---
product_id: 66516808
title: "Gorsky: A Novel Paperback – November 22, 2016"
brand: "vesna goldsworthy"
price: "₩84295"
currency: KRW
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.kr/products/66516808-gorsky-a-novel-paperback-november-22-2016
store_origin: KR
region: South Korea
---

# Gorsky: A Novel Paperback – November 22, 2016

**Brand:** vesna goldsworthy
**Price:** ₩84295
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Gorsky: A Novel Paperback – November 22, 2016 by vesna goldsworthy
- **How much does it cost?** ₩84295 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.kr](https://www.desertcart.kr/products/66516808-gorsky-a-novel-paperback-november-22-2016)

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- vesna goldsworthy enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![Gorsky: A Novel Paperback – November 22, 2016 - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51PCFPxWfwL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Literary Love Story
  

*by B***B on Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2017*

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 While Gorsky shares much with Gatsby, Goldsworthy’s Nick, our narrator, is a bit more vague and withdrawn, but the love story, to me at least, was more bewitching and romantic than a decade’s dream held onto by the most hopeful man in the Roaring Twenties.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.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A pale version of the original, wrought unimaginatively
  

*by L***I on Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2017*

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 Gatsby Had Had Money
  

*by E***N on Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2016*

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.

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*Product available on Desertcart South Korea*
*Store origin: KR*
*Last updated: 2026-02-19*