Loading data from the Web¶
In [1]:
from urllib.request import urlopen
In [2]:
# Grab the page from the web
f = urlopen("https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4671.The_Great_Gatsby")
html = str(f.read())
In [3]:
# Extract the (30) review elements
reviews = html.split('<div id="review_')[1:]
In [4]:
# Parse the components of a single review
def parseReview(review):
d = {}
d['stars'] = review.split('<span class=" staticStars notranslate" title="')[1].split('"')[0]
d['date'] = review.split('<a class="reviewDate')[1].split('>')[1].split('<')[0]
d['user'] = review.split('<a title="')[1].split('"')[0]
shelves = []
try:
shelfBlock = review.split('<div class="uitext greyText bookshelves">')[1].split('</div')[0]
for s in shelfBlock.split('shelf=')[1:]:
shelves.append(s.split('"')[0])
d['shelves'] = shelves
except Exception as e:
pass
reviewBlock = review.split('<div class="reviewText stacked">')[1].split('</div')[0]
d['reviewBlock'] = reviewBlock
return d
In [5]:
# Parse the list of reviews
reviewDict = [parseReview(r) for r in reviews]
In [6]:
reviewDict
Out[6]:
[{'date': 'May 02, 2010',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer101057684" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12050800411514551065"><br>Oh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with \\\'<i>some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life</i>\\\', focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334543i/693798._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><b>Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly.</b> <br><br>Just like the Great Houdini - the association the title of this book</b>\\\'</i>some</span>\\n <span id="freeText12050800411514551065" style="display:none"><br>Oh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with \\\'<i>some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life</i>\\\', focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it. <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334543i/693798._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><b>Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly.</b> <br><br>Just like the Great Houdini - the association the title of this book so easily invokes - you specialized in illusions and escape. Except even the power of most courageous dreamers can be quite helpless to allow us escape the world, our past, and ourselves, giving rise to one of the most famous closing lines of a novel.<blockquote>\\n <i>\\\'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s no matter \\xe2\\x80\\x94 to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning \\xe2\\x80\\x94\\xe2\\x80\\x94 <br><br>So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.\\\'</i>\\n</blockquote>Dear Gatsby, not everything I liked back when I was fourteen has withstood the test of time\\xc2\\xb9 - but you clearly did, and as I get older, closer to your and Nick Carraway\\\'s age, your story gathers more dimensions and more tragedy, fleshing out so much more from what I thought of as a tragic love story when I was a child - turning into a great American tragedy.<blockquote>\\xc2\\xb9 I hang my head in shame at my ability to still belt out an enthusiastic <i>(albeit poorly rendered)</i> version of <i>\\\'...Baby One More Time\\\'</i> when it comes on the radio <i>(provided, of course, that my car windows are safely up)</i>.<br><br>I blame it on my residual teenage hormones.</blockquote><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334543i/693799._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><b>Jay Gatsby, you barged head-on to achieve and conquer your American dream, not stopping until your dreams became your reality, until you reinvented yourself with the dizzying strength of your belief.</b> Your tragedy was that you equated your dream with money, and money with happiness and love. And honestly, given the messed up world we live in, you were not that far from getting everything you thought you wanted, including the kind of love that hinges on the green dollar signs. <br><br>And you *almost* saw it, you poor bastard, but in the end you chose to let your delusion continue, you poor soul.<br><br>Poor Gatsby! Yours is the story of a young man who suddenly rose to wealth and fame, running like a hamster on the wheel amassing wealth for the sake of love, for the sake of winning the heart of a Southern belle, the one whose <b>\\n <i>\\\'voice is full of money\\\'</i>\\n</b> - in a book written by a young man who suddenly rose to wealth and fame, desperately running on the hamster wheel of \\\'high life\\\' to win the heart of his own Southern belle. Poor Gatsby, and poor F. Scott Fitzgerald - the guy who so brilliantly described it all, but who continued to live the life his character failed to see for what it was.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334544i/693800._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><i>The Great Gatsby</i> is a story about the lavish excesses meant to serve every little whim of the rich and wannabe-rich in the splendid but unsatisfying in their shallow emptiness glitzy and gaudy post-war years, and the resulting suffocation under the uselessness and unexpected oppressiveness of elusive American dream in the time when money was plenty and the alluring seemingly dream life was just around the corner, just within reach.<br><br><b>But first and foremost, it is a story of disillusionment with dreams that prove to be shallow and unworthy of the dreamer</b> - while at the same time firmly hanging on to the idea of the dream, the ability to dream big, and the stubborn tenacity of the dreamer, <b>\\n <i>\\\'an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again\\\'</i>\\n</b>.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334544i/693801._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>This is why <i>Gatsby</i> is still so relevant in the world we live in - almost a hundred years after Fitzgerald wrote it in the Roaring Twenties - the present-day world that still worships money and views it as a substitute for the American dream, the world that hinges on materialism, the world that no longer frowns on the gaudiness and glitz of the nouveau riche. <br><br>In this world Jay Gatsby, poor old sport, with his huge tasteless mansion and lavish tasteless parties and in-your-face tasteless car and tasteless pink suit would be, perhaps, quietly sniggered at - but would have fit in without the need for aristocratic breeding - who cares if he has the money and the ability to throw parties worthy of reality show fame??? <br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334544i/693802._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Because in the present world just the fact of having heaps of money makes you worthy - and therefore the people whose <i>\\\'voices are full of money\\\'</i>, who are <i>\\\'gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor\\\'</i>, people who genuinely believe that money makes them worthy and invincible are all too common. Tom and Daisy Buchanan would be proud of them. <br><br><b>And wannabe Gatsbys pour their capacity to dream into chasing the shallow dream of dollar signs, nothing more.</b><blockquote>\\n <i>\\\'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy \\xe2\\x80\\x94 they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.\\\'</i>\\n</blockquote><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334544i/693803._SX540_.jpg" width="400" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>This book somehow hit the right note back when I read it when I was fourteen, and hit even truer note now, deeply resonating with me a decade short of a hundred years since it was written. If you read it for school years ago, I ask you to pick it up and give its pages another look - and it may amaze you. <br><br><b>Five green-light stars in the fog at the end of a dock.</b></span>\\n <a data-text-id="12050800411514551065" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['my-childhood-bookshelves',
'i-also-saw-the-film',
'books-from-childhood-revisited',
'2013-reads'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Nataliya'},
{'date': 'Dec 24, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer10973302" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer7032039798709650568">The Great Gatsby is your neighbor you\\\'re best friends with until you find out he\\\'s a drug dealer. It charms you with some of the most elegant English prose ever published, making it difficult to discuss the novel without the urge to stammer awestruck about its beauty. It would be evidence enough to argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald was superhuman, if it wasn\\\'t for the fact that we know he also wrote This Side of Paradise.<br /><br />But despite its magic, the rhetoric is just that, and it is a crue</span>\\n <span id="freeText7032039798709650568" style="display:none">The Great Gatsby is your neighbor you\\\'re best friends with until you find out he\\\'s a drug dealer. It charms you with some of the most elegant English prose ever published, making it difficult to discuss the novel without the urge to stammer awestruck about its beauty. It would be evidence enough to argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald was superhuman, if it wasn\\\'t for the fact that we know he also wrote This Side of Paradise.<br /><br />But despite its magic, the rhetoric is just that, and it is a cruel facade. Behind the stunning glitter lies a story with all the discontent and intensity of the early Metallica albums. At its heart, The Great Gatsby throws the very nature of our desires into a harsh, shocking light. There may never be a character who so epitomizes tragically misplaced devotion as Jay Gatsby, and Daisy, his devotee, plays her part with perfect, innocent malevolence. Gatsby\\\'s competition, Tom Buchanan, stands aside watching, taunting and provoking with piercing vocal jabs and the constant boast of his enviable physique. The three jostle for position in an epic love triangle that lays waste to countless innocent victims, as well as both Eggs of Long Island. Every jab, hook, and uppercut is relayed by the instantly likable narrator Nick Carraway, seemingly the only voice of reason amongst all the chaos. But when those boats are finally borne back ceaselessly by the current, no one is left afloat. It is an ethical massacre, and Fitzgerald spares no lives; there is perhaps not a single character of any significance worthy even of a Sportsmanship Award from the Boys and Girls Club.<br /><br />In a word, The Great Gatsby is about deception; Fitzgerald tints our glasses rosy with gorgeous prose and a narrator you want so much to trust, but leaves the lenses just translucent enough for us to see that Gatsby is getting the same treatment. And if Gatsby represents the truth of the American Dream, it means trouble for us all. Consider it the most pleasant insult you\\\'ll ever receive.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="7032039798709650568" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Alex'},
{'date': 'Sep 29, 2009',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <em>\\n This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,\\n <a href="#" onclick="Effect.toggle('reviewTextContainer72958473'); return false;">click here.</a>\\n </em>\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer72958473" class="readable"\\n style="display:none"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer9875399086945595753">This is my least-favorite classic of all time. Probably even my least favorite book, ever. <br />I didn\\\'t have the faintest iota of interest in neither era nor lifestyle of the people in this novela. So why did I read it to begin with? well, because I wanted to give it a chance. I\\\'ve been surprised by many books, many a times. Thought this could open a new literary door for me.<br />Most of the novel was incomprehensibly lame. I was never fully introduced to the root of the affair that existed between</span>\\n <span id="freeText9875399086945595753" style="display:none">This is my least-favorite classic of all time. Probably even my least favorite book, ever. <br />I didn\\\'t have the faintest iota of interest in neither era nor lifestyle of the people in this novela. So why did I read it to begin with? well, because I wanted to give it a chance. I\\\'ve been surprised by many books, many a times. Thought this could open a new literary door for me.<br />Most of the novel was incomprehensibly lame. I was never fully introduced to the root of the affair that existed between Gatsby and Daisy. So they were in love...yeah..I\\\'ve been in love too, who cares?<br />Several times I didn\\\'t even understand where characters were when they were speaking to each other. I also didn\\\'t understand the whole affair with Tom and Mrs. Wilson.. and something about her husband locking her up over the garage...? huh? then she gets run over by a car, then he sneaks in through the trees and shoots Gatsby? wha..? still..why am I suppose to care about all this? <br />Shallow and meaningless characters. Again, who cares? <br />I read this book twice. 2 times. I just didn\\\'t get it. <br />I can\\\'t believe this book is revered with the rest of the great classics. Truly unbelievable. Fitzgerald certainly kissed the right asses with this one. <br /><br />What garbage. <br /><br />Daisy quote:<br /><blockquote>\\xe2\\x80\\x9cThey\\xe2\\x80\\x99re such beautiful shirts,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d she sobbed.\\xe2\\x80\\xa6 \\xe2\\x80\\x9cIt makes me sad because I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve never seen such\\xe2\\x80\\x94such beautiful shirts before.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</blockquote>...sob..sob.. boo-hoo-hoo. oh Please someone shut her the fuck up. </span>\\n <a data-text-id="9875399086945595753" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'did not like it',
'user': 'Pollopicu'},
{'date': 'Oct 15, 2014',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer1080928211" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer15814215938536558854">There was one thing I really liked about <i>The Great Gatsby</i>.<br /><br />It was short.</span>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'it was ok',
'user': 'Inge'},
{'date': 'Sep 22, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer6595425" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer13956186161556272824">Jay Gatsby, you poor doomed bastard. You were ahead of your time. If you would have pulled your scam after the invention of reality TV, you would have been a huge star on a show like <i>The Bachelor</i> and a dozen shameless Daisy-types would have thrown themselves at you. <br /><br />Mass media and modern fame would have embraced the way you tried to push your way into a social circle you didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t belong to in an effort to fulfill a fool\\xe2\\x80\\x99s dream as your entire existence became a lie and you desperately sought to rewrite hi</i></span>\\n <span id="freeText13956186161556272824" style="display:none">Jay Gatsby, you poor doomed bastard. You were ahead of your time. If you would have pulled your scam after the invention of reality TV, you would have been a huge star on a show like <i>The Bachelor</i> and a dozen shameless Daisy-types would have thrown themselves at you. <br /><br />Mass media and modern fame would have embraced the way you tried to push your way into a social circle you didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t belong to in an effort to fulfill a fool\\xe2\\x80\\x99s dream as your entire existence became a lie and you desperately sought to rewrite history to an ending you wanted. You had a talent for it, Jay, but a modern PR expert would have made you bigger than Kate Gosselin. Your knack for self-promotion and over the top displays of wealth to try and buy respectability would have fit right in these days. I can just about see you on a red carpet with Paris Hilton. <br /><br />And the ending would have been different. No aftermath for rich folks these days. Lawyers and pay-off money would have quietly settled the matter. No harm, no foul. But then you\\xe2\\x80\\x99d have realized how worthless Daisy really was at some point. I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m sure you couldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have dealt with that. So maybe it is better that your story happened in the Jazz Age where you could keep your illusions intact to the bitter end.<br /><br />The greatest American novel? I don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t know if there is such an animal. But I think you\\\'d have to include this one in the conversation.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="13956186161556272824" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['plain-old-fiction', '100', 'famous-books', 'favorites'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Kemper'},
{'date': 'Jul 31, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer3870323" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer2325799059645139794">After six years of these heated and polarized debates, I\\\'m deleting the reviews that sparked them. Thanks for sharing your frustrations, joys, and insights with me, goodreaders. Happy reading! <br /><br />In love and good faith, always,<br />Savannah</span>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['one-more-time'],
'stars': 'did not like it',
'user': 'svnh'},
{'date': 'Nov 25, 2014',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer1115578730" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer10560340996626897465"><b>DAISY BUCHANAN IS A GIFT TO READERS EVERYWHERE AND THE HERO OF THE GREAT GATSBY, FOR SURE, NO QUESTIONS, FIGHT ME IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU THINK YOU\\xe2\\x80\\x99RE BOLD</b>: A Thinkpiece by Me<br><br><a target="_blank" href="https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/daisy-is-the-best-character-in-the-great-gatsby-and-nothing-you-say-could-convince-me-otherwise-a-thinkpiecegatsby-review-by-me/" rel="nofollow">https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...</a><br><br>I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve known that Daisy effin\\xe2\\x80\\x99 rocks since I first read this book. (Fun fact: my first read of this took place in the back of the family</b></span>\\n <span id="freeText10560340996626897465" style="display:none"><b>DAISY BUCHANAN IS A GIFT TO READERS EVERYWHERE AND THE HERO OF THE GREAT GATSBY, FOR SURE, NO QUESTIONS, FIGHT ME IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU THINK YOU\\xe2\\x80\\x99RE BOLD</b>: A Thinkpiece by Me<br><br><a target="_blank" href="https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/daisy-is-the-best-character-in-the-great-gatsby-and-nothing-you-say-could-convince-me-otherwise-a-thinkpiecegatsby-review-by-me/" rel="nofollow">https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...</a><br><br>I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve known that Daisy effin\\xe2\\x80\\x99 rocks since I first read this book. (Fun fact: my first read of this took place in the back of the family minivan when I was 13, on a roadtrip to, like, Disney World or something. While thoughts of princesses and mouse-shaped ice cream bars danced in my siblings\\xe2\\x80\\x99 heads, I was reading about moral corruption in the Jazz Age.) (All because I saw online that if a college interviewer asks what your favorite book is, you should say The Great Gatsby. And for some goddamn reason, I was like, <i>Yeah, it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s definitely urgent that I, an eighth grade student, be prepared to have a college interview at any moment.</i>) (I only ever had to do one college interview anyway, because only one was required and of COURSE I didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t opt into the non-mandatory ones because CANYOUIMAGINE. Guess what? The interviewer did ask me what my favorite book was. Guess what I <i>didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t say?</i> The Great f*ckin\\xe2\\x80\\x99 Gatsby! I panicked and, I think, said <i>All the Light We Cannot See</i>, because it was the first non-embarrassing book that came to mind. My life is just one mistake after another.)<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1433609312ra/15119965.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Anyway. I loved Daisy then. I loved her two years later, when my English class read it and it was VERY clear that I was \\xe2\\x80\\x9c\\xe2\\x80\\x9c\\xe2\\x80\\x9csupposed\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xe2\\x80\\x9d to not like her, and, like, fawn over Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s childish ass instead. Which, no. Picture this: fifteen-year-old me, who has Just Decided she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s going to be cool now (a process which involved wearing 15 layers of mascara and <i>no other makeup</i> - neither an exaggeration nor a good look) in a room of twenty fifteen-year-olds, including cool ones, all VEHEMENTLY AGREEING ON SOMETHING.<br><br>But I still stood up for Daisy. Because I have PRIORITIES.<br><br>My senior year of high school, my morals and soul and ability to empathize were challenged by six students and a teacher in AP Lit. But I won the award for being the best English student in my graduating class, so honestly I think that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s an indication that I also won that argument. <br><br>And now here I am today, prepared to make the same argument to you all.<br><br>And win.<br><br><i>Obviously.</i><br><br>But let\\xe2\\x80\\x99s get into this. Here is why Daisy is not only innocent to the VILLAINOUS charges that have been placed upon her, but also the best character in this book and an absolute angel/joy/gift from the heavens. (Does that mean F. Scott Fitzgerald is God?)<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1475834753ra/20771360.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Also, this has literally all of the spoilers. And is long. But THOROUGH AND WORTH IT. <s>Maybe.</s><br><br><br><b>One: What was she SUPPOSED to do?</b><br><br>So put yaself in Daisy\\xe2\\x80\\x99s shoes, yeah? Let\\xe2\\x80\\x99s take it allllll the way back. You\\xe2\\x80\\x99re a teenage girl who is the hottest sh*t in all of Louisville. (This is a big deal, apparently.) You have SIX DATES A DAY! The phone never stops ringing!!! You have nothing but options!!<br><br>Kidding, kidding. You only have one option, really, and that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s marrying a rich guy. Don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t we <i>love</i> historical gender expectations? I know I do!<br><br>So then one day, this guy who\\xe2\\x80\\x99s fiiiiine as hell shows up. And you guys start hanging out all the time, and he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s so charming and hot and you guys get along like a house on fire. You have a really great kiss. The guy\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a captain in the army, and he implies he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s supes well off financially. It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s perfect. It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the best case scenario for you.<br><br>(This guy\\xe2\\x80\\x99s Jay Gatsby, by the way. In case I haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t made that clear.)<br><br>Then the guy has to go off to war. It sucks, sucks, sucks. You two write letters back and forth, but all the while your family is pressuring you. Society is pressuring you. Your friends are making backhanded comments about how you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re still unmarried.<br><br>The war ends. Sweet relief! Jay\\xe2\\x80\\x99s coming home!<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502746761ra/23592278.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Except no. He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s at Oxford, for some reason? And he tells you he can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t come home? And your letters get sadder and sadder, because you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re out of time. The war ended, and you have nothing to tell your parents.<br><br>So those six dates a day start back up.<br><br>And then this guy pops up in town. He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s reallyyyy rich. And buff. And a real society man. And he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not from Louisville - he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a way out. You can see the world with him. Best of all, he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s obsessed with you.<br><br>(This guy is Tom Buchanan.)<br><br>So what do you do? You can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t do anything. You have to marry him.<br><br>And when you get a letter from Jay \\xe2\\x80\\x9cToo Little Too Late\\xe2\\x80\\x9d Gatsby, you scream and cry and try to stop the wedding, but there\\xe2\\x80\\x99s nothing you can do. Ya hafta marry Tom \\xe2\\x80\\x9cSeems Okay\\xe2\\x80\\x9d Buchanan.<br><br><br><b>Two: Now That\\xe2\\x80\\x99s What I Call \\xe2\\x80\\x9cWhoops\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</b><br><br>The OTHER fun thing you get to do, in this life as Daisy Buchanan, is have children whether you want them or not.<br><br>For awhile you don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t mind Tom. In fact, you really love him for a bit. He does nice stuff like carry you so your shoes don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t touch the ground, and the honeymoon\\xe2\\x80\\x99s great, etc etc. So even though you don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have one mother-effin\\xe2\\x80\\x99 ounce of an option in whether you want kids or not, when ya get pregnant, you think maybe it won\\xe2\\x80\\x99t be that bad.<br><br>And then Tom turns out to <i>suuuuuck.</i> You have to leave these places you love, where everyone is full-on obsessed with you, and you have friends and family and as close to a life as you can get, you have to leave because Tom is f*cking everything with girl parts and a ditzy 1920s accent.<br><br>BUT NOW YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER. AND YOU LOVE HER SO MUCH. AND YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT WILL BE FOR HER, BECAUSE SHE\\xe2\\x80\\x99S GOING TO HAVE THE SAME LIFE AS YOU. And all you can hope is that she\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be a beautiful fool, like Tom\\xe2\\x80\\x99s girls, so she\\xe2\\x80\\x99ll be silly enough to be satisfied with life\\xe2\\x80\\x99s inability to give her much of anything.<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502746621ra/23592268.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>And Daisy might be beautiful, but she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s sure as sh*t no fool.<br><br><br><b>Three: Ho-ly shit wait...does life not suck? Is there such a thing as a second chance?</b><br><br>So you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve got this new life in New York, and you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve got a BFF from Louisville (Jordan Baker), and yes, Tom is cheating on you, but if he maybe just didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t answer the goddamn phone during dinner for once you could just forget about it for literally one freaking second.<br><br>And then GUESS WHAT? Your old pal Nick Carraway is back! A friend, how amazing! HURRAY! And kinda strange, Nick wants you to get a weird one-on-one tea party on with him, but it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s like, whatever, Tom\\xe2\\x80\\x99s cheating anyway and you\\xe2\\x80\\x99re not interested in Nick like that but he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a fun guy and you can just reject him.<br><br>But waitholdupWHOA what a wild coincidence! The guy who was lowkey the love of your life, Jay Gatsby, is also here! How, well, coincidental! You can play catch up and see his bougie-ass house and whatnot. And cry over the fact that he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s such a horrific asshole that he would leave you totally in the dust without contacting you for years and then all of a sudden appears and is like \\xe2\\x80\\x9cI am very rich as promised I live right across the water from you I can see your house let\\xe2\\x80\\x99s get together here are all my fancy shirts I will throw them at you. So glad Nick is here for some reason let\\\'s keep on not letting him leave.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d<br><br>Plus life with Tom, as mentioned, is not extremely great.<br><br>So it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s like, yeah, perfect, okay. Let\\\'s get some Gatsby on.<br><br><br><b>Four: No. No, there is not a chance of life not sucking. Life is terrible and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into a gUY WHO IS JUST AS BAD.</b><br><br>GUESS WHAT WASN\\xe2\\x80\\x99T A COINCIDENCE? ANY OF THAT. All along, even the people you trusted most - Nick, Jordan, Gatsby - have been manipulating you. There have been secret plans and lies and tricks and all of these things just to get you to f*ck a guy.<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502746920ra/23592294.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>And if you think about it, Gatsby is not nice or romantic or kind or fair to lil ol Daisy. At all. His expectations are insane. He got to leave her and build a life for himself and live as he wanted and travel and make up this story and be wealthy and throw parties, while she lived with a cheating husband. And after all that, if she wants admission into the life that being with him might give her, she has to say no, she wasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t ever happy, there wasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t a moment she loved Tom.<br><br>Ridiculous.<br><br>And when she plaintively says, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cI love you now. Isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t that enough? I can\\xe2\\x80\\x99t help the past,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s just begging Gatsby to accept her. How absolutely tragic. Tom cheats on her, Gatsby expects so much - she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s never been fully, truly, without-exception loved.<br><br><br><b>Five: Gatsby literally sucks oh my god</b><br><br>DAISY IS JUST A SYMBOL OF GATSBY\\xe2\\x80\\x99S ABILITY TO CONQUER THE SOCIOECONOMIC CASTE SYSTEM OF THE 1920S. Like, if he can \\xe2\\x80\\x9cget\\xe2\\x80\\x9d Daisy (literally an object), that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not even enough. He has to have HAD DAISY FOREVER. Because then he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s beaten Tom, the symbol of old money. <br><br>He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s so gross, literally. Here are 2 quotes on Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s \\xe2\\x80\\x9c\\xe2\\x80\\x9c\\xe2\\x80\\x9cfeelings\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xe2\\x80\\x9d for Daisy which illustrate how much he sucks.<br><br><i>\\xe2\\x80\\x9cIt excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy. It increased her value in his eyes.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</i><br><br>Her VALUE. Like she is an OBJECT. Because OTHER MEN were not enough, so he is THE BEST MAN. <br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502747101ra/23592309.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Daisy must\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve fallen short of <i>\\xe2\\x80\\x9cthe colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can think up in his ghostly heart.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</i><br><br>So he made her into this manic-pixie-dream IDEA of a person, and we\\xe2\\x80\\x99re supposed to be mad at <i>her</i> for not living up to it? Nah. Nope. Not going to happen. Gatsby sucks.<br><br><br><b>Six: It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s called the responsible choice, you raging dingbats</b><br><br>So AFTER she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s already been pressured by Gatsby to act as though entire swaths of her life didn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t happen, she finds out Gatsby has been lying to her all along - keeping the truth from her in order to protect this psychotic fairytale concoction of a totally goddamn made up story. Like! A! Total! Freak! What the f*ck would you do? If you were going to leave your sh*tty gross husband for what seems like a better life, but really has always been a lie - and a totally full on creepy one at that. And what if you had a daughter, who it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s made OVERWHELMINGLY CLEAR you love and worry about and she loves you too, so much. You\\xe2\\x80\\x99d just leave her in the care of that sh*tty creepy cheating disgusting husband, who couldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t care less and would not be at all above using her as a chess piece??? You\\xe2\\x80\\x99d leave her when everything you thought you knew was completely made up???? When it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s just been your dearest loved ones manipulating you all along???<br><br>No, the f*ck you wouldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t. Daisy\\xe2\\x80\\x99s choices were protecting her daughter, and sexy times with a con man. There\\xe2\\x80\\x99s no goddamn choice.<br><br>She\\xe2\\x80\\x99s great and smart and responsible. It couldn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t have been easy for her to stay with Tom, who SUCKS. She says to his face that he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s \\xe2\\x80\\x9crepulsive.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d But it was the grown-up option.<br><br>TALK ABOUT A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE. She is such a queen.<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502746621ra/23592271.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><br><b>Seven: Oh, I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m sorry, I forgot THE LAW THAT MARRIED COUPLES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME IN LEVELS OF BAD-NESS you fools</b><br><br>Tom sucks. We know this. He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a racist cheating bastard, and he\\xe2\\x80\\x99s gross, and he hits Myrtle. He does plenty a\\xe2\\x80\\x99 terrible thing.<br><br>But guess who is not automatically responsible for his actions??? Daisy, b*tch. She totally roasts him up for his <i>Rise of the Colored Empires</i> pseudo-science racism. She simply does not treat people in the same way Tom does. She\\xe2\\x80\\x99s not him. I don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t get the grouping of them both together like it\\xe2\\x80\\x99s her fault. She\\xe2\\x80\\x99s totally trapped.<br><br><br><b>Eight: Do we know that she knows that Gatsby died? Do we really, really, reallyyyyy know?</b><br><br>When Nick calls her house, she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s gone. Like, do we honestlyyyyyy think that the dude who picked up the phone is actually going to tell her he called? Would you be rearing to go if a person you trusted who TOTALLY ACTUALLY MANIPULATED YOU hit you up after ignoring you for weeks like YOU ARE THE VILLAIN?<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502747690ra/23592348.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Honestly, there\\xe2\\x80\\x99s no real sign that Daisy knew he died, but literally what did she owe him anyway. He manipulated her, lied to her, treated her like an object and nearly ruined her life. Totally made a terrible existence into full on garb\\xc3\\xa0ge. Whatever, man.<br><br><br><b>Nine: The car thing</b><br><br>She was traumatized. Gatsby orchestrated the whole cover-up. <i>He</i> took the wheel, <i>he</i> drove away, <i>he</i> hid the car. She had no clue the whole thing would go horribly wrong. He\\xe2\\x80\\x99s the one who made all the choices in the aftermath. Duh.<br><br><br><br><br>God this was so long. I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m tired. And apologetic. Toward you, for having read a very long thing that I wrote, and toward myself, because I had to write it.<br><br>This should certainly be enough to prove that Daisy Buchanan is a victim to her circumstances and otherwise noble and great and trying her goddamn best in a world in which everyone treats her like the beautiful fool she is totally not.<br><br>Plus her voice is full of money.<br><br>Now go off in your new happy life of being utterly enamored with Daisy Buchanan.<br><br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1502747600ra/23592346.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>--------------------<br>pre-review<br><br><b>Daisy Buchanan Is The Real Hero Of The Great Gatsby</b>: A Thinkpiece<br><br>will be dropping my pi\\xc3\\xa8ce de r\\xc3\\xa9sistance soon<br><br>(this is my attempt at a fun way of saying, "review to come and that review will blow your mind and make you realize that daisy is the best part of this book")</span>\\n <a data-text-id="10560340996626897465" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['non-ya',
'owned',
'classics',
'reviewed',
'recommend',
'comments',
'reread',
'school',
'5-stars',
'unpopular-opinion'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'emma'},
{'date': 'Oct 23, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer8122372" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer13929638859212031600">Over drinks, I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve observed\\xe2\\x80\\x94like so many smart alecks\\xe2\\x80\\x94that much of <i>The Great Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s</i> popularity relies heavily on its shortness. At a sparse 180 pages, Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s masterpiece could be argued to be the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cGreat American novella.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d <i>Gatsby</i>, like so many other short classics, is easily readable, re-readable, and assessable to everyone from the attention-deficient young to mothers juggling a kid, a career, and a long-held desire to catch up on all those books \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthey should have read but haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t gotten around to yet\\xe2\\x80\\x9d.</i></i></span>\\n <span id="freeText13929638859212031600" style="display:none">Over drinks, I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve observed\\xe2\\x80\\x94like so many smart alecks\\xe2\\x80\\x94that much of <i>The Great Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s</i> popularity relies heavily on its shortness. At a sparse 180 pages, Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s masterpiece could be argued to be the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cGreat American novella.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d <i>Gatsby</i>, like so many other short classics, is easily readable, re-readable, and assessable to everyone from the attention-deficient young to mothers juggling a kid, a career, and a long-held desire to catch up on all those books \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthey should have read but haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t gotten around to yet\\xe2\\x80\\x9d.<br /><br />I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve now read <i>Gatsby</i> three times, and I admit that on my first reading during (like handfuls of others) my senior year English class, I wasn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t particularly fond of the book; I believe I used the adjective \\xe2\\x80\\x9coverrated\\xe2\\x80\\x9d on numerous occasions. Daisy Buchanan seemed like a twit of a woman, and I found Jay Gatsby to be pathetically clawing in his attempt to attain her. Nick, my guide, only annoyed me further with his apparent hero-worshiping of a man I found one-dimensional and his adoration for the kind of woman I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve seen other men purport to be goddesses, but in fact, are dim-witted simpletons with nice figures. <br /><br />Over my two subsequent readings\\xe2\\x80\\x94pushed along by friends whose judgment I trusted and who swore the book was \\xe2\\x80\\x9cso funny and ironic\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xe2\\x80\\x94I discovered within Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s fable a sardonic social wit and a heavily layered critique of the American Dream: the poor, working (wo)man rising above his or her social situation to discover money conquers all. <br /><br />Fitzgerald has a discerning ability for sharp critiques of the economically privileged and, like Jane Austin, has an ear for realistic, bantering dialogue. Through Nick\\xe2\\x80\\x99s narration, we see a world that so many Americans dream of (its enviableness only further accentuated by our open disdain for it): a life of endless parties, delicious food, beautiful clothes, and Paris Hilton. Nick who\\xe2\\x80\\x99s paradoxically drawn to his cousin, Daisy\\xe2\\x80\\x99s, and her husband, Tom\\xe2\\x80\\x99s, lifestyle with gloating contempt echoes the contemporary American idolization of an elite lifestyle that none but a select few attain. <br /><br />We watch Daisy with her voice that \\xe2\\x80\\x9csounds of money\\xe2\\x80\\x9d flit about with uncompromising shallowness and vivacious school-girl frivolity, and through her, see so many of the inconsequential remarks and actions others (as well as ourselves) have made for the sheer sake of \\xe2\\x80\\x9chaving a good time\\xe2\\x80\\x9d. In spite of her frivolity and weak disposition, we become, like Gatsby, \\xe2\\x80\\x9coverwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d<br /><br />Through Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s veneration of Daisy, we not only imagine what so many Americans desire (success), but also we see the goal and glittering fixation of all humanity: beauty. And like many Americans in the throes of Capitalism, Gatsby believes that money can buy beauty as well as love. Fitzgerald articulates this disillusion with haunting force, particularly voiced through Nick\\xe2\\x80\\x99s obsessive repulsion with the extravagant society his social status has allowed him and the sadness he finds while watching a \\xe2\\x80\\x9cworking man\\xe2\\x80\\x9d attempt to enter it. <br /><br />One critique of <i>The Great Gatsby</i>, which could also be argued as a positive, is the limited scope of action and themes Fitzgerald chooses to encapsulate. We only see the wealthy elite (or people wanting to be the wealthy elite), and only Nick really has any depth of characterization. Unlike a tome, such as <i>War and Peace</i>, <i>Gatsby</i> fails to have numerous interwoven plotlines within a grand historical context. Yes, the Jazz Age is the novel\\xe2\\x80\\x99s backdrop, but Fitzgerald fails to engage in any discussion beyond a summer among the wealthy youth partying into the wee hours of the night in the West Egg. Yet, the control with which Fitzgerald expresses his limited themes makes the novel\\xe2\\x80\\x99s lack of scope forgivable.<br /><br /><i>Gatsby</i> is short and easily accessible, and I have no doubt these aspects of the novel do lend to its everlasting popularity. At the same time, it should never diminish its truly admirable ability to tease apart some of the most confounding qualities American culture values: money, beauty, youth, hard work, and the ever effusive, love. </span>\\n <a data-text-id="13929638859212031600" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['fiction'],
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'Gina'},
{'date': 'May 03, 2018',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2380648078" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12131872974568276752">This is a good book, though it is so ridiculously overrated. <br /><br />There are so many great books out there that will never get the attention they deserve. They will be forgotten and their wisdom heard by only a select few who are willing to go looking for it. So it annoys me when books like this are acclaimed by critics and readers alike as the best pieces of fiction in existence (when they are not.) There\\xe2\\x80\\x99s so much more out there!<br /><br />Anyway, rant over. The thing I like most about <i>The Great Gatsby</i> i</i></span>\\n <span id="freeText12131872974568276752" style="display:none">This is a good book, though it is so ridiculously overrated. <br /><br />There are so many great books out there that will never get the attention they deserve. They will be forgotten and their wisdom heard by only a select few who are willing to go looking for it. So it annoys me when books like this are acclaimed by critics and readers alike as the best pieces of fiction in existence (when they are not.) There\\xe2\\x80\\x99s so much more out there!<br /><br />Anyway, rant over. The thing I like most about <i>The Great Gatsby</i> is the language, the subtlety\\xe2\\x80\\x99s and the suggestions, the things that are not directly said but are said nevertheless. It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a true feat of writing and at times it reminded me of a stage piece. The dialogue does not give the answers, but it is the character\\xe2\\x80\\x99s actions and movements (so fantastically narrated) that give the game away: it reveals their internal worlds. <br /><br />As such this is a book that can easily be skimmed over. The plot is basic and relatively unengaging and consequently I think an inattentive reader has a lot to miss here. It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s all about illusions and false appearances just like real life. The way people perceive us is not how we truly are and sometimes individuals actively work towards creating a desired appearance for the outside world. It\\xe2\\x80\\x99s easily done with enough time, effort and money. What Gatsby creates for the outside is a dream, an ideal life that looks perfect.<br /><br />However, scratch the surface and it is so very, very, clear that not everything is perfect. His supposed \\xe2\\x80\\x9chappiness\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is hollow and dictated by the whims of society. It is fickle, egotistical and driven by status and all the silly little symbols that go with it. His success is what society demands success to be; thus, he positions himself into a place where he can chase his true dream. In doing so Gatsby shows us that not everything is as simple as it appears, and that society driven by such monetary values is a dangerous thing because everybody is so detached from what really matters in life. (The object of his affections, for example.) <br /><br />I enjoyed <i>The Great Gatsby</i> though I certainly did not love it. Its popularity baffles me to a degree, I can think of books from the same era that deserve far more attention. Still, I enjoyed reading it and I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m glad I finally did so.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="12131872974568276752" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['modernist-movement', '3-star-reads', '2018-10-book-challenge'],
'stars': 'liked it',
'user': 'Sean Barrs the Bookdragon'},
{'date': 'May 02, 2010',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer101073419" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer7694368110936683534"><a href="http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s207/sullypython/Book%20covers/?action=view&current=gatsby1-1-1-1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334548i/693893.jpg" alt="Photobucket" class="gr-hostedUserImg"> </a><br><br>Casual, self-absorbed decadence, the evaporation of social grace, money calling all the shots and memories of the past holding people hostage from the future that lies before them. Yes, <b>Mr. Fitzgerald</b> has nailed it and written one of <u>THE</u> great American novels. <br><br>This book was a surprise. I LOVED it and all of the deep contradictions swimming around its heart. At once a scathing indictment on the erosion of the American Dream, but also a bittersweet love letter to the unfailing optimism of the American people</u></b></span>\\n <span id="freeText7694368110936683534" style="display:none"><a href="http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s207/sullypython/Book%20covers/?action=view&current=gatsby1-1-1-1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">\\n <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380334548i/693893.jpg" alt="Photobucket" class="gr-hostedUserImg">\\n</a><br><br>Casual, self-absorbed decadence, the evaporation of social grace, money calling all the shots and memories of the past holding people hostage from the future that lies before them. Yes, <b>Mr. Fitzgerald</b> has nailed it and written one of <u>THE</u> great American novels. <br><br>This book was a surprise. I LOVED it and all of the deep contradictions swimming around its heart. At once a scathing indictment on the erosion of the American Dream, but also a bittersweet love letter to the unfailing optimism of the American people. Call it dignified futility\\xe2\\x80\\xa6obstinate hopefulness. Whatever you call it, this novel is shiny and gorgeous, written with a sort of breezy pretension that seems to mirror the loose morality of the story. Rarely have I come across a book whose style so perfectly enhances its subject matter. <br><br>Set in the eastern United States just after World War I, Fitzgerald shows us an America that has lost its moral compass. This fall from grace is demonstrated through the lives of a handful of cynical \\xe2\\x80\\x9cwell-to-dos\\xe2\\x80\\x9d living lavish but meaningless lives that focus on nothing but the pursuit of their own pleasures and whims. <br><br>Standing apart from these happenings (while still being part of them) is our narrator, Nick Carraway. As the one honest and decent person in the story, Nick stands in stark contrast to the other characters. <i>\\xe2\\x80\\x9cEveryone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</i> Nick relays the story of the summer he spent in Long Island\\xe2\\x80\\x99s West Egg in a small house sandwiched between the much larger mansions of the area. His time in Long Island is spent with a group that includes his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her rich husband Tom who live in Long Island\\xe2\\x80\\x99s East Egg. At one point in the story, Nick provides the following description of the pair which I do not think can be improved upon: <blockquote>\\n <i>They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.</i>\\n</blockquote> In addition, we have Jordan Baker who is a poster child for the pretty, amoral, self-centered rich girl whose view of the world is jaded and unsentimental. Basically, she\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a bitch.<br><br>The most intriguing character by far is Jay Gatsby himself, both for who he is and for how Fitzgerald develops him through the course of the narrative. When we are first introduced to Gatsby, he comes across as a polite, gracious, well-mannered gentleman with a magnetic personality who our narrator takes to immediately. <blockquote>\\n <i>He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself. </i>\\n</blockquote> However, from that very first encounter, Fitzgerald slowly chips away at the persona and peels back the layers of the \\xe2\\x80\\x9cGreat\\xe2\\x80\\x9d Gatsby until we are left with a flawed and deeply tragic figure that in my opinion ranks among the most memorable in all of classic literature. Nick\\xe2\\x80\\x99s journey in his relationship with Gatsby mirrors our own. <i>\\xe2\\x80\\x9cIt is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d</i><br><br>Through a series of parties, affairs, beatings, drunken escapades, the lives of the characters intermesh with terrible consequences. I don\\xe2\\x80\\x99t want to give away major parts of the story as I think they are best experienced for the first time fresh, but at the heart of Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s morality tale is a tragic love that for me rivaled the emotional devastation I felt at the doomed relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6185.Wuthering_Heights" title="Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront\\xc3\\xab" rel="nofollow">Wuthering Heights</a>. In general, Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s world of excessive jubilance and debauchery is a mask that the characters wear to avoid the quiet torments that haunt them whenever they are forced to take stock of their actions. Rather than do this, they simply keep moving. <i>"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." </i><br><br>In the end, Fitzgerald manages the amazing feat of creating a sad, bleak portrait of America while maintaining a sense of restrained optimism in the future. Both heart-wrenching and strangely comforting at the same time. I guess in the end, this was a book that made me feel a lot and that is all I can ever ask. I\\xe2\\x80\\x99m going to wrap this up with my second favorite quote from the book (my favorite being the one at the very beginning of the review): <blockquote>\\n <i> And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby\\\'s wonder when he first picked out Daisy\\\'s light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.</i>\\n</blockquote> 5.0 stars. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!<br><br></span>\\n <a data-text-id="7694368110936683534" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['easton-press',
'classics-americas',
'literature',
'audiobook',
'love-those-words',
'1900-1929'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Stephen'},
{'date': 'Sep 24, 2018',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2421742129" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12178036795429341594">2.5 Stars<br /><br />1) <b> <i>Always</i> </b> google who you are going to fall in love with. <blockquote> <i>Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.</i> </blockquote>2) For the<b> <i> love of God, </i> </b>make a 401K<blockquote> <i>They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. </i> </blockquote>3) <b> <i>Never</i> </b> swallow a thesaurus.<blockquote> <i>I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.</i> </blockquote>Jay Gatsby is rich - the kind of<b> exorbitant rich </b>that other rich people like to haof</b></i>thesaurus.</blockquote></i>401K</blockquote>the</b></i></i></span>\\n <span id="freeText12178036795429341594" style="display:none">2.5 Stars<br /><br />1) <b>\\n <i>Always</i>\\n</b> google who you are going to fall in love with. <blockquote>\\n <i>Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.</i>\\n</blockquote>2) For the<b>\\n <i> love of God, </i>\\n</b>make a 401K<blockquote>\\n <i>They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. </i>\\n</blockquote>3) <b>\\n <i>Never</i>\\n</b> swallow a thesaurus.<blockquote>\\n <i>I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.</i>\\n</blockquote>Jay Gatsby is rich - the kind of<b> exorbitant rich </b>that other rich people like to hang out with him, just so they can <b>bask in his richness.</b><br /><br /><b>He\\\'s also in love, </b>with one Daisy Buchanan...who\\\'s already married to one, surly, cheating and backstabbing man.<br /><br />Our narrator has front row seats to all<b> the glitz, the glam and the gore</b> that circles around Jay Gatsby\\\'s chaotic life. (Cause, whenever you throw that much money at something, you better be prepared for something to be thrown back.)<br /><br />Overall, <b>I liked this one better</b> the second time around. I\\\'m a bit more familiar with the story, and I have more of a feel for the way Fitzgerald writes.<br /><br />I really enjoy the character of Gatsby this time around and love Daisy a little bit less.<br /><br />The one thing I disliked in round 1 (and have disliked every time I go through this novel) is the language. It just seems...<b>SO over-the-top and flowery. </b><br /><br />It really just takes forever to say anything in this book. Like this: <blockquote>\\n <i>So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.</i>\\n</blockquote>and this:<blockquote>\\n <i>It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.</i>\\n</blockquote> AND THIS: <blockquote>\\n <i>Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.</i>\\n</blockquote>Ultimately, this one was not the one for me. Maybe I\\\'ll give it another shot in a couple of years... <br /><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/33ii2CT" rel="nofollow">YouTube</a> | <a href="http://www.mirandareads.com" rel="nofollow">Blog</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/miranda.reads/?hl=en" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/Miranda_Reads" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> | Snapchat @miranda.reads <br /><br />Happy Reading!</span>\\n <a data-text-id="12178036795429341594" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['audiobook', 'che-103-suggested-reads-fall-2018'],
'stars': 'it was ok',
'user': 'Miranda Reads'},
{'date': 'Apr 12, 2016',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer1608044955" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer6222108048702794104">English (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4671.The_Great_Gatsby" title="The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald" rel="nofollow">The Great Gatsby</a>) / Italiano<br><br><blockquote>\\xc2\\xabIn my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve been turning over in my mind ever since. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cWhenever you feel like criticizing any one,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d he told me, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cjust remember that all the people in this world haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t had the advantages that you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve had.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xc2\\xbb</blockquote><p><i>The Great Gatsby</i>, the book that most of all I postponed the reading. There was something inhad.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xc2\\xbb</blockquote></p>TheItaliano</br>\\xc2\\xabIn</span>\\n <span id="freeText6222108048702794104" style="display:none">English (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4671.The_Great_Gatsby" title="The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald" rel="nofollow">The Great Gatsby</a>) / Italiano<br><br><blockquote>\\xc2\\xabIn my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve been turning over in my mind ever since. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cWhenever you feel like criticizing any one,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d he told me, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cjust remember that all the people in this world haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t had the advantages that you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve had.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xc2\\xbb</blockquote><p><i>The Great Gatsby</i>, the book that most of all I postponed the reading. There was something in the title that didn\\\'t excite me, that didn\\\'t pass the smell. I was wrong.</p><p>The narrator, Nick Carraway, lives in a house across the street of the luxurious villa of Jay Gatsby, the embodiment of the American Dream. Nick is affected by Gatsby straight away, <br>and starts a friendship with him, helping him to win back the love of an old flame, that is married by now.</p><p>The novel is poetic at times, often cynical, with an enjoyable style of writing. The lesson is ruthless: the American Dream is exactly what it is. It is not real, it\\\'s only a dream.</p><p>Vote: 8</p><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1522742221i/25315142._SX540_.jpg" width="420" height="315" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br><blockquote>\\xc2\\xabNei miei anni pi\\xc3\\xb9 giovani e vulnerabili mio padre mi diede un consiglio che non ho mai smesso di considerare. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cOgni volta che ti sentirai di criticare qualcuno,\\xe2\\x80\\x9d mi disse, \\xe2\\x80\\x9cricordati che non tutti a questo mondo hanno avuto i tuoi stessi vantaggi\\xe2\\x80\\x9d\\xc2\\xbb</blockquote><p><i>Il Grande Gatsby</i>, il libro che pi\\xc3\\xb9 di tutti non mi decidevo a leggere. C\\\'era qualcosa nel titolo che non mi entusiasmava, non mi ispirava. Avevo torto.</p><p>Il narratore Nick Carraway vive in un villino di fronte la sfarzosa dimora di Jay Gatsby, l\\\'incarnazione del sogno americano. Ne subisce fin da subito l\\\'influenza ed intreccia con lui un rapporto di amicizia, durante il quale cercher\\xc3\\xa0 di aiutarlo a riconquistare una vecchia fiamma di lui, oramai sposata.</p><p>Romanzo a tratti poetico, a tratti cinico, dallo stile pi\\xc3\\xb9 che gradevole. La morale \\xc3\\xa8 crudele: il sogno americano \\xc3\\xa8 proprio quello che \\xc3\\xa8, solo un sogno.</p><p>Voto: 8</p><p></p></span>\\n <a data-text-id="6222108048702794104" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['wishlist-others'],
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'Luca Ambrosino'},
{'date': 'Dec 31, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer11352880" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer677243786866873426">The eh Gatsby<br /><br />Classic. Yes. THE great American novel. Hmph, so I heard. I suppose it should make one more interested, or at least feel more compelled to read something (or re-read as is the case here) when it has "classic" and "everyone else loves it!" stamped all over it. And has a movie made out of it, though what beloved novel hasn\\\'t these days? Of course, I originally read FSF\\\'s Gatsby because I was expected to for a high school English class. So, even though I was never the type</span>\\n <span id="freeText677243786866873426" style="display:none">The eh Gatsby<br /><br />Classic. Yes. THE great American novel. Hmph, so I heard. I suppose it should make one more interested, or at least feel more compelled to read something (or re-read as is the case here) when it has "classic" and "everyone else loves it!" stamped all over it. And has a movie made out of it, though what beloved novel hasn\\\'t these days? Of course, I originally read FSF\\\'s Gatsby because I was expected to for a high school English class. So, even though I was never the type to do homework, I read The Great Gatsby because it had a neat cover, Fitzgerald is fun to say, and, of course, the legend of Zelda. <br /><br />Unfortunately for Meredyth, my thoughts on Gatsby 10 years ago are pretty similar to the thoughts I have on it today: How pretty. Pretty decedant. How drippy. How zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. <br /><br />It\\\'s not that I was completely uninterested. It\\\'s that my interest was never piqued to the point of really giving a shit. Sure, who doesn\\\'t love a hot mysteriously wealthy man with serious heart ache for a serious material girl? What about those rich dudes who may be crooks but no one can figger out how crooked they are exactly because how crooked can you be if you throw such mean hoedowns?! <br /><br />Oh, and I love a good morally ambiguous-protaganist/narrator-who-hates-parties-and-society-but-just-can\\\'t-seem-to-stay-away as much as the next person, but Nick, our hero, just wants to be liked so very much, and unfortunately, he reads like a sap. And when all the other characters are unforgivable bores, I would prefer that my ambiguous, socially mandated narrator manage to keep me awake. <br /><br />What about those three stars? You ask. Well I can\\\'t lie. I do think Fitz had a way with words. I did find that those subtle nuances of the variations in lifestyle during the depression to be very much in effect, and I would be happy to visit any fictional small town called West Egg. Or East Egg for that matter. And I get the kind of crazy he was going for in his more psychopathic character, George Wilson, who, because he was in love, becomes the bastiOn of normalcy even when he is driven to murder and his own suicide. <br /><br />FSF did manage to be believably compassionate towards his seemingly less insane characters, (who are all on the brink of insanity) (but still made me drowsy). There is definitely a part of me that sees how one could be drawn into the twinkly lit world FSF created, supposedly, out of his own reality, and I have noted his passion for the beauty of the unfolding story, such as it is. <br /><br />But I was disappointed 10 years ago by the story\\\'s inability to convince me it wasn\\\'t nap time, its unwillingness to point out the the relevance of the individual over society, and the irrelevance of the world Gatsby inhabits, and I was disappointed again this past week. <br /><br />In summation, be sure to keep an eye out for this writer. Once he writes something more appealing to the masses he\\\'s sure to bust out onto the scene soon. You heard it here first.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="677243786866873426" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['re-reading', 'hmmm'],
'stars': 'liked it',
'user': 'LooseLips'},
{'date': 'Jul 12, 2009',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer63139316" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer435840096865154318">699. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald<br />The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald\\\'s magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of de</span>\\n <span id="freeText435840096865154318" style="display:none">699. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald<br />The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald\\\'s magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. Characters: Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, Meyer Wolfsheim, George Wilson.<br />\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xae \\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xaa\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xae\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xb4: \\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xb3\\xd9\\xbe\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x84 2002 \\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x84\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaf\\xdb\\x8c<br />\\xd8\\xb9\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86: \\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xa8\\xdb\\x8c \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xb2\\xd8\\xb1\\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\x9b \\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xab\\xd8\\xb1: \\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x81. \\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb3\\xda\\xa9\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaa \\xd9\\x81\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb2\\xd8\\xac\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x84\\xd8\\xaf (\\xd9\\x81\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb3 \\xd8\\xac\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x84\\xd8\\xaf)\\xd8\\x9b \\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xac\\xd9\\x85: \\xda\\xa9\\xd8\\xb1\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x85 \\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\x9b \\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xb5\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaa \\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xb1: \\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaa \\xd9\\x86\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x84\\xd9\\x88\\xd9\\x81\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\x8c 1379\\xd8\\x9b \\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\xb1 288 \\xd8\\xb5<br />\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xaa\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd8\\xb9\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86: \\xd8\\xb7\\xd9\\x84\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd9\\x88 \\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xa7\\xda\\xa9\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb1 \\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xa8\\xdb\\x8c \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xb2\\xd8\\xb1\\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\x9b \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xac\\xd9\\x85\\xd9\\x87 \\xda\\xa9\\xd8\\xb1\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x85 \\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c \\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xb7 \\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaa \\xd9\\x81\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xda\\xa9\\xd9\\x84\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x84 1344 \\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\xb1 204 \\xd8\\xb5 \\xd9\\x85\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xaa<br />\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xac\\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xaf\\xdb\\x8c\\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xa7\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xab\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xb2\\xd8\\xb1\\xda\\xaf\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1 \\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x85\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd9\\x88 \\xd8\\xa2\\xd9\\x82\\xd8\\xa7\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86: \\xd9\\x81\\xd9\\x87\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x85\\xd9\\x87 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\\xd9\\x88 \\xd8\\xb5\\xd8\\xad\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xa2\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xa6\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xb3\\xd8\\xae\\xd9\\x86 \\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xae\\xd8\\xb5\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xa7 \\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x85 \\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf \\xd9\\x88 \\xd8\\xaa\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf \\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xae\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xaa\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xac\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\xa7\\xdb\\x8c\\xdb\\x8c \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xb3\\xd9\\x85\\xd8\\x8c \\xda\\xa9\\xd9\\x87 \\xd9\\x86\\xda\\xaf\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf\\xd9\\x87\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xda\\x98\\xd9\\x87 \\xdb\\x8c \\xc2\\xab\\xd8\\xaf\\xdb\\x8c \\xd8\\xb2\\xdb\\x8c\\xc2\\xbb\\xd8\\x8c \\xd8\\xb5\\xd8\\xad\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7 \\xd8\\xa8\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa7\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\x8c \\xd9\\x85\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xaf\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd9\\x85 \\xda\\xa9\\xd9\\x87 \\xd8\\xa8\\xd8\\xa7\\xd8\\xb2 \\xd9\\x87\\xd9\\x85 \\xd8\\xae\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x87\\xd9\\x85 \\xd8\\xae\\xd9\\x88\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xd8\\xaf. \\xd8\\xa7. \\xd8\\xb4\\xd8\\xb1\\xd8\\xa8\\xdb\\x8c\\xd8\\xa7\\xd9\\x86\\xdb\\x8c</span>\\n <a data-text-id="435840096865154318" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['novel',
'1001-book',
'fiction',
'classic',
'literature',
'20th-century'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Ahmad Sharabiani'},
{'date': 'Jun 30, 2011',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer180942465" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer15424906247615982189">Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious young man, who gives extravagant parties on Long Island, New York, outside his palatial mansion , in the warm, lazy, summer nights. That he doesn\\\'t know the people he invites, not to mention the numerous gatecrashers, might make it a little strange, but this being the roaring 20\\\'s, anything goes, rumors abound about Gatsby, bootlegger ? Who cares, as long as the free liquor flows, the great food served, and the beautiful music, continues playing. Finally attending one</span>\\n <span id="freeText15424906247615982189" style="display:none">Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious young man, who gives extravagant parties on Long Island, New York, outside his palatial mansion , in the warm, lazy, summer nights. That he doesn\\\'t know the people he invites, not to mention the numerous gatecrashers, might make it a little strange, but this being the roaring 20\\\'s, anything goes, rumors abound about Gatsby, bootlegger ? Who cares, as long as the free liquor flows, the great food served, and the beautiful music, continues playing. Finally attending one of his own gatherings, we discover that he\\\'s after Daisy, a lost love, she\\\'s married, which complicates the delicate situation. Nick, Daisy\\\'s cousin, arrives in town and through him, reunites Gatsby with his former girlfriend, she enjoys luxury, which is why Daisy married rich Tom and not poor Jay. A catastrophic car accident kills Tom\\\'s girlfriend, yes, he\\\'s a creep but a wealthy one, it\\\'s vague who\\\'s responsible, but her husband thinks he knows. Death in a swimming pool, ends this tragedy and symbolizes the Jazz Age ... Thoughts: Gatsby was a tortured, lonely man, even shy, who tried to become a member of the establishment. He, with all his riches, needed to enter it, to become part of it, to feel alive but could never remove the dirt and his lowly, and embarrassing origins. They (the upper class), used him and laughed at the stranger behind his back, and the illusions about Daisy , a woman who never really existed, except in his distorted mind. The truth shocked Gatsby, the pretend gentleman but he could never let go of the mirage, if he did, there would be nothing left of his soul.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="15424906247615982189" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Henry Avila'},
{'date': 'Jul 09, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2888493" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer14800653606639400033">Most Americans are assigned to read this novel in high school. Few American high schoolers have the wherewithal to appreciate this novel in full. I certainly did not. It is on a shortlist of novels that should, every 5 years starting at age 25, return to any American\\\'s required reading list.<br /><br />First things first: The opening of The Great Gatsby -- its first 3-4 pages -- ranks among the best of any novel in the English language, and so too does its ending. Both for their content and for</span>\\n <span id="freeText14800653606639400033" style="display:none">Most Americans are assigned to read this novel in high school. Few American high schoolers have the wherewithal to appreciate this novel in full. I certainly did not. It is on a shortlist of novels that should, every 5 years starting at age 25, return to any American\\\'s required reading list.<br /><br />First things first: The opening of The Great Gatsby -- its first 3-4 pages -- ranks among the best of any novel in the English language, and so too does its ending. Both for their content and for their prose, the latter of which is stunning and near perfect throughout the novel.<br /><br />As for that between the novel\\\'s opening and conclusion, two things first. (1) History is fairly clear that the term "the American Dream" did not exist at the time Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, and regardless it almost certainly did not exist in the popular consciousness. (2) Few great American novelists after Fitzgerald have not attempted to write "the great American novel". Most of these efforts are absurdly long and often tortured. The Great Gatsby, on the other hand, is relatively short, fluid, and of seemingly effortless yet pristine expression. At a point in history where Fitzgerald\\\'s express focus could hardly have been a tale regarding "the American dream" per se or the writing of "the great American novel", Fitzgerald nevertheless crafts the definitive tale of "the American Dream", as well as, his successors\\\' endeavors aside, "the great American novel". Period.<br /><br />In not so many pages, Fitzgerald paints a brilliantly cogent picture of the potential pleasures, joys, and benefits an individual might deem achievable -- uniquely so -- in an America filled with possibilities. Paired with that picture, Fitzgerald besprinkles The Great Gatsby with the numerous pitfalls and evils that both stand as a barrier to what\\\'s imagined achievable in America, and threaten to accompany that which is achieved. Neither the quest for, nor (if possible) the achievement of, the American Dream is a thing untainted. Nor, in Fitzgerald\\\'s view, can it be.<br /><br />Fitzgerald, frankly, writes all that need be written on this subject; whatever his successors\\\' ambitions may be. And he writes it in prose so perfect, so impressive, and so beautiful, I occasionally find myself at a loss to name a novel in the English language constructed with greater skill, and apparent ease thereof.<br /><br />In short: The Great Gatsby is an inimitable wonder of American fiction. And, for lack of a better word, an "application" of the English language that has few equals. The novel is astounding.<br /></span>\\n <a data-text-id="14800653606639400033" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['favorites'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Jason'},
{'date': 'Jun 12, 2012',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer347065425" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer14667466690712455766"><b> <i>\\xe2\\x80\\x98i was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.\\xe2\\x80\\x99</i> </b><br /><br />im going to a 1920s themed party tonight and so, naturally (being the bookworm that i am), im gonna do a quick re-read to give me all those gatsby-esque vibes! all the glitzy glamour, flashy fashion, and daring dreams will definitely get me in the mood! <br /><br />i first read this in 10th grade english class and it will always be a very dear book to me. it was the first classic i read that i felt like i unde</i></span>\\n <span id="freeText14667466690712455766" style="display:none"><b>\\n <i>\\xe2\\x80\\x98i was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.\\xe2\\x80\\x99</i>\\n</b><br /><br />im going to a 1920s themed party tonight and so, naturally (being the bookworm that i am), im gonna do a quick re-read to give me all those gatsby-esque vibes! all the glitzy glamour, flashy fashion, and daring dreams will definitely get me in the mood! <br /><br />i first read this in 10th grade english class and it will always be a very dear book to me. it was the first classic i read that i felt like i understood. and not only that, it was the first classic that i actually enjoyed, leading me into my love affair with the words of fitzgerald. <br /><br />i loved (and still do) experiencing the extravagant and luxurious lifestyles, the idea of morality in the 1920s, the scandalous nature of love and betrayal, and how beauty can become corrupted. <br /><br />such a compelling and tragically wonderful story that will forever remain one of my faves. <br /><br /><b>\\xe2\\x86\\xa0 <i>4 stars</i></b></span>\\n <a data-text-id="14667466690712455766" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'jessica'},
{'date': 'Jul 31, 2017',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2076161679" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer3394451036570597939">I just spent three days being read to by Jake Gyllenhaal and it was absolutely wonderful! I took Jake with me for long Summer walks, to the grocery store, Trader Joe\\\'s, and let me not forget the ten minutes I spent driving around the parking lot of Target, not for a better parking space, but to listen to Jake read "The Great Gatsby" to me! My only regret is that this fabulous experience is over. Sigh...<br /><br />I\\\'ve read the book and watched both versions of the movie but this is by far my fa</span>\\n <span id="freeText3394451036570597939" style="display:none">I just spent three days being read to by Jake Gyllenhaal and it was absolutely wonderful! I took Jake with me for long Summer walks, to the grocery store, Trader Joe\\\'s, and let me not forget the ten minutes I spent driving around the parking lot of Target, not for a better parking space, but to listen to Jake read "The Great Gatsby" to me! My only regret is that this fabulous experience is over. Sigh...<br /><br />I\\\'ve read the book and watched both versions of the movie but this is by far my favorite experience with this novel!<br /><br />Highly highly recommended! </span>\\n <a data-text-id="3394451036570597939" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['2017', 'audio', 'classics'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Jennifer Masterson'},
{'date': 'Feb 23, 2011',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer150030209" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer10355532704498603235"><b>The True Value of Monopoly Money</b><br><br>Capitalism tends towards monopoly. <br><br>No capitalist welcomes a competitor or rival. Having attained wealth, the desire is to retain it, not to concede it; to increase it, not to share it. <br><br>A competitor is perceived as a threat, and will be treated like a virus invading an otherwise healthy, but vulnerable, body.<br><br><b>The Great American Dream</b><br><br>"The Great Gatsby" is often described as a paean to the Great American Dream.<br><br>This Dream supposedly sustains the average American. It offers the opportunity to achieve success, pbody.</br>The</b></span>\\n <span id="freeText10355532704498603235" style="display:none"><b>The True Value of Monopoly Money</b><br><br>Capitalism tends towards monopoly. <br><br>No capitalist welcomes a competitor or rival. Having attained wealth, the desire is to retain it, not to concede it; to increase it, not to share it. <br><br>A competitor is perceived as a threat, and will be treated like a virus invading an otherwise healthy, but vulnerable, body.<br><br><b>The Great American Dream</b><br><br>"The Great Gatsby" is often described as a paean to the Great American Dream.<br><br>This Dream supposedly sustains the average American. It offers the opportunity to achieve success, prosperity and happiness, regardless of class, status, background or wealth.<br><br>It contains a promise of upward social mobility, a reward that will be ours if we work hard enough.<br><br>We all have an equal opportunity to transcend our current circumstances. <br><br>Implicitly, if we fail to transcend, we have only ourselves to blame. We didn\\\'t take sufficient advantage of our opportunity. Everybody is responsible for their own failure.<br><br>The Great American Dream isn\\\'t far from the Objectivist Philosophy of Ayn Rand.<br><br><a href="http://s1111.photobucket.com/user/inksterpop/media/gatsbyvlcsnap-2010-05-20-09h23m58s74-pn_zps8bcdd978.jpg.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">\\n <img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380346064i/700541._SX540_.jpg" alt=" photo gatsbyvlcsnap-2010-05-20-09h23m58s74-pn_zps8bcdd978.jpg" class="gr-hostedUserImg">\\n</a><br><br>Stars and stripes and silhouettes and shadows.<br><br><b>Jay Gatsby</b><br><br>Most readers think of Jay Gatsby as someone who took advantage of his opportunity, and made it.<br><br>In that sense, he\\\'s the epitome of the Great American Dream.<br><br>He has amassed enormous business wealth. He owns a colossal mansion on West Egg, Long Island. Every week, he holds a lavish party attended by all and sundry. The parties are the ultimate in Jazz Age glamour. <br><br>Gatsby has achieved everything material an American could want. He has realised the Long Island real estate mantra, "Vocation, Location, Ovation".<br><br><b>The Green Light</b><br><br>So what\\\'s Gatsby\\\'s problem?<br><br>Every night, Gatsby looks across the sound to a green light on a porch, where Daisy lives in her more prestigious East Egg mansion with her husband, Tom Buchanan.<br><br>Daisy is the one thing for which Gatsby yearns. She is the one thing he has sought after since he met and fell in love with her five years earlier at age 25.<br><br>"The Great Gatsby" revers that small green light. What we never see is what Gatsby\\\'s mansion looked like from Daisy\\\'s perspective at home. We aren\\\'t expressly offered a vision of Gatsby\\\'s fully-lit mansion as a counterpoint to Tom\\\'s, but that is what it is.<br><br>The point is Gatsby\\\'s achievement of the Great American Dream was not the end, as it is with most Americans, it was the means to an end, and that end was winning the hand in marriage of Daisy.<br><br>The most important thing about Gatsby\\\'s mansion, from Gatsby\\\'s point of view, is what it would look like to one woman across the sound.<br><br><b>Love\\\'s Labours Retrieved</b><br><br>Gatsby has already lost Daisy once, in 1917, when as a destitute young officer during the war, he was unable to marry her, because he could not offer her a financial security that was acceptable to her wealthy mid-west family.<br><br>Since then, he has acquired wealth, by whatever means necessary, to win her away from Tom and marry her.<br><br>The wealth was nothing to him, the parties were grotesque bonfires of vanity, designed with one thing in mind: to attract Daisy\\\'s attention and bring her, curious, within his reach.<br><br>Then, having got her within his sphere of influence, he could win her back.<br><br>"The Great Gatsby" is really about the love a man had for a woman, how he lost it and what he did to regain it.<br><br>At one point, Gatsby talks about repeating the past. I don\\\'t see him as repeating it, so much as regaining it, making up for lost time, retrieving what he felt should have been his.<br><br>"The Great Gatsby" is not so much about repetition, as it is about retrieval; not so much a remembrance of things past, as a resumption of a journey from a point in the past when the journey was broken.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1379791757i/554412.jpg" width="400" height="550" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Carey Mulligan as Daisy (Courtesy: The Telegraph)<br><br><b>The Pursuit of Another Man\\\'s Wife</b><br><br>At its heart, Gatsby engages in adultery with Daisy, with a view to convincing her to divorce Tom and marry him.<br><br>Many might find his conduct objectionable, except that he is young, elegant, good-looking, fabulously wealthy and, most importantly, in love with the slender Daisy.<br><br>In contrast, Tom is a brute of a man, he is an ex-champion footballer, hard and cruel. Most importantly, he has cheated on Daisy many times and now has a mistress, the stout, but sensuous, Myrtle Wilson.<br><br>Tom comes from an extremely wealthy mid-western family. Money is no object to him. Daisy might have the voice of money, but Tom has the demeanour and arrogance of not just money, but old money.<br><br>When Tom learns of Daisy\\\'s infidelity and Gatsby\\\'s takeover bid, he goes into typical capitalist mode in order to defend his wife, his asset, his marital property.<br><br>He researches Gatsby\\\'s past and theorises about how he has made his new money. He plans his counter-attack.<br><br>The narrator, Nick Carraway, watches on, not just witness to a battle between Good and Evil, but in reality a battle between two degrees of bad.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1379791756i/554395.jpg" width="400" height="550" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Black and white portrait of Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson<br><br><b>Tom\\\'s Defence Strategy</b><br><br>In the realm of love, as between two rival men, there can be no such thing as a friendly takeover bid.<br><br>There is no suggestion that Tom can allow Gatsby to have Daisy, so that he can settle for Myrtle. The latter is just a plaything, something he spends time on, because she is available and he can have her without effort. <br><br>All Myrtle ever wanted from her own husband was a gentleman with breeding. He turns out to be a mere mechanic and car salesman. He doesn\\\'t have the right status. Equally, although he is content to have her as his mistress, Tom doesn\\\'t see Myrtle as having the right status for marriage either.<br><br>Ultimately, the role of marriage is not to perpetuate love and happiness. Tom\\\'s task is to bond together two wealthy establishment families and their riches. A merger of two capitalist families moves them that much closer to monopolistic power, in the same way that the intermarriage of royal families once cemented international power.<br><br>Tom\\\'s goal is so important that it can accommodate his cruelty and infidelities, at least in his eyes.<br><br>Moreover, it allows Tom to prevail over Gatsby, who, despite his war record, his partly-completed Oxford education, his wealth, his glamour, and his apparent achievement of the Great American Dream, is not "one of us".<br><br>Ultimately, coincidence, accident and fate intervene on behalf of Tom, almost comically if it was not so sad, and he resists Gatsby\\\'s takeover bid.<br><br>Nick, the observer, the witness, the audience of this tragedy, is left disgusted.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380346064i/700542._SX540_.jpg" width="400" height="220" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg"><br><br>Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker<br><br><b>The Great American Paradox</b><br><br>"The Great Gatsby" is a short novel. At times, there is more telling than showing. At times, the description is too adjectival or adverbial for the dictates of current style manuals.<br><br>Take away the mansion, the parties and the glamour, and what remains comes close to the dimensions of film noir like "Double Indemnity".<br><br>While the novel is perceived as hailing the Great American Dream, the paradox is that it highlights how great are the forces that are lined up to resist the efforts of a man who aspires to the Dream, especially if that man is a trespasser who covets another man\\\'s wife, even if he loves her and she loves him.<br><br>There are flaws in Fitzgerald\\\'s writing, but they are tolerable. The story is magificent, even if, when laid out methodically, it might appear cliched. The characters, while realistic, are detailed and larger than life, certainly detailed enough to withstand the scrutiny when they are projected onto the silver screen. They are portrayed acting out their emotions in exactly the same way that we might in the same circumstances.<br><br>However, in the long run, what makes "The Great Gatsby" great is Fitzgerald\\\'s ability to both adulate and perpetuate the Great American Dream, while simultaneously subverting it.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="10355532704498603235" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['read-2013', 'reviews', 'reviews-5-stars', 'fitzgerald'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Ian "Marvin" Graye'},
{'date': 'Sep 27, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer6878457" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer17762459480361097633">This is an all right-ish kind of novel, I suppose, but I always preferred Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s little-known prequel <i>The Average Gatsby</i>, although some people found the vision of Mervyn Gatsby, Jay\\xe2\\x80\\x99s obscure brother, living a reasonably okayish life as the manager of a carpet and upholstery warehouse in Des Moines a trifle dispiriting. I quite agree that <i>The Bad Gatsby</i> was a shameless self-ripoff which did Fitzgerald no favours. (The threesome scene between Warren Harding, John Dillinger and Gatsby was in poor taste a</i></i></span>\\n <span id="freeText17762459480361097633" style="display:none">This is an all right-ish kind of novel, I suppose, but I always preferred Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s little-known prequel <i>The Average Gatsby</i>, although some people found the vision of Mervyn Gatsby, Jay\\xe2\\x80\\x99s obscure brother, living a reasonably okayish life as the manager of a carpet and upholstery warehouse in Des Moines a trifle dispiriting. I quite agree that <i>The Bad Gatsby</i> was a shameless self-ripoff which did Fitzgerald no favours. (The threesome scene between Warren Harding, John Dillinger and Gatsby was in poor taste and I do not see how it got past the censor. I have never been able to look at a set of deer antlers without blushing ever again.) And I must say that these new franchised-out novels like <i>The Late Gatsby </i>(Jay as vampire, inevitable I suppose), <i> The Grape Gatsby</i> (must be aimed at the vegan crowd) and <i>The Lesbian Gatsby</i> (in which \\xe2\\x80\\x93 surprise \\xe2\\x80\\x93 he never was a man), followed up by <i>The Straight Gatsby</i> - and <i>The Groped Gatsby</i> in which he was recovering from sexual abuse at the hands of Warren Harding - what can one say - <i>The Ingrate Gatsby</i> (in which he doesn\\\'t get rich and is really bitter) - must have literature fans gnawing each other\\xe2\\x80\\x99s kindles in sheer angst. They\\xe2\\x80\\x99re a disgrace. I have even seen a superhero graphic novel called <i>Batgatsby</i>. Or did I dream that. Hmm. Maybe there isn\\xe2\\x80\\x99t a <i>Batgatsby</i>. I wonder if it would sell\\xe2\\x80\\xa6 I bet it would. <i>Batgatsby</i>. </span>\\n <a data-text-id="17762459480361097633" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['novels'],
'stars': 'liked it',
'user': 'Paul Bryant'},
{'date': 'Aug 11, 2012',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer389199058" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer10828338632618783073">I don\\\'t know if my appreciation of this should be tempered by the fact I was about three quarters of the way through before I realised I\\\'d read it before (though I think it was many years ago)!<br /><br />PLOT<br />It is (mostly) set in Long Island in summer of 1922, amongst the young, idle, amoral rich, playing fast and loose with their own lives and indeed, those of others. All very glamorous, self-centred, and shallow, but the possibility of darker things lurking holds interest and tension. <br /><br />C</span>\\n <span id="freeText10828338632618783073" style="display:none">I don\\\'t know if my appreciation of this should be tempered by the fact I was about three quarters of the way through before I realised I\\\'d read it before (though I think it was many years ago)!<br /><br />PLOT<br />It is (mostly) set in Long Island in summer of 1922, amongst the young, idle, amoral rich, playing fast and loose with their own lives and indeed, those of others. All very glamorous, self-centred, and shallow, but the possibility of darker things lurking holds interest and tension. <br /><br />CHARACTERS<br />Even if you like celebrity parties, there are no good, pleasant characters; it may start off glamourising such lives, but things are very different by the end. "They were careless people... they smashed up things and creations and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness... and let other people clean up the mess they had made." (This even applies to children: only one is ever mentioned, but is then oddly forgotten, perhaps reflecting the sadness of how irrelevant she is to everyone.)<br /><br /><b>Nick</b>, the narrator, is the odd one out in that he actually has to work for a living. Also, perhaps because he nurses a secret <a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none">[is he in love with Gatsby, or merely dazzled by him <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span>? <br /><br />Nick is also the most honest and honourable one (or perhaps the least dishonest and dishonourable, though the fact he explicitly mentions his reputation for honesty (more than once) does bring Lady Macbeth to mind). He reconnects with his cousin, Daisy, who is married to Tom, and dips his toe in their social set. Always the outsider, yet somehow inside, and thus surely culpable for things that happen, at least to some extent.<br /><br /><b>Daisy</b> is perhaps the most significant character, though more words are written about others. Her name is unlikely to be a coincidence: daisies are robust and wild; they don\\\'t need or want hothouse pampering - despite appearances to the contrary. <br /><br />The host with the most is the mysterious Jay <b>Gatsby</b>, who throws lavish parties for people he barely knows (albeit with an ulterior motive). Like all the main characters, he is a westerner who moved east. Nick (and therefore Fitzgerald) seems to think this is significant, though as a Brit, it is somewhat lost on me. <br /><br />ARTIFICE<br />Some people see through the artifice: "She was appalled by West Egg [the village], this unprecedented \\\'place\\\' that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village - appalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing."<br /><br />RELEVANCE TODAY<br />Americans often have strong feelings about this book because of the way it explores (and, initially at least, admires) The American Dream. However, as a modern Brit, with no emotional attachment to the concept, it still feels relevant. <br /><br />The message is about the power - and danger - of chasing dreams, without giving thought to the wider ramifications. Extravagance and superficiality lose their lustre after a while. Perhaps the "celebrities" who currently fill the pages of glossy magazines such as Hello and OK should take note: there are many similarities. <br /><br />Or maybe it\\\'s about the overwhelming force of love - its costs and consequences - and the pain that hope bestows. Especially secret, forbidden love. <br /><br />Can you be true to yourself, or one you love, if you are dishonest in other realms?<br /><br />There are some wonderful descriptions and images:<br /><br />* One such couple "drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together".<br />* At times, it is almost Wildean, "I drove... to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all" and "I like large parties. they\\\'re so intimate. At small parties there isn\\\'t any privacy."<br />* "It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again."<br />* Chat that "was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire".<br />* "The last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face... then the glow faded, each light deserting her with a lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk."<br />* "Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle, but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face."<br />* "trousers of a nebulous hue"<br />* "the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor"<br />* "Drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace... these reveries... were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy\\\'s wing."<br />* Regarding a college, "dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny".<br />* "his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears"<br /><br /><br />There were also a couple of startlingly awkward phrases, one on the first page. No one is perfect, but given how much Fitzgerald is lauded for the perfection of his writing, they surprised me:<br /><br />* "just remember that <b>all</b> the people in this world <b>haven\\\'t</b> had the advantages that you\\\'ve had."<br />* "A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, <b>endowing with complete isolation the figure</b> of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in an informal gesture of farewell."<br /><br />Also, is "the day... was pouring rain" (not "with rain") common in American English?</span>\\n <a data-text-id="10828338632618783073" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['classics', 'canada-and-usa'],
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'Cecily'},
{'date': 'Sep 23, 2011',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer213835311" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12723231915533407519"><a href="http://headspinningfromvagueness.booklikes.com/post/620657/reification-gatsby-and-the-american-dream-" rel="nofollow">My essay on The Great Gatsby and reification</a><br /><br /><b>What is there to love about The Great Gatsby?</b><br /><br />F.Scott Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s writing here leaves only a little to be desired. The characters themselves seem shallow and empty, lacking in morality and you could take all this into consideration and instantly report: \\xe2\\x80\\x98well that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a shallow book if ever I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve heard of one.\\xe2\\x80\\x99 However it can also be seen that, The Great Gatsby is a scathing social commentary that explores the fruitlessness of pursuing dreams. Particularly drea/></b>What</a></span>\\n <span id="freeText12723231915533407519" style="display:none"><a href="http://headspinningfromvagueness.booklikes.com/post/620657/reification-gatsby-and-the-american-dream-" rel="nofollow">My essay on The Great Gatsby and reification</a><br /><br /><b>What is there to love about The Great Gatsby?</b><br /><br />F.Scott Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s writing here leaves only a little to be desired. The characters themselves seem shallow and empty, lacking in morality and you could take all this into consideration and instantly report: \\xe2\\x80\\x98well that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s a shallow book if ever I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve heard of one.\\xe2\\x80\\x99 However it can also be seen that, The Great Gatsby is a scathing social commentary that explores the fruitlessness of pursuing dreams. Particularly dreams that are nothing more than shadows. To that end The Great Gatsby is a brilliant piece of fiction designed to criticise the lack of morality among its rich and selfish inhabitants who parasitically devour the work of the poor.<br /><br />One of the most beautiful elements in this novel is the depiction of the Valley of Ashes, which ultimately all the characters pass through regardless of being rich or poor. It is a place of equality and reminds one of the idea of the \\xe2\\x80\\x98Valley of the Shadow of Death\\xe2\\x80\\x99 mentioned by the Psalmist David, and in the novel itself Wilson relates those giant eyes to the eyes of God, a God who sees all that men do. Which is such a brilliant image to present to the reader. It is imagery like this that haunts one far after finishing this novel. Imagery remembered emphatically.<br /><br />It is also the language of Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s work that draws one in. It may not always be flawless writing but it is vivid and alive. Fitzgerald\\xe2\\x80\\x99s is essentially thoughtful writing. It is the language of quotes that act as prison bars to keep the reader enthralled by the novel.<br /><br />\\xe2\\x80\\x9cIn my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve been turning over in my mind ever since.<br />\\xe2\\x80\\x98Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,\\xe2\\x80\\x99 he told me, \\xe2\\x80\\x98just remember that all the people in this world haven\\xe2\\x80\\x99t had the advantages that you\\xe2\\x80\\x99ve had.\\xe2\\x80\\x99\\xe2\\x80\\x9d<br /><br />Of course The Great Gatsby will always be a polarising text due to its characters and the debate about whether it is truly a novel about the American Dream. It is a polarising effect that stems from the allure of the book \\xe2\\x80\\x93 the way in which the novel hauntingly hints at something greater while remaining so brilliantly flawed. One certainly cannot fully explain their own fascination with the book, save that it does that rare thing that strong literature should do. It serves, as Franz Kafka said, to be \\xe2\\x80\\x9cthe axe for the frozen sea within us.\\xe2\\x80\\x9d An axe in a forest of frozen dreams \\xe2\\x80\\x93 poetically carving up a vision of one man forever haunted by the failings of his own dream.<br /><br /><b>The rest of this review has been moved over to my website, <a href="http://jonathanterrington.com/why-is-the-great-gatsby-great-a-review-of-f-scott-fitzgeralds-classic-novel" rel="nofollow"></a> click right here if you would like to read the rest of the review.</b></span>\\n <a data-text-id="12723231915533407519" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['classic-challenge-2',
'personal-favourites',
'1001-books-to-read-before-you-die',
'books-with-films-2',
'historical',
'classic-literature',
'popularity-contest-2'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Jonathan Terrington'},
{'date': 'Sep 13, 2017',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2057556077" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12976572164422043396"><b> \\xe2\\x80\\x9cGatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that\\xe2\\x80\\x99s no matter\\xe2\\x80\\x94tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning\\xe2\\x80\\x94<br />So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past\\xe2\\x80\\x9d </b></span>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['classics',
'historical-fiction',
'2017-reads',
'fiction',
'owned-books'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Sarah'},
{'date': 'Feb 13, 2018',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer2290938848" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer17388364270797980686">\\xe2\\x80\\x9eDer gro\\xc3\\x9fe Gatsby" is a truly brilliant and dazzling masterpiece. The book is written in such a way you cant stop reading it, because the language and presentation are stylistic and atmospheric. But you should read this book carefully. I am enthusiastic about the verbosity of this writer. Overall, the characters were very successful and unique. This story was definitely a highlight for me. Its story and a character which I absolutely like. Almost quietly and calmly, he brings us closer to the mi</span>\\n <span id="freeText17388364270797980686" style="display:none">\\xe2\\x80\\x9eDer gro\\xc3\\x9fe Gatsby" is a truly brilliant and dazzling masterpiece. The book is written in such a way you can\\xc2\\xb4t stop reading it, because the language and presentation are stylistic and atmospheric. But you should read this book carefully. I am enthusiastic about the verbosity of this writer. Overall, the characters were very successful and unique. This story was definitely a highlight for me. It\\xc2\\xb4s story and a character which I absolutely like. Almost quietly and calmly, he brings us closer to the milieu of the rich people and shows us the decadence, debauchery and, consequently, the inner emptiness and boredom of the protagonists. Without a doubt this book is considered as one of the greatest novels of his time and offers an exciting view of former times and the people who lived in it.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="17388364270797980686" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['classics'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': '\\xc4\\xb0ntellecta'},
{'date': 'Aug 01, 2012',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer382066936" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer594734623293062479"><br />i love this book. yes, it is a story about vapid and shallow people who live selfish and hedonistic lives and treat other people like playthings, but there is an elegance, a restraint to the prose that manages to discuss, in the same tone, both doomed love and the breakdown of the american dream. and it is masterful. some may say the great american novel.<br /><br />and so this:<br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULhlaX6JY4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULhla...</a><br /><br />makes me want to tear my eyes</span>\\n <span id="freeText594734623293062479" style="display:none"><br />i love this book. yes, it is a story about vapid and shallow people who live selfish and hedonistic lives and treat other people like playthings, but there is an elegance, a restraint to the prose that manages to discuss, in the same tone, both doomed love and the breakdown of the american dream. and it is masterful. some may say the great american novel.<br /><br />and so this:<br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULhlaX6JY4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OULhla...</a><br /><br />makes me want to tear my eyes out with my hands and stomp on them forever and ever.<br /><br />yeah, you thought this was going to be a book review, didn\\\'t you? and maybe goodreads will choose to make this a "hidden" review under their new policies, but i don\\\'t care, because it makes me so angry that this is happening in this way that i have to scream about it, even if no one hears me, and there isn\\\'t enough room in a status update for me to vent my rage, and this is a book community, and i feel like you should all feel and share my outrage...<br /><br />WHO THOUGHT LEONARDO DICAPRIO WOULD MAKE A GOOD GATSBY?? AND WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE HE IS IN THE GAP WHEN HE IS FLINGING ALL THOSE CLOTHES AROUND???<br /><br />it is unbelievable. i haven\\\'t read this book in years, but i know that it did not take place in some art deco-themed casino in vegas.<br /><br />and i assume the commentary on over-the-top consumption is just as relevant to our times as fitzgerald\\\'s, and the makes-you-squint way it is shot and the soundtrack (what is that soundtrack all about???) is a modern-day reinterpretation of jazz-age glam; a reversal of the futuristic sci-fi films of the seventies, but it is making me puke and i want to stop puking, please.<br /><br />this is not my american dream.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="594734623293062479" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['littry-fiction', 'favorites', 'pretty-girls-make-graves'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'karen'},
{'date': 'Oct 25, 2015',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer1424770346" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer3373645868359655038">Read as part of <a href="https://infiniteanddarling.co.uk/blogs/infinite-variety-books/the-infinite-variety-reading-challenge-part-one" rel="nofollow">The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge</a>, based on the BBC\\\'s Big Read Poll of 2003.<br /><br />I am a Classics person, but not a Modern Classics reader. I prefer the Victorian and pre-Victorian Classics and Modern Classics have never really interested me. However, even before I began this Reading Challenge I knew that I needed to change that. I\\\'m still not overly enamoured with Modern Classics (though they tend to be a lot shorter than Victorian Classics are, which can come as a relief) but</a></span>\\n <span id="freeText3373645868359655038" style="display:none">Read as part of <a href="https://infiniteanddarling.co.uk/blogs/infinite-variety-books/the-infinite-variety-reading-challenge-part-one" rel="nofollow">The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge</a>, based on the BBC\\\'s Big Read Poll of 2003.<br /><br />I am a Classics person, but not a Modern Classics reader. I prefer the Victorian and pre-Victorian Classics and Modern Classics have never really interested me. However, even before I began this Reading Challenge I knew that I needed to change that. I\\\'m still not overly enamoured with Modern Classics (though they tend to be a lot shorter than Victorian Classics are, which can come as a relief) but I am thoroughly enjoying the journey through the genre.<br /><br />This book was quite a disappointment and not a surprise at the same time. I knew I wasn\\\'t going to love it before I went in to it, though I don\\\'t know why. I had no preconceptions of this book: I\\\'ve never seen the film and I haven\\\'t ever read a blurb about it. My copy doesn\\\'t have one. I just knew I wouldn\\\'t love it.<br /><br />I didn\\\'t think I wouldn\\\'t like it, though. I can\\\'t really think of any specifics, I just didn\\\'t like the plot, the characters or the setting at all. There were some fun moments, some dire moments and just a whole lot of dullness going around. It\\\'s hard to really enjoy something if you don\\\'t feel any sympathy or empathy with the characters, not even mentioning that ever-present idea that we need to identify with characters, too. I also found that this book wasn\\\'t particularly American, or particularly 20s, or particularly anything at all, really. It was just a kind of story with a kind of moral to it.<br /><br />The one thing I will say about this: F. Scott is a wonderful writer. I kind of thought this before I went in, but I never really knew until I found I was re-reading sentences over and over again just to re-live them. Not what they were saying, or what they were telling, or showing, or portraying, or anything like that, but just the words used and in which order. Sometimes it felt like magic. I will definitely read more F. Scott, but this one really isn\\\'t great at all. But that\\\'s okay. Most Classics aren\\\'t that great, anyway, we just pretend they are most of the time.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.infiniteanddarling.co.uk/blogs/infinite-variety-books" rel="nofollow">Blog</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/infiniteANDdarling/" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/infinitedarlin" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://uk.pinterest.com/infinitedarling/" rel="nofollow">Pinterest</a> | <a href="https://www.infiniteanddarling.co.uk" rel="nofollow">Shop</a> | <a href="https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/infiniteANDdarling" rel="nofollow">Etsy</a></span>\\n <a data-text-id="3373645868359655038" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['2016', 'bookshelf', 'ce20', 'septic', 'masculine'],
'stars': 'it was ok',
'user': 'Joey Woolfardis'},
{'date': 'Aug 05, 2013',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer686888328" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer4106194290714606086">Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are two of the most memorable characters in literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald weaves them tragically together in this perfectly plotted masterpiece.<br /><br />Every scene is unforgettable--so distinct and unique--from the grandest party ever recorded, to the most tense fight ever written, to the most perfectly dark twisted love affair of all time, to the most pathetically sad funeral imaginable.<br /><br /><b>When people say this is the best book ever written, they\\\'re not kidding.</b> It/></b>When</span>\\n <span id="freeText4106194290714606086" style="display:none">Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are two of the most memorable characters in literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald weaves them tragically together in this perfectly plotted masterpiece.<br /><br />Every scene is unforgettable--so distinct and unique--from the grandest party ever recorded, to the most tense fight ever written, to the most perfectly dark twisted love affair of all time, to the most pathetically sad funeral imaginable.<br /><br /><b>When people say this is the best book ever written, they\\\'re not kidding.</b> It\\\'s so good that almost daily I wish I could experience this for the first time again.<br /><br />What really makes <i>The Great Gatsby</i> unique is that EVERYONE at some point in life wants to be great in just the way that Jay does--for reasons more or less the same. We all have this implicit desire to get the validation from others that we\\\'re acceptable, and so at some point most of us turn to wanting to be "great"--but just for the sake of it. Combine that with the fact that all the characters are despicable--but so well written that you can\\\'t help but root for them and grow emotionally attached to them--and also how effortlessly the words transport you back in time, and <i>The Great Gatsby</i> truly becomes a one-of-a-kind story.<br /><br />Then there\\\'s the love story in which someone as mystically personable as Jay Gatsby falls for someone as pathetically self-centered and stupid as Daisy Buchanan. It\\\'s equal parts realistic, depressing, twisted, and somehow reassuring. We\\\'ve all fallen for that one person we know there\\\'s no reason. This is the greatest case of that ever devised.<br /><br />How F. Scott Fitzgerald accomplishes all this in such few pages is truly astounding.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="4106194290714606086" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'shelves': ['favorites'],
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Brian Yahn'},
{'date': 'Mar 06, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer175472" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer12056248144797777153">"The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the zenith of American fiction writing in the last century. I won\\\'t say that it is the best American novel I\\\'ve read but I will say it is probably the most perfect.<br /><br />Along with J.D. Salinger, Fitzgerald has got to be my favorite writer of fiction. As opposed to Hemingway\\\'s bluntness, and Faulkner\\\'s artiness, Fitzgerald\\\'s prose seems(to paraphrase Michael Chabon) to rain down from style heaven. His style in fact is like the ladies he writes</span>\\n <span id="freeText12056248144797777153" style="display:none">"The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the zenith of American fiction writing in the last century. I won\\\'t say that it is the best American novel I\\\'ve read but I will say it is probably the most perfect.<br /><br />Along with J.D. Salinger, Fitzgerald has got to be my favorite writer of fiction. As opposed to Hemingway\\\'s bluntness, and Faulkner\\\'s artiness, Fitzgerald\\\'s prose seems(to paraphrase Michael Chabon) to rain down from style heaven. His style in fact is like the ladies he writes about: cool, lean and absolutely enchanting. He would never dream of overwriting and knows exactly when to hold back for maximum effect. His use of the language is assured and consequently eminently readable. For that alone this should be considered the Mona Lisa of prose.<br /><br />What is astounding though is how he puts his sparsely elegant style to use giving his characters shade and depth. Fitzgerald is a true student of humanity and his skills of observation are razor sharp. He sums up his characters in sentences that read like aphorisms bulging with truth about the human condition. There\\\'s not a page goes by I\\\'m not gasping at the depth of his vision and the economy he uses to express it.<br /><br />So far I\\\'ve dwelt on how he wrote and not on what he wrote. People who\\\'d back another nag in the Great American Novel derby knock Fitzgerald\\\'s sophomoric (their word not mine) obsession with romance between men and women. They reduce his works to the level of melodramatic tear jerkers. This is a gross simplification of his talents. Yes "Gatsby" focuses on a doomed love affair but it does so to illustrate the errors in thinking that he felt marred his generation. <br /><br />Gatsby is about the hollowness of the American dream as dreamt in the twenties. Fitzgerald looked around him (and in the mirror)and saw men and women locked in a frenzied and ultimatley doomed race for speed, money and sin. Gatsby and Daisy\\\'s love is doomed because their values have been distorted by money and comfort and opulence. They cannot see the depths because they are too easily distracted by shiny surfaces. When Daisy cries as Gatsby shows off his elegantly tailored shirts because she has never seen clothes so beautiful sums up perfectly how for her exteriors matter most. This is at the heart of the tragedy that unfolds before us in this delicious little novel.<br /><br />There is no denying this is one of the GREAT BOOKS. If you haven\\\'t read it do so. I dare you to not fall in love with it.</span>\\n <a data-text-id="12056248144797777153" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'it was amazing',
'user': 'Rolls'},
{'date': 'Jul 31, 2007',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer3860589" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer17173413896364000276">There once was a man they called Jay,<br />A symbol of Jazz Age decay.<br />And just as Scott held a<br />Fixation for Zelda,<br />Jay\\xe2\\x80\\x99s Daisy dream sure made him pay!<br /></span>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'Steve'},
{'date': 'Aug 02, 2011',
'reviewBlock': '\\n <span id="reviewTextContainer193575092" class="readable"\\n >\\n \\n<span id="freeTextContainer17257179376149960925">As clear a portrait of a generation as has ever been put to pen, and Fitzgerald has done even better by making much of the qualities of this novel timeless, shining a bright light on all that it right, and much that is wrong, with our society and our culture. <br><br>Complex, multi-layered, this is also subtle and simple - but subtle like a jazz movement, intricate in its performance and difficult to grasp all at once.<br><br>*** 2019 Reread - I watched the 2013 film and needed to revisit this wonderful book.<br><br>What Fitzgerald acc</span>\\n <span id="freeText17257179376149960925" style="display:none">As clear a portrait of a generation as has ever been put to pen, and Fitzgerald has done even better by making much of the qualities of this novel timeless, shining a bright light on all that it right, and much that is wrong, with our society and our culture. <br><br>Complex, multi-layered, this is also subtle and simple - but subtle like a jazz movement, intricate in its performance and difficult to grasp all at once.<br><br>*** 2019 Reread - I watched the 2013 film and needed to revisit this wonderful book.<br><br>What Fitzgerald accomplished was to make a good story about lost love and dashed dreams a great story because it also paints a portrait of a time and place - the Roaring Twenties between the Great War and the Great Depression. From our vantage a hundred years later, we can see this as the eye of a hurricane, a gentle respite between calamities. But for the partygoers at Jay Gatsby\\xe2\\x80\\x99s place on West Egg, there was booze and music and laughter and a sense that this bacchanal might go on forever. But Fitzgerald, sensitive artist that he was, saw the chipping paint over the gaudy design, noticed the frayed edges of the party dresses and the fragile bubble about to burst.<br><br>Jay Gatsby can be the man of that time, optimistic and hopeful until the end, still chasing a dream that was only ever just that.<br><br>A very good story.<br><br><img src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1556211123i/27413281._SX540_.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="description" class="gr-hostedUserImg"></span>\\n <a data-text-id="17257179376149960925" href="#" onclick="swapContent($(this));; return false;">...more</a>\\n\\n </span>\\n ',
'stars': 'really liked it',
'user': 'Lyn'}]
In [7]:
### Parsing the data using BeautifulSoup
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(reviewDict[0]['reviewBlock'])
print(soup.text)
\n \n \nOh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with \'some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life\', focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it. Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly. Just like the Great Houdini - the association the title of this book\'some\n Oh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with \'some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life\', focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it. Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly. Just like the Great Houdini - the association the title of this book so easily invokes - you specialized in illusions and escape. Except even the power of most courageous dreamers can be quite helpless to allow us escape the world, our past, and ourselves, giving rise to one of the most famous closing lines of a novel.\n \'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that\xe2\x80\x99s no matter \xe2\x80\x94 to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning \xe2\x80\x94\xe2\x80\x94 So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.\'\nDear Gatsby, not everything I liked back when I was fourteen has withstood the test of time\xc2\xb9 - but you clearly did, and as I get older, closer to your and Nick Carraway\'s age, your story gathers more dimensions and more tragedy, fleshing out so much more from what I thought of as a tragic love story when I was a child - turning into a great American tragedy.\xc2\xb9 I hang my head in shame at my ability to still belt out an enthusiastic (albeit poorly rendered) version of \'...Baby One More Time\' when it comes on the radio (provided, of course, that my car windows are safely up).I blame it on my residual teenage hormones.Jay Gatsby, you barged head-on to achieve and conquer your American dream, not stopping until your dreams became your reality, until you reinvented yourself with the dizzying strength of your belief. Your tragedy was that you equated your dream with money, and money with happiness and love. And honestly, given the messed up world we live in, you were not that far from getting everything you thought you wanted, including the kind of love that hinges on the green dollar signs. And you *almost* saw it, you poor bastard, but in the end you chose to let your delusion continue, you poor soul.Poor Gatsby! Yours is the story of a young man who suddenly rose to wealth and fame, running like a hamster on the wheel amassing wealth for the sake of love, for the sake of winning the heart of a Southern belle, the one whose \n \'voice is full of money\'\n - in a book written by a young man who suddenly rose to wealth and fame, desperately running on the hamster wheel of \'high life\' to win the heart of his own Southern belle. Poor Gatsby, and poor F. Scott Fitzgerald - the guy who so brilliantly described it all, but who continued to live the life his character failed to see for what it was.The Great Gatsby is a story about the lavish excesses meant to serve every little whim of the rich and wannabe-rich in the splendid but unsatisfying in their shallow emptiness glitzy and gaudy post-war years, and the resulting suffocation under the uselessness and unexpected oppressiveness of elusive American dream in the time when money was plenty and the alluring seemingly dream life was just around the corner, just within reach.But first and foremost, it is a story of disillusionment with dreams that prove to be shallow and unworthy of the dreamer - while at the same time firmly hanging on to the idea of the dream, the ability to dream big, and the stubborn tenacity of the dreamer, \n \'an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again\'\n.This is why Gatsby is still so relevant in the world we live in - almost a hundred years after Fitzgerald wrote it in the Roaring Twenties - the present-day world that still worships money and views it as a substitute for the American dream, the world that hinges on materialism, the world that no longer frowns on the gaudiness and glitz of the nouveau riche. In this world Jay Gatsby, poor old sport, with his huge tasteless mansion and lavish tasteless parties and in-your-face tasteless car and tasteless pink suit would be, perhaps, quietly sniggered at - but would have fit in without the need for aristocratic breeding - who cares if he has the money and the ability to throw parties worthy of reality show fame??? Because in the present world just the fact of having heaps of money makes you worthy - and therefore the people whose \'voices are full of money\', who are \'gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor\', people who genuinely believe that money makes them worthy and invincible are all too common. Tom and Daisy Buchanan would be proud of them. And wannabe Gatsbys pour their capacity to dream into chasing the shallow dream of dollar signs, nothing more.\n \'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy \xe2\x80\x94 they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.\'\nThis book somehow hit the right note back when I read it when I was fourteen, and hit even truer note now, deeply resonating with me a decade short of a hundred years since it was written. If you read it for school years ago, I ask you to pick it up and give its pages another look - and it may amaze you. Five green-light stars in the fog at the end of a dock.\n ...more\n\n \n
In [8]:
### Using a headless browser (Note: requires some setup to install the library)
from splinter import Browser
browser = Browser("chrome")
browser.visit("https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4671.The_Great_Gatsby")
html = browser.html
Manipulating time data¶
In [9]:
# Yelp challenge data: https://www.yelp.com/dataset/challenge
In [10]:
import time
import json
In [11]:
path = "datasets/review50k.json"
f = open(path, 'r', encoding = 'utf8')
In [12]:
# Read first 50000 entries
dataset = []
for i in range(50000):
dataset.append(json.loads(f.readline()))
In [13]:
timeString = dataset[0]['date']
In [14]:
# String --> struct
timeStruct = time.strptime(timeString, "%Y-%m-%d")
time.strptime("21:36:18, 28/5/2019", "%H:%M:%S, %d/%m/%Y")
Out[14]:
time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=21, tm_min=36, tm_sec=18, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=148, tm_isdst=-1)
In [15]:
# Struct --> int
timeInt = time.mktime(timeStruct)
timeInt
Out[15]:
1464418800.0
In [16]:
timeInt2 = time.mktime(time.strptime(dataset[99]['date'], "%Y-%m-%d"))
In [17]:
timeDiff = timeInt - timeInt2
In [18]:
# Int --> struct
timeStruct2 = time.gmtime(timeInt2)
In [19]:
# Struct --> string
time.strftime("%b %Y, %I:%M:%S", timeStruct2)
Out[19]:
'Jun 2012, 07:00:00'
Matplotlib¶
In [20]:
datasetWithTimeValues = []
In [21]:
# Add time values to the dataset
for d in dataset:
d['date']
d['timeStruct'] = time.strptime(d['date'], "%Y-%m-%d")
d['timeInt'] = time.mktime(d['timeStruct'])
datasetWithTimeValues.append(d)
In [22]:
# Compile ratings per weekday
from collections import defaultdict
weekRatings = defaultdict(list)
In [23]:
for d in datasetWithTimeValues:
day = d['timeStruct'].tm_wday
weekRatings[day].append(d['stars'])
In [24]:
weekAverages = {}
In [25]:
for d in weekRatings:
weekAverages[d] = sum(weekRatings[d]) / len(weekRatings[d])
In [26]:
# Plot...
In [27]:
X = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6]
Y = [weekAverages[x] for x in X]
In [28]:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
In [29]:
# Line plot
plt.plot(X, Y)
plt.show()
In [30]:
# Bar plot
plt.bar(X, Y)
plt.show()
In [31]:
# Limits
plt.bar(X, Y)
plt.ylim(3.6, 3.8)
plt.show()
In [32]:
# Label, ticks, and title
plt.ylim(3.6, 3.8)
plt.xlabel("Weekday")
plt.ylabel("Av. Rating")
plt.xticks(X, "SMTWTFS")
plt.title("weekday vs. rating")
plt.bar(X, Y)
plt.show()
Tensorflow¶
In [33]:
import tensorflow as tf
In [34]:
# PM2.5 data: https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Beijing+PM2.5+Data
path = "datasets/PRSA_data_2010.1.1-2014.12.31.csv"
f = open(path, 'r')
In [35]:
dataset = []
header = f.readline().strip().split(',')
for line in f:
line = line.split(',')
dataset.append(line)
In [36]:
# Exclude N/A entries from the dataset
dataset = [d for d in dataset if d[5] != 'NA']
In [37]:
# Extract features
def feature(datum):
feat = [1, float(datum[7]), float(datum[8]), float(datum[10])] # Temperature, pressure, and wind speed
return feat
In [38]:
X = [feature(d) for d in dataset]
y = [float(d[5]) for d in dataset]
In [39]:
# Convert to tensorflow constant (column vector)
y = tf.constant(y, shape=[len(y),1])
In [40]:
K = len(X[0])
In [41]:
# Regularized MSE
def MSE(X, y, theta):
return tf.reduce_mean((tf.matmul(X, theta) - y)**2) + 1.0 * tf.reduce_sum(theta**2)
In [42]:
theta = tf.Variable(tf.constant([0.0]*K, shape=[K,1]))
In [43]:
optimizer = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(0.01)
objective = MSE(X,y,theta)
In [44]:
train = optimizer.minimize(objective)
WARNING: Logging before flag parsing goes to stderr. W1113 11:01:46.665713 140315448227648 deprecation.py:506] From /usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/tensorflow/python/training/slot_creator.py:187: calling Zeros.__init__ (from tensorflow.python.ops.init_ops) with dtype is deprecated and will be removed in a future version. Instructions for updating: Call initializer instance with the dtype argument instead of passing it to the constructor
In [45]:
# Initialize variables
In [46]:
init = tf.global_variables_initializer()
In [47]:
sess = tf.Session()
sess.run(init)
In [48]:
# Run gradient descent
In [49]:
for iteration in range(1000):
cvalues = sess.run([train, objective])
print("objective = " + str(cvalues[1]))
objective = 18197.637 objective = 16256.28 objective = 14544.924 objective = 13065.9375 objective = 11818.952 objective = 10800.025 objective = 10000.64 objective = 9406.976 objective = 8999.862 objective = 8755.413 objective = 8645.992 objective = 8641.236 objective = 8709.465 objective = 8819.554 objective = 8943.128 objective = 9056.559 objective = 9142.391 objective = 9189.92 objective = 9194.939 objective = 9158.817 objective = 9087.209 objective = 8988.603 objective = 8872.931 objective = 8750.358 objective = 8630.268 objective = 8520.509 objective = 8426.907 objective = 8353.001 objective = 8300.01 objective = 8267.028 objective = 8251.389 objective = 8249.162 objective = 8255.732 objective = 8266.386 objective = 8276.84 objective = 8283.645 objective = 8284.465 objective = 8278.152 objective = 8264.705 objective = 8245.083 objective = 8220.929 objective = 8194.268 objective = 8167.1924 objective = 8141.599 objective = 8118.9736 objective = 8100.2744 objective = 8085.879 objective = 8075.621 objective = 8068.894 objective = 8064.7915 objective = 8062.264 objective = 8060.284 objective = 8057.9717 objective = 8054.692 objective = 8050.1006 objective = 8044.1426 objective = 8037.0117 objective = 8029.0806 objective = 8020.8193 objective = 8012.711 objective = 8005.1694 objective = 7998.498 objective = 7992.857 objective = 7988.2573 objective = 7984.5854 objective = 7981.6353 objective = 7979.155 objective = 7976.893 objective = 7974.626 objective = 7972.202 objective = 7969.539 objective = 7966.632 objective = 7963.534 objective = 7960.3457 objective = 7957.181 objective = 7954.1514 objective = 7951.343 objective = 7948.808 objective = 7946.562 objective = 7944.5806 objective = 7942.814 objective = 7941.2007 objective = 7939.674 objective = 7938.178 objective = 7936.668 objective = 7935.125 objective = 7933.5464 objective = 7931.9478 objective = 7930.355 objective = 7928.7944 objective = 7927.292 objective = 7925.8667 objective = 7924.526 objective = 7923.269 objective = 7922.0825 objective = 7920.955 objective = 7919.8657 objective = 7918.796 objective = 7917.737 objective = 7916.678 objective = 7915.619 objective = 7914.563 objective = 7913.514 objective = 7912.481 objective = 7911.47 objective = 7910.4844 objective = 7909.527 objective = 7908.5967 objective = 7907.691 objective = 7906.804 objective = 7905.9316 objective = 7905.0693 objective = 7904.2134 objective = 7903.3633 objective = 7902.518 objective = 7901.6787 objective = 7900.846 objective = 7900.025 objective = 7899.214 objective = 7898.416 objective = 7897.63 objective = 7896.8535 objective = 7896.089 objective = 7895.3325 objective = 7894.5835 objective = 7893.842 objective = 7893.106 objective = 7892.376 objective = 7891.6523 objective = 7890.9346 objective = 7890.2246 objective = 7889.522 objective = 7888.8276 objective = 7888.14 objective = 7887.462 objective = 7886.7896 objective = 7886.124 objective = 7885.4663 objective = 7884.815 objective = 7884.169 objective = 7883.529 objective = 7882.8965 objective = 7882.2695 objective = 7881.6484 objective = 7881.0356 objective = 7880.4287 objective = 7879.8276 objective = 7879.234 objective = 7878.6465 objective = 7878.0654 objective = 7877.4907 objective = 7876.9233 objective = 7876.36 objective = 7875.8027 objective = 7875.253 objective = 7874.708 objective = 7874.1704 objective = 7873.637 objective = 7873.1113 objective = 7872.5913 objective = 7872.078 objective = 7871.5703 objective = 7871.0674 objective = 7870.5703 objective = 7870.0796 objective = 7869.595 objective = 7869.1157 objective = 7868.642 objective = 7868.1743 objective = 7867.713 objective = 7867.256 objective = 7866.8047 objective = 7866.3594 objective = 7865.919 objective = 7865.4844 objective = 7865.055 objective = 7864.631 objective = 7864.2104 objective = 7863.799 objective = 7863.3887 objective = 7862.987 objective = 7862.5884 objective = 7862.1943 objective = 7861.8076 objective = 7861.425 objective = 7861.0464 objective = 7860.6733 objective = 7860.305 objective = 7859.941 objective = 7859.582 objective = 7859.229 objective = 7858.88 objective = 7858.5356 objective = 7858.196 objective = 7857.86 objective = 7857.5303 objective = 7857.203 objective = 7856.882 objective = 7856.564 objective = 7856.2505 objective = 7855.942 objective = 7855.637 objective = 7855.3364 objective = 7855.0405 objective = 7854.749 objective = 7854.461 objective = 7854.1777 objective = 7853.8975 objective = 7853.6216 objective = 7853.349 objective = 7853.081 objective = 7852.818 objective = 7852.5566 objective = 7852.301 objective = 7852.0474 objective = 7851.7993 objective = 7851.5527 objective = 7851.3115 objective = 7851.0737 objective = 7850.8374 objective = 7850.6064 objective = 7850.3784 objective = 7850.156 objective = 7849.932 objective = 7849.7163 objective = 7849.5005 objective = 7849.2886 objective = 7849.082 objective = 7848.877 objective = 7848.6753 objective = 7848.477 objective = 7848.281 objective = 7848.0894 objective = 7847.8994 objective = 7847.7134 objective = 7847.5293 objective = 7847.349 objective = 7847.1714 objective = 7846.996 objective = 7846.824 objective = 7846.654 objective = 7846.4873 objective = 7846.323 objective = 7846.161 objective = 7846.0015 objective = 7845.846 objective = 7845.692 objective = 7845.5405 objective = 7845.393 objective = 7845.246 objective = 7845.1016 objective = 7844.9604 objective = 7844.821 objective = 7844.6846 objective = 7844.549 objective = 7844.416 objective = 7844.2866 objective = 7844.1577 objective = 7844.0327 objective = 7843.908 objective = 7843.788 objective = 7843.6675 objective = 7843.5493 objective = 7843.435 objective = 7843.321 objective = 7843.209 objective = 7843.1 objective = 7842.9917 objective = 7842.8857 objective = 7842.782 objective = 7842.6797 objective = 7842.579 objective = 7842.481 objective = 7842.384 objective = 7842.288 objective = 7842.1953 objective = 7842.102 objective = 7842.012 objective = 7841.925 objective = 7841.837 objective = 7841.7515 objective = 7841.6675 objective = 7841.585 objective = 7841.504 objective = 7841.4253 objective = 7841.346 objective = 7841.269 objective = 7841.1943 objective = 7841.1216 objective = 7841.048 objective = 7840.977 objective = 7840.907 objective = 7840.8394 objective = 7840.773 objective = 7840.7056 objective = 7840.6406 objective = 7840.5786 objective = 7840.5146 objective = 7840.4546 objective = 7840.394 objective = 7840.3345 objective = 7840.2773 objective = 7840.2207 objective = 7840.1646 objective = 7840.111 objective = 7840.057 objective = 7840.005 objective = 7839.953 objective = 7839.9023 objective = 7839.8525 objective = 7839.804 objective = 7839.7563 objective = 7839.711 objective = 7839.664 objective = 7839.62 objective = 7839.576 objective = 7839.5337 objective = 7839.491 objective = 7839.4487 objective = 7839.409 objective = 7839.3706 objective = 7839.33 objective = 7839.2925 objective = 7839.2544 objective = 7839.2183 objective = 7839.1816 objective = 7839.147 objective = 7839.1133 objective = 7839.079 objective = 7839.0464 objective = 7839.014 objective = 7838.982 objective = 7838.9507 objective = 7838.9204 objective = 7838.8896 objective = 7838.8613 objective = 7838.832 objective = 7838.804 objective = 7838.777 objective = 7838.75 objective = 7838.723 objective = 7838.6978 objective = 7838.6733 objective = 7838.649 objective = 7838.6235 objective = 7838.601 objective = 7838.577 objective = 7838.554 objective = 7838.5327 objective = 7838.5107 objective = 7838.49 objective = 7838.469 objective = 7838.4487 objective = 7838.4287 objective = 7838.4087 objective = 7838.389 objective = 7838.3716 objective = 7838.353 objective = 7838.335 objective = 7838.3184 objective = 7838.301 objective = 7838.285 objective = 7838.268 objective = 7838.252 objective = 7838.2363 objective = 7838.221 objective = 7838.206 objective = 7838.1924 objective = 7838.1763 objective = 7838.164 objective = 7838.15 objective = 7838.1367 objective = 7838.124 objective = 7838.1104 objective = 7838.098 objective = 7838.0854 objective = 7838.0737 objective = 7838.0625 objective = 7838.051 objective = 7838.0396 objective = 7838.0283 objective = 7838.019 objective = 7838.008 objective = 7837.998 objective = 7837.989 objective = 7837.9785 objective = 7837.969 objective = 7837.9595 objective = 7837.9517 objective = 7837.9424 objective = 7837.9326 objective = 7837.925 objective = 7837.9175 objective = 7837.9077 objective = 7837.9004 objective = 7837.893 objective = 7837.8853 objective = 7837.879 objective = 7837.872 objective = 7837.8647 objective = 7837.858 objective = 7837.851 objective = 7837.845 objective = 7837.838 objective = 7837.8325 objective = 7837.826 objective = 7837.8203 objective = 7837.815 objective = 7837.809 objective = 7837.803 objective = 7837.798 objective = 7837.794 objective = 7837.788 objective = 7837.783 objective = 7837.7783 objective = 7837.7744 objective = 7837.769 objective = 7837.765 objective = 7837.7607 objective = 7837.756 objective = 7837.7524 objective = 7837.748 objective = 7837.7446 objective = 7837.7407 objective = 7837.737 objective = 7837.733 objective = 7837.73 objective = 7837.7256 objective = 7837.723 objective = 7837.7188 objective = 7837.7163 objective = 7837.7124 objective = 7837.71 objective = 7837.7075 objective = 7837.7036 objective = 7837.701 objective = 7837.6987 objective = 7837.696 objective = 7837.694 objective = 7837.691 objective = 7837.6875 objective = 7837.687 objective = 7837.6836 objective = 7837.6816 objective = 7837.679 objective = 7837.6763 objective = 7837.675 objective = 7837.672 objective = 7837.67 objective = 7837.668 objective = 7837.667 objective = 7837.6646 objective = 7837.6636 objective = 7837.661 objective = 7837.6597 objective = 7837.657 objective = 7837.6562 objective = 7837.6543 objective = 7837.653 objective = 7837.651 objective = 7837.65 objective = 7837.648 objective = 7837.647 objective = 7837.646 objective = 7837.644 objective = 7837.643 objective = 7837.642 objective = 7837.64 objective = 7837.6396 objective = 7837.6377 objective = 7837.637 objective = 7837.636 objective = 7837.6353 objective = 7837.6333 objective = 7837.6333 objective = 7837.632 objective = 7837.6304 objective = 7837.6304 objective = 7837.6294 objective = 7837.628 objective = 7837.6274 objective = 7837.6255 objective = 7837.626 objective = 7837.6245 objective = 7837.625 objective = 7837.624 objective = 7837.6226 objective = 7837.623 objective = 7837.622 objective = 7837.6206 objective = 7837.619 objective = 7837.6196 objective = 7837.618 objective = 7837.6196 objective = 7837.6187 objective = 7837.6177 objective = 7837.6167 objective = 7837.6167 objective = 7837.6167 objective = 7837.616 objective = 7837.6147 objective = 7837.6143 objective = 7837.614 objective = 7837.6143 objective = 7837.6133 objective = 7837.6133 objective = 7837.612 objective = 7837.612 objective = 7837.6123 objective = 7837.611 objective = 7837.6113 objective = 7837.61 objective = 7837.6104 objective = 7837.6104 objective = 7837.609 objective = 7837.6094 objective = 7837.6094 objective = 7837.6084 objective = 7837.6084 objective = 7837.608 objective = 7837.6074 objective = 7837.608 objective = 7837.608 objective = 7837.608 objective = 7837.607 objective = 7837.607 objective = 7837.6064 objective = 7837.6064 objective = 7837.6055 objective = 7837.606 objective = 7837.606 objective = 7837.605 objective = 7837.605 objective = 7837.605 objective = 7837.6055 objective = 7837.604 objective = 7837.605 objective = 7837.604 objective = 7837.6045 objective = 7837.6045 objective = 7837.6045 objective = 7837.6035 objective = 7837.6035 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.602 objective = 7837.602 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.603 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.602 objective = 7837.602 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.602 objective = 7837.6025 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6016 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.601 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.6 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5977 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.5986 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.6006 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.599 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996 objective = 7837.5996
In [50]:
# Print results
In [51]:
with sess.as_default():
print(MSE(X, y, theta).eval())
print(theta.eval())
7837.5996 [[ 0.10532253] [-0.88857067] [ 0.11929031] [-0.49554318]]