Under the Red White and Blue, Greil Marcus
Under the Red White and Blue, Greil Marcus
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Under the Red White and Blue
Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby

Author: Greil Marcus

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 4 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/30/2020


Synopsis

A deep dive into how F. Scott Fitzgerald's vision of the American Dream has been understood, portrayed, distorted, misused, and kept alive

Renowned critic Greil Marcus takes on the fascinating legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. An enthralling parable (or a cheap metaphor) of the American Dream as a beckoning finger toward a con game, a kind of virus infecting artists of all sorts over nearly a century, Fitzgerald's story has become a key to American culture and American life itself.

Marcus follows the arc of The Great Gatsby from 1925 into the ways it has insinuated itself into works by writers such as Philip Roth and Raymond Chandler; found echoes in the work of performers from Jelly Roll Morton to Lana Del Rey; and continued to rewrite both its own story and that of the country at large in the hands of dramatists and filmmakers from the 1920s to John Collins's 2006 Gatz and Baz Luhrmann's critically reviled (here celebrated) 2013 movie version—the fourth, so far.

About Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus has written many books, including Mystery Train, Lipstick Traces, The Old, Weird America, and The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America. He was born in the Middle West, in San Francisco, and lives in Oakland, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Randy on June 22, 2021

This collection of essays revolving around the role of 'The Great Gatsby' in American life and culture takes its inspiration from a telegram the author reprints at the very beginning of the book in which Fitzgerald asks his publisher what delay would result if the novel was re-titled, 'Under the Red......more

Goodreads review by Derek on June 15, 2024

Marcus’ riffs sometimes seem stray off topic, but it was a real treat to hear this genius of American Studies, Cultural Studies, and music history, discuss the legacy of the Great Gatsby, especially in film.......more

Goodreads review by Eric on August 29, 2022

Maybe it says something about the sometimes oblique angle Greil Marcus comes from that in a book about The Great Gatsby, it takes a third of the way in for the actual text of the book to be introduced in more than passing glances, and even then it's through the mediation of a theatrical performance.......more

Goodreads review by Devon on January 24, 2021

I am preparing in a few weeks to teach The Great Gatsby graphic novel so I wanted to read something that wasn't the kind of typical literary criticism that I'd seen or read before. There are a lot of connections that I enjoyed but I wonder if students would miss or not completely understand. I've re......more

Goodreads review by Ann on June 20, 2021

This extended essay offers some interesting insights into 'Gatsby', but is often repetitive and sometimes wanders far afield. Still, it has a place in the library of any 'Gatsby' fan.......more