Review: The Great Gatsby at 100 by Sheila Liming

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

What I like about The Great Gatsby at 100 is what I often like about The Great Courses in general: it gives you a deep dive into a particular topic in a way that feels accessible, but not shallow. Sheila Liming takes The Great Gatsby and looks at it through economic, class, gender, race, and cultural lenses, and the result is the exact thing I want from a book—or course—about a book: it made me want to go back and read The Great Gatsby again.

Does this give me new insights into the thing? In this case, it certainly did.

I have read The Great Gatsby a few times, and I have taught it at different points in the past, so this was not a first encounter with the novel. But Liming’s course felt like a refresher and a set of newer insights into the text. I especially appreciated the way she moves between specific details in the novel, details from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and the larger cultural world around the book. There are moments where she draws out a connection between something in the story and something in Fitzgerald’s actual life, like the relationship between a magazine named in the novel and a rag that was writing about him in the real world. 

But what worked best for me was not just the biographical context. It was how Liming explored what is hinted at but not always explicitly said: Gatsby’s real background, the influence of Harlem and the war, sexuality, gender performance, and the way all of that intersects with how the characters act, relate, and present themselves. Some of this I remembered or already knew was in the novel, but this course made the layers feel richer and more interconnected. It reminded me why Gatsby is the novel that it is, and why there is still so much to mine within it.

Liming’s style helps a lot. The Great Courses very clearly has a template; after listening to probably well over 100 in my life, I clearly enjoy them. With some, that template can feel mechanical and a rush to the end.  Liming's approach offers something more relatable. Her tone is welcoming and exploratory, and she comes across as someone genuinely trying to share her joy and passion around exploring this text. She digs into passages and presents compelling meaning or sometimes, draws a line to the current world without making it feel forced.

The course also helped me think again about Gatsby and the "canon". I think there are still a lot of questions about what books, texts, stories, and poems belong in the canon, whether we are talking about American literature or literature as a whole. I also wonder if canons are even the best way to think about literature or storytelling.  

Still, the book makes clear why The Great Gatsby has been seen as one of those essential texts. The richness we continue to unearth in the book should not erase the meaningful books, novels, plays, and short stories that never got their due because they were not from the right people at the time, or because their voices were not acknowledged. Regardless of what other books we should celebrate, this book cements why The Great Gatsby has value to read. 

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