Readers in that sizeable group of people who think The Great Gatsby is
the Great American Novel will be delighted with Robbins's subtle, brainy
and immensely touching new reading. There have been audio versions of
Gatsby before this-by Alexander Scourby and Christopher Reeve, to name
two-but actor/director Robbins brings a fresh and bracing vision that
makes the story gleam. From the jaunty irony of the title page quote
("Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!") to the
poetry of Fitzgerald's ending about "the dark fields of the republic"
and "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,"
Robbins conjures up a sublime portrait of a lost world. And as a bonus,
the excellent audio actor Robert Sean Leonard reads a selection of
Fitzgerald's letters to editors, agents and friends which focus on the
writing and selling of the novel. Listeners will revel in learning
random factoids, e.g., in 1924, Scott and Zelda were living in a Rome
hotel that cost just over $500 a month, and he was respectfully
suggesting that his agent Harold Ober ask $15,000 from Liberty magazine
for the serial rights to Gatsby.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
