The Greatness of The Great Gatsby

2025 marks the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It is one of a few contenders, and perhaps the frontrunner, for the title of “the great American novel.” It was something everyone was trying to write in the 1920s and many suspected that Fitzgerald had done it. He believed he had. It was certainly a fear of Hemingway’s that Fitzgerald had. The centenary of the book’s publication is an invitation to consider a number of things.