Given up there of way,boring people, boring lives.like modern Great Gatsby
Second go...this time audio...wanted to stop half way found even more dull than first time...could not give a damn about any of them,nothing of interest. ( )

When I read Nino Harataschvili’s The Eighth Life (For Brilka) early on in the year (I think it may have been back in January), I was worried that the rest of the year might be a literary anticlimax, and that I would not encounter anything else anywhere near as good. Well I can relax again now, as Vesna Goldsworthy's 'Gorsky' has served to herald the onset of spring, and give a new zest to the year's reading.

It is important to stress that Gorsky is a wondeful novel in its own right. It is also, however, a glittering homage to 'The Great Gatsby'. Goldsworthy might not quite ascend to Fitzgerald's effortlessly poetic narrative [well, who could? I first read 'The Great Gatsby' as part of my A Level English course and even as an emotionally callow Leicestershire lad, it was immediately apparent to me that Fitzgerald's prose was infinitely more poetic than even the best of D H Lawrence's verse, which formed another part of the syllabus] but she does often come close. A laudable achievement for any writer, this is altogether more remarkable for Ms Goldsworthy as English is, I believe, her third or fourth language.

Gatsby's 1920s dazzling New York and New Jersey is replaced by a twenty first century London peopled by east European émigrés, ranging from Russian multi-millionaires who are left left feeling humble alongside their neighbouring billionaires, Bulgarian former Olympic gymnastics medallists and impoverished Serbians. Nick Carraway has morphed into Nikola "Nick" Kimovic, a Serbian who escaped the troubles of his homeland in the 1990s and wound up in London, working for a pittance in Fynch's antiquarian bookshop in the back streets of Chelsea. Here he first encounters the dazzlingly beautiful Natalia Summerscale who comes in seeking works on Russian art.

Shortly afterwards, Ramon Borisovich Gorsky comes into Fynch's and deposits a huge cheque with a request that the shop track down remarkable books to populate the library he is including in the new mansion he is having built in Chelsea, Gorsky is the richest of the superrich Russians who have made London their playground, and Nick gradually fills us in about some of his exotic history. Like Gatsby, no-one really knows where Gorsky came from. He was suddenly there, with his billions behind him, owning properties all around the world and throwing the most amazing parties, attended by society magazine 'A listers' from all over the world (though not always by Gorsky himself).

Like Jay Gatsby, Gorsky is a driven man, one who has achieved limitless commercial success of dubious moral provenance, but one for whom something remains missing, seemingly unattainable despite the wealth and power at his behest. He is in love, and desperate for fulfilment.

Goldsworthy's plotting is immaculate, and the books fairly fizzes along, supported by beautiful descriptions of London: the city is almost a character in its own right (even though it is a London with which I am wholly unfamiliar myself, despite having lived her for nearly forty years!). She seamlessly mingles a little bit of everything: politics, murder, love, art and social observation, though the melange is managed impeccably. ( )

reminded me of The Great Gatsby in the feel of the story but a more intriguing and evocative read - set in modern London with the Russian immigrant and Eastern European cultures of money, wealth, and background with love, romance, and finding one's self all wrapped in. ( )

This author mentions how this book is inspired by The Great Gatsby so I feel it's fair to mention that and compare the two.

Like Gatsby, Gorsky is a mysterious rich man. He throws lavish parties in the hopes that his love Natalia will appear. She is married, unhappily he believes, and she becomes his neighbor as he chooses to build a mansion next door to her.

Nick (for short) works at a bookstore. He has formed a crush on Natalia, he knows she's married and basically admires her from a distance.

One day Gorsky approaches Nick and hires him to build him a library of rare books. Money is no object. The harder to get, the better.

Nick soon learns that this library, the parties and even the mansion are all to impress Natalia.

He gets brought into the crazy lifestyle of the extremely wealthy. He socializes with some questionable people and makes some questionable decisions himself.

I know why I read this book, I read it because I loved The Great Gatsby. I read Gatsby in 8th grade, quite some time ago.
You can't ever read a book for the first time again. So it's enjoyable to read books inspired by the ones we love. This book was missing something that makes Gatsby what it is. This book could be a bit hard/harsh at times.

I think it's time I finally reread Gatsby again after all these years. ( )

I had some time to kill waiting for an appointment last week, so I thought I'd spend it in Waterstones. Instead of making a beeline to the spec fic section like I usually do, I thought I would go to the general fiction section and pick one of the books at random that had a recommendation ticket attached to it (in our local waterstones, books are given these tickets if a staff member had read and enjoyed them).

I picked "Gorsky".

All in all, I enjoyed it. I have to admit I'm a sucker for books about librarians/booksellers or similar, so this was a great choice in that respect. I also very much liked the narrator. he has a great voice, and a self-depreciating way about him that I found quite endearing.
I think the book lacked a certain depth that would have made it great, but it is a good, enjoyable book as is. ( )