Book Review #5: The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is one of those books everyone should read. I had to read this book in high school and whilst I vaguely remember enjoying it, I am so glad I read it again as an adult. There are so many themes and metaphors and wonderful descriptions that were obviously lost on my 15 year old self.

The Great Gatsby is set in 1925 east coast America and based purely on what I know about the roaring 20s, I think this novel captures the era absolutely perfectly. The story is told to us by Nick Carraway, a normal everyday, good man who for a short time gets a glimpse into the lives of money-hungry, greedy, careless people.

Originally from Chicago, Nick takes a job as a bonds trader on the east coast and moves into a modest house right next door to a fabulous mansion, owned by the mysterious Jay Gatsby. Nick quickly becomes intrigued by his neighbour’s coming and goings, beautifully manicured lawns and dazzling parties and when he finally meets The Great Gatsby he finds there are even more questions to be answered.

On the other side of the bay from Nick and Mr Gatsby live the very wealthy Tom and Daisy. They are not only acquaintances of Nicks’ from Chicago but Daisy and Mr Gatsby had an intense romance some years before.  Along with Daisy’s friend Jordan, the 5 of them spend much time together and the next few months and years are full of mystery, lies, parties, betrayal, drinking, murder and unattainable love.

The story is very fast-paced and despite how few pages are in this book, we get to know the characters very well – most of them are totally unlikable and…actually, I’ll let F. Scott Fitzgerald describe them to you himself (this also happens to be my favourite quote in the book)…

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

This book is exquisite and deserves all the praise that has been showered upon it. Straight to my top 10 books list it goes.

5/5 stars. Enjoy.

Candice xx

Tags: 1920s, American literature, book review, books, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Read these books or die

Just kidding, you won’t die if you don’t read these books (but if you do happen to die before you’ve read these books, that is nothing but a coincidence…and you won’t care anymore anyway, because you’ll be dead).

In no particular order…

 1. Perfume – Patrick Suskind

A wonderful book centred around the olfactory system of Jean-Baptiste  Grenouille, a dirty street urchin who roams the streets of 18th century Paris and beyond. With almost no dialogue, Perfume takes the reader on  a journey of scent from the fetid to the sublime. Whilst mostly about one  man’s obsession with smell, there is also a few murders thrown in there  for good measure. For the majority of time, Perfume skips along quite  nicely at a steady pace, before disintegrating splendidly into absolute sordidness towards the end with some quite unexpected scenes. A must read for all book lovers.

 2. Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel

Let me start by saying that I am the only person I know who LOVED this  book. It’s been called ‘pretentious’, ‘misguided’ and ‘dull’ by the millions.  Huh? Beatrice and Virgil isn’t any of these.  Ok, maybe slightly misguided. I get that it is pretty muddled and there are numerous parts that are completely superfluous to the main story but I was able to overlook that.
It has some down-right  shocking scenes, mixed with some quite lovely dialogue that at times is  quite humorous.  The rush of emotion that this book enabled me to feel was unexpected and I thoroughly enjoyed those parts of the book that touched on brilliant. I would really welcome comments – I love a good debate and I just cannot see why I am the only person who thoroughly enjoyed it. My opinion differs wildly from others…Is there something wrong with me? Maybe I should just say I hated it.

 3. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

This 600 page book is quite tough going but well worth it. I was going to  write a full review on this book but wasn’t sure where to start. It is pretty  much about a guy and his wife who are trying to solve the mystery of what  happened to their cat. After about 400 pages I was still wondering what’s  going to happen, and when. Yet so caught up in the strangeness of the tale  and the other mundane mysteries at play was I that I just couldn’t put it   down. Murakami sets an extraordinary tone and paces this book to absurdly strange perfection. He then takes you to a place deep down in a well and lets you in on all manner of epiphanies that are what truly awakens you to the fact that this book is literary genius.

Candice xx

Tags: Beatrice and Virgil, books, Haruki Murakami, holocaust, murder, must read books, mystery, Patrick Suskind, Perfume, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Yann Martel

Are your unfinished books mocking you?

Well the answer is ‘probably, but get over it and move onto a book you actually enjoy’.

It has taken me years to arrive at that answer. I can’t tell you the number of times I have looked at a half-finished book with feelings of guilt rushing up. Each time I saw the yet to be officially declared abandoned book I felt a sense of disrespect to the book and to the author and somehow I also felt that I was letting myself down.

Seriously? I’m ashamed that I allowed myself to feel this way for so long. Not every book is going to pump your tyres, even those that the rest of the literary world have showered with praise and awards.

Tags: books, Irene Nemirovsky, Sara Gruen, The Finkler Question, unfinished books, Water for Elephants

Book Review #4: Valley of the Dolls – Jacqueline Susann

Ok, so I know I said you won’t find any chick-lit reviews on this blog but one can be excused when the said book is a cult classic. It was also a book club book so I had to read it…so here goes:

Spanning 20 years from post-war 1945 to 1963, Valley of the Dolls is a story of love, loss and gossip and all of the fun, tears and shame that can accompany life in the fast lane.

Anne, Neely and Jennifer are three friends who, mostly by accident, claw their way to the top of the entertainment industry in New York City and discover just how hard it is to balance up there.

We watch their rise and rise and cheer on their successes until we watch their fall and fall and realise that these seemingly strong, independent women are anything but. Aside from Neely, who had genuine talent as a singer and dancer, the others made it in a so-called man’s world based purely on looks alone. With stars in their eyes and at a young age, they never considered that their looks would fade and the world would move right along to the next pretty face…at least they never considered it would happen to them. 

Tags: book reviews, entertainment, Jacqueline Susann

Book Review #3: The Help – Katherine Stockett

Admittedly I didn’t know too much about The Help when I started reading it and for some reason I had quite low expectations which is never a good way to approach a book. Luckily for me my expectations were met and then far exceeded.

The Help is a fictional tale and first novel for Katherine Stockett but for inspiration she is able to draw from first hand experience of life in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60s, a time when the colour line was still firmly in place.

The ‘Help’ refers to domestic maids, all of who are black women, who tend to wealthy white families. They cook for them, clean for them, do the weekly food shopping, watch their children and more often that not, raise their children.

Tags: book, civil rights, Kathryn Stockett, reviews

Book Review #2: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick

This is the third PKD book I have read (the other two being Ubik and A Scanner Darkly) and it didn’t disappoint.

As a relative newcomer to the world as seen through the eyes of Philip K. Dick, I find that the easiest way to approach his books is to simply soak up all the information that’s presented to you – or at least as much as you can before your head explodes. The second I tried to really comprehend what was going on, the further I fell into a state of confusion. But don’t worry, I don’t believe anyone truly understands what went on inside Dick’s brilliant mind when he came up with this mind-bendingly good story…

Tags: book review, books, LSD, Philip K Dick, sci-fi

Book Review #1: My Brilliant Career – Miles Franklin

Being  from Australia I thought I’d kick it all off with a home-grown classic…

My Brilliant Career is, dare I say, quite brilliant. Set in the late 1890s in country NSW, Australia, it is to some extent an autobiographical tale which introduces us to the headstrong, plain-faced teenager, Sybylla Melvyn.

Sybylla hails from a once comfortable-turned-penniless family. At a young age her family are forced to move from their lovely country homestead, Caddagat, to Possum Gully. Possum Gully represents everything Sybylla despises. It is dusty and there are no big, old, beautiful trees to provide respite from the heat. The daily chores are backbreaking, there are very few books, little music and even less culture.

Sybylla is, by her own admission, not like other girls. She is strong-willed, independent, intelligent, ever-questioning and wildly talented – all the things a young, ‘proper’ lady who wishes to find a good husband shouldn’t be. She is deemed incorrigible by her ‘beaten-down-by-life’ mother and is sent back to her beloved birth place, Caddagat, to live with relatives in the hope that they can curb her rebellious ways. 

Tags: Australian literature, book reviews, books, Miles Franklin