by the American
author F. Scott Fitzgerald
. First published in
1925, it is set on Long Island
's North Shore
and in New York City
from spring to autumn of 1922.
The novel takes place following the First World War
. American society enjoyed prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s
as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition
, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment
, made millionaires out of bootleggers.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had." Page 1
Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.
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.
All right...I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. Page 17
"I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe."
People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away.
The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.