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Ch. 1: In My Younger and More Vulnerable Years Segment 1 of 9
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Fitzgerald's prose is the most lyrical in this library — and lyricism is surprisingly hard to type accurately. Rhythm pulls your fingers faster than your eyes, so you overshoot words mid-metaphor. Each Gatsby sentence is a small construction: a main clause, a pivot, and a trailing image that recolours everything before it. Jazz-age vocabulary — "orgastic", "supercilious", "ineffable", "caravansary" — targets letter sequences that ordinary English almost never asks for. The three passages here run about 660 words, roughly 16 minutes at 40 WPM, and they target the most metaphor-dense stretches of the novel. The reward is disproportionate: after typing Fitzgerald's sentences accurately, simpler prose feels effortless. Progress saves automatically to your browser after every passage — return to the exact paragraph you left, no account required.
Also try: The Picture of Dorian Gray · Tom Sawyer · All 20 books
This practice set contains 3 passages from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, split into 9 typing segments — about 657 words, roughly 16 minutes of typing at 40 WPM. Your position saves in your browser after every segment, so you can stop and resume without an account.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.
— The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald