Saturday, October 24, 2015

What Fitzgerald's quote about writing a novel that was "simple and intricately patterned"?

Fitzgerald told his editor, Maxwell Perkins, in 1923, "I want to write something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." This was the seed of his plan to write The Great Gatsby, which he finally began in April of 1924. Tumult with his wife, Zelda, followed, along with a move to the Riviera. He started writing in earnest in August of 1924 and finished the first draft of the book by the end of October. Fitzgerald knew that he had achieved what he had set out to do and that Gatsby was a great book. After the book was published on April 10, 1925, writers like Willa Cather praised it. However, the general public found it not much better than a piece of nostalgia. After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, the book was reappraised and found to be the extraordinary, beautiful, and intricate book he had set out to write. The intricate patterning of the book lies in its taut but complicated plot and portrait of the complex character of Gatsby.

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Thomas Jefferson's election in 1800 is sometimes called the Revolution of 1800. Why could it be described in this way?

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