2,49 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Oldpress
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Haven't read The Great Gatsby yet?
Here are 3 good reasons to do it (and to suggest it to your friends)
1 - You won't get bored
If boredom is not your thing, this is the book for you. Given its age (the first edition came out in 1925) you might be led to think of this work as "a boulder", a heavy piece of writing, but this is not the case. Fitzgerald's style is dynamic, the writing brilliant and expressive. Do not be bored!
2 - You'll Get Richer
No, you won't make a ton of money reading The Great Gatsby, but you will enrich your knowledge by immersing yourself up to the tip of your hair in the unrepeatable era that was "The Roaring Twenties." Jay Gatsby will take you to a New York of parties, alcohol, beautiful women, and jazz music. You'll take a ride on the merry-go-round of the American dream... before it breaks down.
3 - You'll be able to say you've read "A Real Disaster".
Yep, it's not all gold that glitters. If it is true that today The Great Gatsby is considered a masterpiece of American literature, it is equally true that when it was released in bookstores (on April 10, 1925) the reception was not at all what was expected. Most critics agreed that it was "A Real Disaster". The first review ever to be written in New York, just two days after publication, was titled "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Last Disaster."
Not Just Gatsby
What you will find in this volume is the original 1925 edition. No changes of any kind have been made to Fitzgerald's text, not even a small correction! We think that's only fair: to respect originality!
but...
We have enhanced the work by adding a historical introduction by Andrew Hole. Andrew will take you hand in hand and accompany you in the 20's. He will make you understand why that period was extraordinary and for many reasons unrepeatable. A real journey into the heart of the problems that Fitzgerald's American generation had to face.
Here's what you'll find in this volume:
- The original work The Great Gatsby from 1925
- The Birth of Consumerism
- Women's Emancipation
- The Discovery of Jazz
- The Prohibition
- American Isolationism
- The Great Depression
Behind every great work are often hidden curiosities and anecdotes. The Great Gatsby is no exception.
I want to tell you a few:
A masterpiece born of failure
Before writing his spiritual legacy to humanity, Fitzgerald worked for about a year and a half on writing a play that he believed would make him Broadway's most popular playwright. The play was titled The Vegetable, or from President to Postman. In September 1923 The Vegetable was staged for the first time in Atlantic City: it was a total fiasco. The show was considered mediocre and poorly written. The author had entered the spiral of alcoholism and was in desperate need of money, so he decided to concentrate on writing the novel.
Hemingway Disgusted
Ernest Hemingway called the cover of The Great Gatsby "the ugliest cover I have ever seen."
The Title is to be Changed
Francis Scott Fitzgerald did not like the title The Great Gatsby. Before its publication he tried many times to change the publisher's mind. His proposals were: Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires, Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-Hatted Gatsby, The High-Bouncing Lover, On the Road to West Egg or, simply, Gatsby. No dice, the publisher wasn't convinced even when Fitzgerald suggested Under the Red, White and Blue... Lucky for us!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
F.S. Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
THE CONSUMER ECONOMY
FROM JAZZ TO EMANCIPATION
ISOLATIONISM AND PROHIBITIONISM
THE END OF THE ROARING YEARS
F.S. FITZGERALD
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
INTRODUCTION
Roaring were the years, as roaring was the spirit of the character of James Gatz, the real name of Jay Gatsby, whimsical and contradictory character of this revolutionary novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
Novel defined by T. S. Eliot - "The first step forward made by American fiction since Henry James".
But what were " The Roaring Twenties"?
With this locution are defined the years that pass from the first post-war period until the end of the decade. This historical period saw the United States, and in tow also part of Europe, implement changes that affected various aspects of economic, social, artistic, and cultural life.
An extraordinary period, for some aspects, is considered unrepeatable and that will tragically culminate in the Great Depression of 1929. A historical season that cannot be ignored if one wants to savor Fitzgerald's work intensely.
I wanted to write this preface in order to immerse the reader in this fascinating period of reconstruction, discovery, escape, and revolution.
Original cover of the first edition
THE CONSUMER ECONOMY
Europe had just emerged battered from the previous decade and was seriously busy licking its wounds. The United States took the opportunity to pay off the debts of a Germany that was completely on its knees. An economic aid that also served to preserve a large consumer market for goods that the United States was going to produce massively.
For the US, growth was exponential and they consolidated their position as the richest country in the world. They quickly transformed their economy from "warlike" to "peaceful" by subjecting their citizens to mass consumerism. Suffice it to say that between 1922 and 1928 the industrial economy of the United States grew by 68%.
To ensure that consumers were reached and "helped" to buy, it was during this decade that new tools to support consumption were born in the United States as:
- Innovative advertising techniques
- New media
- New forms of distribution, such as department stores
- Credit facilitation, such as installment payments
And everyone was buying!
Towards the end of the 1920s, 1 in 5 Americans owned a car, half the population owned an iron and 15% owned a washing machine, fan, toaster...
A great incentive to purchase, as mentioned above, was given by the new media, one above all: the radio. This tool had a great communicative impact and not only related to consumerism but also and above all to culture and art.
If in previous decades owning a radio meant being rich, it was from the '20s that this tool became available to everyone (or almost). The 400,000 receivers of 1922 became about 8,000,000 in 1928.
1920s advertising aimed at the middle class.
One of the first department stores of the 1920s
A radio play, The Great Divide, being broadcast at the studio of early AM radio station WGY in Schenectady, New York in 1923
Woman tuning early radio, from 1923 radio magazine
FROM JAZZ TO EMANCIPATION
The growth of the United States in the 1920s was unstoppable, and not only from an economic point of view.
There are many, in fact, areas that were influenced by the well-being and carefree attitude of the first post-war period. Thanks to the strong development of technologies and the mass diffusion of music, for example, had its highest expression in Jazz which, starting from New Orleans and passing through Chicago, landed in the early '20s in New York, determining the beginning of the Jazz Age.
Jazz became more and more popular and established itself as dance music and in nightclubs. And the Charleston is the dance that best represents those years. "The dance of the epileptics", as it was defined by the well-wishers, represented a revolution of gender because it changed not only the costume but the way of thinking.
The female figure in the society of those years lived, in fact, one of the most obvious transformations, both from a political point of view and socio-cultural emancipation. While the movement of the "suffragettes" continued its battle, which had begun several years earlier in Great Britain and which saw an important turning point on 26 August 1920 with the approval in the United States of the 19th amendment to the American Constitution, which for the first time introduced the right to vote for women, the female figure transformed her image in her look and attitudes, influenced by the European movement called "Flappers".
The word "Flapper", the slang of the British language, in the beginning, referred to novice prostitutes. Later this term was used to indicate a young woman who passed to more adult age. In the '20s the word Flappers was used to indicate those emancipated women who had attitudes and behaviors that, until then, had been of male dominance.
The Flappers wore dresses and short skirts showing for the first time their ankles. They cut their hair short, listened to jazz, and danced the Charleston, but not only that, they smoked, drank alcohol, drove cars, and broke away clearly and unequivocally from any behavior "good girl, well educated". A revolution excellently represented in Fitzgerald's work.
Carter And King Jazzing Orchestra
A couple dances the Charleston in 1920s New York
Mary Louise Brooks Flappers sex symbol
A flapper driving a car
