Gorsky: A Novel Paperback – November 22, 2016

Goldsworthy’s novel beautifully blends 21st century cosmopolitan globality with a deeply rooted love of literary history and legacy. Books within the novel embody history, buried within their pages while London itself is growing and changing, reckoning with class, promise, and opportunity as much as Fitzgerald’s New York. While Gorsky shares much with Gatsby, Goldsworthy’s Nick, our narrator, is a bit more vague and withdrawn, but the love story, to me at least, was more bewitching and romantic than a decade’s dream held onto by the most hopeful man in the Roaring Twenties. Gorsky, the man and the novel, is genuinely bibliophilic, bewitching the modern reader with an elegance from before our time and yet perfectly suited to revel in the glorious promise of the present.

My first read of 2017 did not go as planned. I should have fallen in love with this retelling of The Great Gatsby, set in 21st century London and featuring Russian characters in place of Fitzgerald’s Roaring 20s New Yorkers. The thing is, I didn’t.The book starts with a rich Russian businessman named Gorsky walking into a sleepy bookstore, plopping down $ 250k as down payment on what’s to be a magnificent personal library, the likes of which any book lover would envy: rare books, signed books, books sought after by collectors – all this on a nearly unlimited budget. Store clerk Nikola, accustomed to spending his working hours reading since the store rarely sold anything on any given day, is of course flabbergasted. Who is this man, where did he come from, and why on earth did he choose this small, out of the way bookshop?If you’re familiar with The Great Gatsby, it’s immediately obvious who Gorsky is, and as you read further Goldsworthy’s novel follows the path of Fitzgerald’s original fairly faithfully. It hits the highlights: orgiastic parties, two lovers separated by the passage of time and marriage to another, suspicions about the shady background of a mysterious man who throws his money around perversely, murders and all manner of interactions between the super-wealthy.Gorsky is predictable if you’ve read Gatsby. And while some enjoy the reworking of classics into modern adaptations, I do not. The Great Gatsby is a monumental novel, one I’ve read and re-read, loved and treasured. It’s the portrait of a very specific point in American history, a metaphor for all that the 1920s symbolized. It belongs where Fitzgerald intended; it is an American classic.To take that out of context, wrench the soul from the story and attempt to drop it into another context is jarring. Not to say Vesna Goldsworthy is not a very talented writer, nor that I don’t understand what would impel her to take another stab at Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. I get that. What I don’t like is such an obvious robbing of the plot.To run parallel alongside The Great Gatsby, renaming the characters through thinly-veiled tweaks is not a terribly challenging effort. It’s taking someone else’s intellectual property, using it as a template you don’t bother pretending to disguise. It’s little short of plagiary, explained away through admiration.But whereas Gatsby is towering, Gorsky is not.Had Goldsworthy not so closely mirrored the original, instead taking the spirit of Gatsby and making it more than a second-best retelling, I could see the merit of her effort. As it stands, I’m unimpressed. Contrary to the opinions of the critics, I see this as a deeply flawed effort.Such is the way of things. My experience with and love for The Great Gatsby is individual, and very personal. Because I have such an intimate experience with it, associations with specific events in my life and memories that hang on passages from the novel, my patience for imitation runs very thin.Saying I liked it or I didn’t, qualifying the book based on my usual standards of what makes good writing, feels a bit wobbly here. Its premise and intent are one thing, my visceral reaction quite another. I did not enjoy the book. I was disappointed, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.Another reader may have the very opposite reaction. That’s the remarkable thing about reading. Each of us brings our personal experience to every book, and what works for some fails dismally for others. Gorsky failed dismally for me, yet I’m reluctant to pan it for the very reason I’m not able to be completely subjective about it. I don’t feel it abides by what I consider ethical conduct in re-imagining a classic work of literature.But then, most retellings fall flat for me. If a book’s done well the first time, I say leave it where it lies. Go make your own original art. This was someone else’s creation. Borrow from it, yes. Pick and choose elements that have deep meaning for you, of course. But don’t attempt to re-write what’s not yours unless you have something profoundly different to say.Reading Gorsky was a mistake, a bad way to start out my reading year. I won’t let it linger, won’t allow the experience to color the rest of 2017. I wish I’d made a better decision, but didn’t.Onward to better things.

If you know F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, you'll appreciate the way Gorsky bounces off—and away from—it. Vesna Goldsworthy, who writes a clean, crisp, highly literate English, reminds me of a mordant Jane Austen in the world of the 21st-century super-rich.

I liked this book. Well written, very fluent and has a good number of very authentic and precise description of the modern London community and immigrant's perspective. Recommended.

Good read! The Gatsby comparison makes it both stronger and weaker, but it's a fascinating idea and an interesting way to channel both Fitzgerald and contemporary London.

I enjoyed this because of my involvement with Russian literature and London bookshops. The book makes no claims to great art but does provide entertaining characters.

This was one of the best books I have read in a long time. It was even better then the Great Gatsby.

Fun homage to The Great Gatsby

Reviewers – and indeed the author herself in a note at the end of the book - have said that it is a take on the plot and the names in F.Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. I have not read that book, and have read and rated “Gorsky” as a stand-alone novel. And I have to say that, although each episode in the novel is recounted in in limpid prose, I could not see how they related to each other.Here is what I could make out:The narrator is Nicholas Kimovic; he works in Fynch’s Bookshop in Chelsea. He had come to England in the early 1990s as a draft-dodger from his native Yugoslavia.Roman Gorsky, an ultra-wealthy Russian, turned up in the shop one day. He was building a house which he wanted furnished with the best private library in Europe, tailor-made for a Russian gentleman-scholar, and produced a cheque for £250,000 as a first instalment. It would be followed by many others, as the bookshop scoured the trade magazines to buy up suitable volumes. It is not made clear why Gorsky should have picked on this small bookshop in a back street of London for this task; but Nick now had several contacts with Gorsky, and will benefit from his bounteous munificence.Nick already had another ultra-wealthy Russian customer, the beautiful Russian-born Natalia, married to an Englishman, Tom Summerscale. She collected books on Russian art. Nick was smitten with her. But, he learnt from a friend of hers, so was Gorsky, ever since they had met when she was nineteen and he was thirty-one. He had proposed to her; she had said she was too young, but had left open the possibility that she might accept him later. He was not put off even when he learned that she had married an Englishman. He was building his new house opposite hers. Now, eleven years after his first proposal, Gorsky wanted to arrange a meeting between them in Fynch’s bookshop. He sent people to spend lavishly to have the bookshop redecorated and modernized just for this meeting. Then Nick invited Natalia to look at the new art section, and Gorsky was there, waiting for her. Their meeting was a great success.There are many complicated and dramatic scenes in the book. Some of them, especially towards the end, are very violent. Other readers may be able to make more sense of their link with the main story than I can.

As soon as I began to read this book I knew I'd like it. For a start the style of writing is fluent and relaxed. English is not the author's first language but she's an improvement on many anglophone writers. Also it's interesting and unusual; a Balkan refugee; a private bookshop frequented by "old Chelsea"; and a Russian oligarch. Quite a heady mixture, and one for which Mrs Goldsworthy seems to have a good grasp. I found her description of London(grad) (and Chelski) most interesting. And if there really is anywhere near the wealth she describes, well, it's quite remarkable. On occasion the book is sexually explicit, perhaps a bit crude even, normally a male writer's preserve (or perhaps I haven't read the "right" books).I'm very much a fan of The Great Gatsby, and her theme works well. I was also reminded of another (real life) plutocrat who met a watery grave, and I wondered whether the author had him in mind as well.

I adored this novel which I got into having heard Philip Arditti read it on Radio 4 (superb). I love the language - for its poetry, irony and wit. It is obvious that Goldsworthy is a poet (although this is prose) in that the thought required for poetry leads to new and startling observations and this has transfered to her prose writing style. Her metaphors and similies are so well crafted and true that I had to laugh out loud sometimes. The originality, observation, characterisation and phrasing - the whole thing adds up to a compelling, sensual and strangely intimate read. I became quite possessive like a dog with a bone when others tried to look at it.It stays with you too and captured my thoughts for many days after reading.

Vesna Goldsworthy displays an intimate knowledge of the world of the super rich. In such a world one tends to avoid appearing over zealous in displaying one's wealth while ensuring that the fact is in fact appreciated. Message sent.The detail of conversation and subtlety of relationships is spot on. Through it all is weaved a narrative of tentative relationships....much left unspoken yet understood. On the other hand there is a rather straightforward tale of love and deceit. There is jealousy and indeed violence. Yes, a subtle and spellbinding story with wonderful dialogue and character descriptions. Really....you want to keep reading to find out just what is going on. I loved this book and recommended it to my friends.

CONTAINS SPOILERS. This was an engaging short read which I finished very quickly. It is well written with a catching plot, however, it is just too similar to the Great Gatsby for me. I understand that she records her gratitude of the novel, but I find it hard to give credit to Gorsky when everyone down to the names is replicated from the Great Gatsby. I also felt quite detached from the characters in this novel, perhaps because the novel is slightly short. I suppose I wanted to care more when I found out that those certain characters die. Overall, an enjoyable read but nothing that will blow your mind.