The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Peter Joucla

‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’‘F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby was first published on April 10, 1925. Set on Long Island’s North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922, it is the story of an attractive young man, hopelessly in love, who, having worked so hard to improve himself so he can win back the woman he loves, finds himself in a world where money has replaced humility and despair has replaced hope.For me, the novel is a comment on the values and cynicism of east coast America almost a hundred years ago, a time when a section of society had suddenly become very wealthy and the American Dream was for most, nothing more than the mere pursuit of money.’