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Why Gatsby is the Greatest American Novel

The Book Club

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Was Daisy Buchanan, the object of Jay Gatsby’s obsessive love in the novel, inspired by the author’s own love life? What window does The Great Gatsby open onto 1920s America, with its Jazz, flappers, and bootlegging? Who was F. Scott Fitzgerald, the man behind one of the most iconic novels in all literature?

Join Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett as they delve into the fascinating story behind the writing of the Great Gatsby, the world it was born of, and the novel itself.

You can order The Great Gatsby and explore our favourite Folio books at https://foliosociety.com/thebookclub

Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Video Editor: Oliver Oakley
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson

0:00 Intro
3:04 Why Gatsby is much darker than its reputation
5:09 The roaring 20s: champagne, bootlegging, and violence
8:32 The heartbreak that inspired Gatsby
11:02 Zelda Fitzgerald and the chaos behind the myth
13:22 The real Long Island behind East Egg and West Egg
16:03 The bizarre titles Gatsby almost had
19:29 Hemingway, Zelda, and one of the strangest literary anecdotes ever
22:12 What makes Gatsby’s writing so hypnotic
24:17 Can Nick Carraway actually be trusted?
26:05 Tom and Daisy: the novel’s most poisonous couple
29:37 Who is Jay Gatsby really?
33:06 The green light, Daisy, and Gatsby’s impossible dream
35:24 Gatsby’s secret past: James Gatz and the road to wealth
39:04 The tragedy of self-invention
41:22 Why critics dismissed Gatsby at first
45:12 The Valley of Ashes and the eyes watching everything
48:14 Why Gatsby’s parties feel so empty
51:23 Fake wealth, fake status, and the pink suit problem
55:45 The confrontation that destroys everything
59:18 The ending and the real meaning of the American Dream
1:02:02 Final verdicts

20 Comments

@vail4639 6 months ago

I’ve listened to many book podcasts, this is by far the best chemistry and production I’ve heard. Booktube take note! This is how it’s done. Brilliant

@marthadowling2953 5 months ago

The Robert Redford "Gatsby" film is the one to see.

@VincentBashaw-o3v 5 months ago

It is interesting the Great Gatsby wasn't very popular when it first came out. In fact the publisher had to place the majority of the copies in a warehouse. The publishers had a difficult time selling it, because most readers found the book to be really depressing and about the high flying upper class and their corrupt going ons.
It wasn't until WWII, when the government was asking publishers to donate books to a reading program for American soldiers. It was believed unless something was done to keep the soldiers distracted from what they were going through in the war, issues related to unlawful activities could get out of hand.
So publishers clean out the backlog of copies of books they had in their warehouses to the program. As such, young soldiers were first exposed to reading beyond newspapers, magazines and comic books. At this time, the number of public libraries were located in cities and moderate-sized towns. So this program really brought reading to thousands of young soliers for the first time.
As such this was the first time this novel was exposed to thousands of young minds. It became hugely popular, mostly because those soldiers could see themselves in the figure of Jay Gatsby.

@aucourant9998 5 months ago

Scott Fitzgerald's writing is so beautiful. This was an era of elegant, exquisite writing both in the USA and the UK.

@robincowley5823 5 months ago

I first read it when I was 19, too many years ago. And I LOVED it! Straight away, it was all about the emptiness at the heart of everything, for me. The glitter and the sparkle and the wealth meant nothing. These people were lonely, desperate for a meaningful connection, and none of them found it.

@gertrudewest4535 5 months ago

I read this book everyday when I came home from work in 1994. Everyday…. Reading this book was the equivalent of putting on your favorite album. The words craft was so lyrical! Fitzgerald was an amazing writer. I read his unfinished novel the Last Tycoon. It promised to be every bit as amazing as The Great Gatsby. Such a tragedy.

@RobinTheADRpro 6 months ago

My view of the book is colored by a very personal relationship to the settings and what they were like decades later. My mother grew up in Corona (which was then an immigrant community of Jews, Italians and working class Black migrants from the South and is today is an immigrant community of South Americans) and her sister, when her husband became a successful business man, lived in Sands Point, down the beach from the Guggenheim estate. I remember my mother and I talking about the Corona dump where she was not allowed to go as a child and which became the World's Fair Grounds decades later, Jackson Heights, where Myrtle lived, the drive along Junction Blvd into Manhattan over the 59th Street Bridge and on to the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria and other fancy hotel, and the massive billboard with the eyeglasses. These were all real - not just out of Fitzgerald's imagination.

@davidfoarde558 5 months ago

One of my favorite books of all time. So many people completely miss the point and underlying themes, I was so happy you both completely did it justice

@fidelogos7098 6 months ago

The Great Gatsby is certainly my all-time favorite American novel. I think I've read it four or five times, but it's always good to hear more discussions about it. Maybe I'll dig it out my copy and read it again.

@reginaldbl 1 month ago

The book is self-consciously writerly. Especially the bit about boats beating against the tides.

@ATrueDjent 5 months ago

My favourite fiction of all time, just an absolute masterpiece.

@Nancy-nb1ze 5 months ago

Mia Farrow was the best Daisy in her performance as a fragile beauty with those big eyes.

@AuburnMeadowFarm 5 months ago (edited)

Thank you for making this, it has been such a joy in a barrage of joyless news. Really appreiate all the backstories and the chemistry.

@DulceN 4 months ago

I watched Robert Redford’s Gastby, most perfect actor for the role.

@outwardlycontextualised 3 months ago

Tabitha is an absolute breakout. I’m the same age as her and an English lit graduate but the ease with which she casually analyses these books gives me absolute impostor syndrome.

@joemccormick9109 5 months ago

I read the book and found it a tough read. Then one day sitting in the back garden it all dawned on me; the green light across the bay, the mist eclipsing both the view and the illusions it created.
And of course that last line driving it all home.
Magnificent book.
Love the podcast

@manha81 9 days ago

Your enthusiasm for books and their history are infectious. Keep up the great work.

@therusyn 5 months ago

The 1974 film adaptation is quite fine.

@lanitamorrison8262 6 months ago

Fitzgerald: Great writer, Bad with Titles.

Love it.

@billycaldwell6531 6 months ago

I wish you had talked more about Fitzgerald’s beautiful writing, provided more examples. He had a poetic way with words, filled with imagery, and there was a cleverness in the way he could say so much with so few words. The shortness of the novel is a reflection of this.

Loved all the additional historic and literary references you named. I learned a lot!

I can recommend the biography “Everybody Was So Young,”where the Fitzgeralds, Hemingways et al feature prominently in a book that focuses on Sara and Gerald Murphy. It showcases a less frenetic, but no less tragic, side of the Fitzgeralds’ lives away from the vapidness of Jazz Age America, where they weren’t always on center stage.