The book I read tells about four stories but the most important, that gives the title to the book, is the first: The diamond as big as the Ritz.

Title: The Diamond as big as the Ritz

Publishing House: Oxford University

Grade:4

Novelist: F.Scott Fitzgerald

Characters: John T.Unger, Percy Washington and Percy's family

Setting: A school in Boston, the Washington's castle

Topics: wealth

Theme: corruption

Message: F.Scott Fitzgerald want to give us that the corruption that the rich people have and as far as they can arrive when they have to hide something, for example murder or capture somebody

New words and new idoms

Darling: adorabile                                                                                                

Gifted: dotato

Fond: affezionato

Income: reddito

Glad of: contento di

Whisper: sussurro

Dim: debole(light)

Worthless: senza valore

Glimpse: occhiata (to cacht a glimpse:intravedere)

To Fix: fissure, preparare

Onto: (on to) su

Several: parecchi

Amused: divertito

Delighted: lieto
To Rub: sfregare

Afterwards: in seguito
To try luck: tentare la fortuna

Emperor: imperatore

Nevertheless: tuttavia
To elope: sfuggire per sposarsi

Disease: malattia

Affair: affare

Corpse: cadavere

From here and there: da qua a là

To Crowd: affollare

Slave: schiavo

To lift: sollevare

Extinguished: estinto

Summary

The story tells of John T. Unger, a teenager from the town of Hades, in Mississippi, who went to a private school in Boston. During the summer he would visit the homes of his classmates; they come from the richest families of the world.

In the middle of his second year, a young man called Percy Washington had been put in Unger's form. He spoke only to Unger, even if very rarely, but invited him for the summer holiday to his home and Unger accepted.

During the train journey Percy told John that his father was "by far the richest man in the world", and that his father "has a diamond bigger than the Ritz-Carlton Hotel."

Unger was very surprised and he didn't believe but when he arrived in Montana, in the "only five square miles of land in the country that's never been surveyed", he discovered that the castle where Percy lives was built on a diamond mountain.

During a breakfast in the beautiful caste of Percy's family, he told to John that his family came from George Washington and Lord Baltimore. His grandfather, Norman Culpepper Washington, decided to leave Virginia and head west with his slaves to enter sheep and cattle ranching business. However, he discovered not only a diamond mine, but a mountain of "one solid diamond".

Washington immediately became the richest man in the world but if discovered by outsiders, would drive their value to near zero, making him a pauper.

So, he started going around the word to sell few diamonds. He met emperors, kings and princes and his wealth became the biggest in the world.

After he died and all the wealth passed to his son, Percy's dad, that changed all money with the "rarest of all elements: radium" that is more practice because a billion dollars could be put into "something no bigger that a cigar box".

In order to keep the diamond a secret, the Washington family goes to appalling lengths. Airmen who stray into the area are captured and kept in a dungeon. People who visit are killed and their parents told that they have succumbed to an illness while they was staying there.

So, John falls in love with Percy's sister, Kismine, who accidentally lets slip that he too will be killed before he's allowed to leave. That night, an escaped airman launches an attack on the property and Percy's father offers a bribe to God, "the greatest diamond in the world", but God refuses. John, Kismine and Jasmine, another sister, escape while Percy and his mother and father choose to blow up the mountain because they didn't want to leave it in the hands of others. Penniless, John, Kismine and Jasmine are left to ponder their fate.