leo's Gatsby. He's good with the facial stuff, the way his eyes belie the confidence he's trying to project, it's pretty spot on.

Anyway back to the movie.

Wtf was dayo talking about? It's so not a love story!

why did you watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZh6xSV-12c

I'm talking about the book haven't seen the movie

I'm talking about the movie haven't read the book

you should it rules

Help.

le what pic.twitter.com/2yNgBgAr7n

— Jared Pechacek (@vandroidhelsing) January 4, 2021

Also unperson says the author is actually previously published by an actual publisher? Which is the most surprising thing.

it could be good if it punctures the smooth facade/babe in the woods schtick he and many other narrators use, like uncover some buried rage that he studiously evades in his narration of 'gatsby.' probably bad though.

The summary reads like the pitch was "I've got it, I'll turn this Fitzgerald character into a Hemingway one."