Eva Jeanne Markosky, an energy business and finance student at Penn State, has served The Markosky Engineering Group, Inc., as an environmental engineering in the summers of 2013 and 2014. Away from her studies and work as an intern Eva Jeanne Markosky enjoys reading books like A Tale of Two Cities and The Great Gatsby.
Few novels have enjoyed as drastic a turn around in reputation as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Now a fixture in high school English classes and collegiate literary courses, not to mention a regular feature on prestigious lists of the greatest American novels, the book sold poorly during its 1925 release and was lambasted by notable critics of the time.
TIME Magazine acknowledged Fitzgerald’s talents in a thoroughly condescending review which began with an extended metaphor comparing the man, then an author of three novels and scores of profitable short stories, to a school child. The remainder of the brief review glossed over the novel’s plot, describing certain characters as “baffling” without further analysis. Eight years later, Gertrude Stein would tell a TIME journalist that Fitzgerald would be read and remembered long after some of his more popular contemporaries were forgotten.
Other reviewers were much less tactful in their criticisms. H. L. Mencken of The Chicago Tribune offered little praise for the enduring work, calling it a “glorified anecdote,” and not a very believable one. Mencken would go on to call The Great Gatsby “obviously unimportant” before comparing it unfavorably to Fitzgerald’s debut, This Side of Paradise.
TIME and The Chicago Tribune were not alone in their condemnation of Fitzgerald’s performance. Ralph Coghlan of the St. Louis Dispatch, Harvey Eagleton writing for The Dallas Morning News, and even Fitzgerald’s friend Edith Wharton, all wrote the book off as a lesser work than his first two novels, which are now regarded as mere warm ups for his later, more impressive projects.
Few novels have enjoyed as drastic a turn around in reputation as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Now a fixture in high school English classes and collegiate literary courses, not to mention a regular feature on prestigious lists of the greatest American novels, the book sold poorly during its 1925 release and was lambasted by notable critics of the time.
TIME Magazine acknowledged Fitzgerald’s talents in a thoroughly condescending review which began with an extended metaphor comparing the man, then an author of three novels and scores of profitable short stories, to a school child. The remainder of the brief review glossed over the novel’s plot, describing certain characters as “baffling” without further analysis. Eight years later, Gertrude Stein would tell a TIME journalist that Fitzgerald would be read and remembered long after some of his more popular contemporaries were forgotten.
Other reviewers were much less tactful in their criticisms. H. L. Mencken of The Chicago Tribune offered little praise for the enduring work, calling it a “glorified anecdote,” and not a very believable one. Mencken would go on to call The Great Gatsby “obviously unimportant” before comparing it unfavorably to Fitzgerald’s debut, This Side of Paradise.
TIME and The Chicago Tribune were not alone in their condemnation of Fitzgerald’s performance. Ralph Coghlan of the St. Louis Dispatch, Harvey Eagleton writing for The Dallas Morning News, and even Fitzgerald’s friend Edith Wharton, all wrote the book off as a lesser work than his first two novels, which are now regarded as mere warm ups for his later, more impressive projects.