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Laddar... Gatsby's Oxford: Scott, Zelda, and the Jazz Age Invasion of Britain: 1904-1929av Christopher A. Snyder
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. This book loosely- very loosely- ties the fictional Jay Gatsby to Oxford. The author posits that being an ‘Oxford man’ is very important to Gatsby’s image and ability to enter high society; he would not be able to pursue Daisy without this in his background. The author then carries this to show that, were Gatsby a real person (and if the character had really gone to Oxford, which is dubious given some clues in the story) he would have seen certain places, met certain people, and examined certain ideas. Given that, the author then tells us about those people, places, and ideas in detail. He tells us about the various castes that inhabit Oxford: the athletes, idealists, poets, and enlisted men. He tells us about the medievalism and romanticism of Oxford of the time. And he tells us about Tolkein, Waugh, C.S. Lewis, Woolf, Yeats, Eliot, Huxley, and Churchill, among many others. The text wanders and goes into great detail. The author seemed intent on showing us every single influence that might have touched Fitzgerald (who was at Oxford with his wife, Zelda, for a few months) and Gatsby, the history of that influence, and possibly the influences brother-in-law. We get how Princeton was set up to be like Oxford, how race was dealt with, the Jazz Age, and even what businesses were run later by Oxford men. It really seemed like he was carrying things a bit far at times. Because of this, I found some parts of the book very interesting and some, well, less so. The chapter on Tolkein & Lewis I loved, as well as the one on the Jazz age. The one on American Rhodes scholars really lost me a few times, as did the one on Princeton. I suspect many people will wish to pick and choose which chapters to read- although there is so much wandering even inside chapters one risks either missing something really interesting or being bored to tears. Four stars. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
The poet T.S. Eliot. The polo star Tommy Hitchcock. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. This diverse group of Americans came to Oxford in the first quarter of the twentieth century--the Jazz Age--when the Rhodes Scholar program had just begun and the Great War had enveloped much of Europe. Scott Fitzgerald created his most memorable character--Jay Gatsby, the Oxford man in the pink suit--shortly after his and Zelda's visit to Oxford. Fitzgerald's creation is a cultural reflection of the aspirations of many Americans who came to the University of Oxford seeking beauty, wisdom, and social connections. Beginning in 1904, when the first American Rhodes Scholars arrived in Oxford, this book chronicles the experiences of Americans in Oxford through the Great War and the years of recovery to 1929, the end of Prohibition and the beginning of the Great Depression. This period is interpreted through the pages of The Great Gatsby, producing a vivid cultural history. It shows just how much Fitzgerald, the quintessential American modernist author, owes a debt to the medieval, the Romantic, and the European historical tradition. Archival material covering the first American Rhodes Scholars who came to Oxford during Trinity Term 1919--when Jay Gatsby claims he studied at Oxford--enables the narrative to illuminate a detailed portrait of what a "historical Gatsby" would have looked like, what he would have experienced at the postwar university, and who he would have encountered around Oxford--an impressive array of artists including Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)942.574History and Geography Europe England and Wales East Midlands Oxfordshire City of OxfordKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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In this book Christopher Snyder looks at much of the history and literary giants who came through the prestigious university or were in some way connected. Fitzgerald visited the campus and was influenced by the culture and romance of the institution that led to his writings and influences in these novels. The author connects this with a medieval link of the honor and nature of knighthood. Though it can be meandering at times the book does a good job of illustrating the influence of the college on young men who either marched off to war or wrote about it. Eventually it transformed into the aftermath that became the wandering soles of the jazz age and the Gatsby types that were connected to it. ( )