The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Pursued, pursuing,
it's hard to tell who is who
in The Great Gatsby.

Considering that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has been described as one of the great American novels it's a bit surprising that I just now finally got around to reading it for the first time.

What surprised me most was how short the novel is. Only 4 CDs  in audio book form. (I'm used to 15-25 CDs for a typical book.)

I'll skip the literary criticism until maybe my second or third reading.

The true joy, however, was hearing the audio performance by Frank Muller who passed away in 2008 due to lingering complications of a horrific motorcycle accident in 2001. Frank could read the phonebook and make it sound interesting.

(The haiku is a reference to the quote from the novel "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." Not to confuse ambition with pursuit, I get the impression Gatsby was pursued by (and even pursuing) his past. And while you might think "the busy and the tired" is a direct analogy to the wealthy and the working poor I'd turn it around.)

I received no compensation of any kind for this review.