The great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby could be easily considered the prototype for a great many good American screenplays. It not only has the basic features of a blockbuster—blood and love affairs—but it also counts with a charming yet mysterious protagonist, flirtatious women, a time-overcoming infatuation, and even an outside narrator who gradually unveils all petty details to his reader, as he himself was unveiled the particulars of the plot that he would compose afterward. This latter, truth be told, a device that had its effectiveness proved with readers all around the world since Arthur Conan Doyle and his sympathetic yet common-sensed Dr. Watson.

For the reasons mentioned, added to the fact that we, 21st-century readers, have seen and read a great deal of stories that keep repeating themselves, The Great Gatsby is not a book to live up to expectations. It should be read as in a sort of whim, a sudden interest that cannot be explained but by the simple fact that both reader and book happened to be in the same place at the same time. Thus, without previous remarks and completely disposed of reviews or analysis one will be able to appreciate the freshness of its characters, the sometimes ludicrous atmosphere, the glamorous affairs, and follow with growing interest the fate of those whose actions distill the essence of the Jazz Age, and encompass the emptiness of the American dream.