Tender Is the Night

I started this read with this anthology n  n but had to switch to an ebook version when the typos became too much.

I read The Great Gatsby for school many years ago, but I didn't really appreciate it until I read it as an adult & it is now one of my favourite classics. I know I tried to read at least one other Fitzgerald novel (it could even have been this one!) but couldn't get into it.

If this is the one I attempted earlier, I am very glad to have revisited it.

I do wonder how Zelda would have felt about their life together being so ruthlessly mined. But Zelda also used their life for her only novel Save Me the Waltz (which I am now on the hunt for) It sounds like Fitzgerald was not impressed & felt only he had the right to use their material!

This book is beautifully written, but is much like a collection of red flags with the dubious ethics of psychiatrist Dick Driver marrying his very young patient Nicole & becoming infatuated with a young actress Rosemary. This mirrored real life as Fitzgerald did eventually have an affair with actress Lois Moran (Rosemary is based on Lois's character);

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In real life the age difference was even greater - they met when she was seventeen & he was a married man of 31.

There are also many instances of casual racism & discrimination, which I look on as why we shouldn't be nostalgic for 'The Good Old Days'. they weren't good old days for anyone who wasn't white. Not to mention the sexism...

'That's just it,' complained Baby stubbornly. 'Nicole's rich.'
'Just how much money has she got?' he asked.
She started; and with a silent laugh he continued, 'You see how silly this is? I'd rather talk to some man in your family-'

Even though Baby seems the most capable person in the book - although that isn't saying much. Certainly if you need your main characters to be likeable this may not be the book for you. & some actions that Dick gets away with seem improbable almost to the point of being farcical.

The real life tragedy of the Fitzgerald's & their squandering of their respective gifts in a large part due to alcoholism is hard to think about. But this is still a magnificent book.

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https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...n

This is a hard but necessary book to read. It should be the type of plot we're attracted to, because it's a dissolution story, not unlike LOST WEEKEND or LEAVING LAS VEGAS, to name but two examples of the genre. And yet many friends I share this with just can't get into it. Part of the blame lies with the style: it's just so damned intricate and thick, it tends to scare away those who don't want to be ravished by style. As someone who does, I can get lost in this book any day of the week. I reread this for work probably once a year, and I'm always amazed at how fresh it seems to me---mainly because I'm always discovering a line or phrase that I'd passed over.

Other reasons to like TITN: It's Fitzgerald's most experimental, with just about every modernist trick in the book. It has two fantastic heroines that come to life when they emerge from Dick Diver's point of view: Nicole and Rosemary. There are glamorous excursions from Nice to Paris and Rome. It has that overwhelming sense of abstraction---it feels like you're reading history, a socialist critique of excess capitalism (check out the chapter on Nicole's shopping spree), a look into the prurience and spectatorship of early filmmaking, a dressing down of romanticism, and a love story about the impossibility of love.

Oh, and its so achingly, gloriously sad---I think that's the main reason I consider it a classic.

The thing about Fitzgerald’s books is that I do not like them very much.

Such a beautiful title.

The only other book from Fitzgerald I read is, of course, The Great Gatsby, which didn't impress me. So only naturally, I'm reluctant to read any other book by The Lost Generation, or at least, any by Fitzgerald. I know it's ridiculously assuming of me, but first impression makes all the differences and I'm oh so prejudiced.

Ah, but the title is so, so beautiful. So I thought, why not giving it a go? It's only a fairly thin book anyway. At least it won't take long.

Another mistake, it turned out. I think I won't ever read anything else by Mr. Fitzgerald. Yeah, sure, it is beautiful and everything, but I couldn't see the purpose of the whole thing: pointless parties, nonsense sentiments, gossips, judging other people to show off their classiness, verbiage… all those trivias serve what? At 30% I still had no idea what was happening. Ah, maybe that's the point: The Lost Generation is, using Sanderson's words, like a broken sword. It's very sharp, but lacking a point. Anyway, I refuse to like a discursive story. Every character laughed this moment and cried the next, without any excuse other than an inexplicable change of heart. I'd just call it schizophrenia.

The story was bad enough, and then I just couldn't stand the style. Well I suppose that's what the whole Jazz Age fuss was about. Everything was supposed to be oh-so-French I could die on the spot. Live in the present, drink as if there's no tomorrow, party hard, be elegant and fashionable, everybody has swag!, things like that. I was so annoyed.

Oh, such a beautiful title...

A tragedy backlit by beauty... Firzgerald writes of longing in a way that is heartbreaking.

It is the French Rivierain the 1920s. Nicole and Dick Diver are a wealthy, elegant, magnetic couple. A coterie of admirers are drawn to them, none more so than the blooming young starlet Rosemary Hoyt. When Rosemary falls for Dick, the Divers' calculated perfection begins to crack and dark truths emerge.

This story has reflected the very personal marriage problems and affairs that occured in Fitzgeralds lives. My only critic is the moral side of the story. A careless selfish young girl corrupting a couple's life is a depressing story.

I am trying to like this book because for some reason I think that I should.
But, in truth, I am finding it quite dull and painfully slow.
Maybe I lack in patience or sophistication, because--given other reviews of this book--there is a good chance I am missing something (or simply haven't read enough into it yet--apparently it gets good after the tedious first 100 pages...)
But so far, I am pretty seriously bored and disintersted in his saga about rich people, poor misunderstood movie stars and their shallow love affairs, dull parties and dumb problems. I keep thinking of that Edie Sedgwick movie for some reason...(no offense to Edie or Andy, or Scott for that matter!)
Every once in a while there is a great line though, so, hey.
And, I do so love the name of this book--five stars for that at least!

OK, now I feel justified in my dislike of this book:
their night: by bukowski
"never could read Tender Is the
Night
but they've made a
tv adaptation of the
book
and it's been running
for several
nights
and i have spent
ten minutes
here and there
watching the troubles of
the rich
while they are leaning
against their beach chairs
in Nice
or walking about their
large rooms
drink in hand while
making philosophical
statements
or
fucking up
at the
dinner party
or the
dinner dance
they really have no
idea
of what to do with
themselves:
swim?
tennis?
drive up the
coast?
find
new beds?
lose old
ones?
or
fuck with the
arts and the
artists?

having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for.

the rich are different
all right

so is the ring-
tailed
maki and the
sand
flea."

Thanks Hank (and Rob!) :)

I first read this book as a fifteen year old, and it was the novel that properly drew me to reading literature for pleasure rather than as a school and exam requirement. As a teenager I regarded Dick Diver as a heroic figure, a response to him similar to that of Rosemary Hoyt in the novel.
Forty five years later, having lived the bulk of my life as an adult I revisited the book and read it with a wholly different perspective. Dick Diver is a flawed individual, and one who was flawed from the outset, and not just as the book develops, and (especially) alcohol takes him over.
I am aware of parts of the book that now feel poorly structured, and its well documented that it took Fitzgerald, and his publishers, several years to decide on the best way to present the story. Notwithstanding the flaws, its the combination of my particular affinity with the book, and still (all these years later) the depiction of Dick and Nicole that is as compelling as ever, even if my interpretation has changed somewhat.

Synopsis

The book is set in Europe in the interwar years, as a group of wealthy ex - patriot Americans gather in the south of France. The first world war is still fresh in the memory and we first meet Dick Diver in 1917, aged twenty six, in Zurich, Switzerland. He is training to be a psychiatrist and this is where the most important research is taking place, and where pioneering clinics have been established in the rarefied environment of the Alps. Its the time of ‘alienists’(139)‘, and Dicks early involvement in a new clinic is with Dr. Gregorovius who was instructed by none other than the renowned Kraepelin (133).

Nicole Warren is also American, and her presence in Switzerland is consequent to a breakdown for which she is receiving treatment. The second young woman in the novel, Rosemary Hoyt, is a film actress in the still emerging talking movies industry, and she is chaperoned in Paris and the south of France.
Fitzgerald draws attention to the contrast between American and European wealth, manners and general decorum- mostly to the disadvantage of Europe. “ England was like a rich man after a disastrous orgy” . Dick meanwhile is a man on the slide, almost exclusively of his own making.

Highlights/Hits

(1)tGreat wisdom. Fitzgerald is at his best condensing the human condition in a series of aphorisms.:
•t(40) “New friends can often have a better time together than old friends” Dick to Rosemary
•tNo man had ‘repose’ except Dick (61). The Americans play a game in which new arrivals at a bar, or in a restaurant, are allowed to become aware that they are being scrutinised. The compulsion for the watched person to dab at their face, or hair, is too strong to resist. I have been aware of this hand to head mechanism in social gatherings ever since I read this passage. I was never in a privileged group, or carried the necessary hubris to ever try out the technique.
•t(86) “they were still in the happier stages of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other”. Dick and Rosemary in the very early stages before you know too much about the other person
•t“it was a tradition between them that they should never be too tired for anything” (108) (Nicole and Dick). Always make the effort and don’t give in to the easier option to chill out at home!

(2)tThe Warren family dynasty. The effects of inherited wealth and what it does to the dynamic of marriage and extended families is superbly encapsulated in the Warrens. “Baby” Warren, Nicole’s sister is very deliberate and controlling, largely in protection of Nicole. Similarly Rosemary’s mother, Mrs Elsie Speers. These are fearsome, protective matriarchs.
(3)tNicole Warren. The portrait of the young, vulnerable, beautiful and tragically damaged young girl/woman is excellent. Nicole rarely dominates her social group , but the reader tenses as she dominates the passages in which she appears. When she speaks she is wholly authoritative. Beneath the surface her vulnerability, expressed in frightening outbursts, is a terribly accurate reflection of what its like for a person suffering from a life changing trauma. A compelling character.
(4)tDick Diver. Throughout the book reference, and comparison, is made to Ulysses Grant;
Grant at Battle of Petersburg in 1865 (67), Grant lolling in his general store in Galena (132);His career was biding its time, again like Grant’s in Galena (338)
At his death, Grant was seen as a symbol of the American national identity and memory; an early c. 20th revision claimed that Grant was a reckless drunk,
Dick is driven by his ego, and “ in love with every pretty woman he saw now” (220). He could have been a contender but instead he brought on his own downfall into dissolution

Lowlights/Misses

•tMaria Wallis, known acquaintance of Nicole, shoots an Englishman (86) What does this signify?
•tAt the end of Book One Fitzgerald concocts a story surrounding Abe North’s drunkenness which involves three black men, and a death. Freeman is arrested, and his friend Crawshaw wants him freed. A third black man, Jules Peterson then dies and his body is dumped in a hotel room. Its all totally baffling and seemingly a non sequitur in the context of the book and the storyline.
•tI struggled to fully accept a portrayal of a family with two young children, Topsy and Lanier. They are described as “guided orphans”(198). Dick says he is “glad to have given so much to the little girl”(334). It passed me by.

Gripes

One of my enduring issues with Tender is the Night concerns not the content, but the presentation on the book cover over the years. My original copy and a subsequent update (penguin classics) have studio photos and model poses that diminish the impact. Various editions have lengthy introductions and the 1998 version is by Richard Godden, a professor of American Literature at the University of Keele. Reading (the start of) this was starting to suck the joy out of the book. The original publication in 1934 has a very colourful (and I think excellent) cover of the beach and the sweep of the French Riviera near Cannes. Thankfully, as part of the re-read I now have the 1995 Scribner edition that has the Riviera cover shot!

Questions

•tThe book is published as Tender is the Night A Romance
I have come across very few reviews or commentaries that pick up on the romance bit- and the book could be summarised in a variety of ways, but surely not as a romance? The other novel that I have read that similarly directs the reader is A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance ; in that case the subtext is appropriate
•tA dalliance between Rosemary and an unnamed beau on a train includes the description of the shades being pulled down in the Pullman car for privacy. Dick’s jealousy, on hearing the story is reflected in his request, whenever awkwardness in conversation is, or is about to, arise: "Do you mind if I pull down the curtain. This symbolism is repeated again and again, and I struggle to work out why this is emphasised so strongly?
•t(105) Dick is “spoken to by a thin faced American, perhaps thirty”. Later in the book Dick is interrupted by “an insistent American of sinister aspect” (331). In both cases the men appear to be selling newspapers. Baffling.

Author background & Reviews

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s personal life is well known, and widely written up. While many Fitzgerald novels have autobiographical elements, Tender Is The Night must be the most poignant of all of them given the personal struggles with mental illness, of Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda.

Recommend

I have never stopped thinking back to this book and I relish the opportunity to read new interpretations and engage in new discussions.
Yes, I recommend this book.

Suave es la noche, es un intento de encapsular el savoir-faire a la americana , o de inferir a partir de una muestra representativa toda una época.

Un puñado de personas en su mayoría norteamericanos, recorren Francia, Italia, etc queriendo romper los límites mediante un uso irracional de recursos y tiempo para dilapidarlos sin decoro, una incesante rueda de comer, bailar, haraganear, beber, como perfeccionando un arte.

Esta pandilla es lidereada por una pareja adorable Dick y Nicole en apariencia los anfitriones perfectos, bellos, ricos y con esa chispa de hospitalidad que hace sentir a todos cómodos y parte de una familia.

Pero aunque al principio todo es felicidad, el tiempo empieza a erosionar a esta pareja y como si fueran fichas de domino se van derrumbando los soportes de esta época hasta mostrar lo feo, lo triste, lo duro de la vida.

Aunque la narración inicia lenta y superficial, conforme avanzan los capítulos es verdad que toma ritmo y profundidad, y bajo escenas aparentemente absurdas vamos visualizando el talante de los protagonistas, al creerse seres especiales.

En una plática entre copas recuerdan cuando uno del grupo tuvo la idea de agarrar a un camarero para partirlo a la mitad y descubrir que esconden en su interior los camareros, obviamente no lo permitieron pero cada que lo cuentan, se ríen a carcajadas. Es decir para ellos los camareros son iguales en todo el mundo, entidades creados para servirlos y nada más.

En la historia están volcados de manera directa y a veces velada muchos circunstancias de vida del propio escritor y su esposa, la infidelidad, el alcoholismo, enfermedades mentales, problemas monetarios.

Aunque el libro se va acomodando para dar paso a una historia bien estructurada, aunque logra enviar un mensaje de que los mejores años pasan rápido, no logré quedar totalmente satisfecha con la lectura, existe mucho foco al protagonista Dick, y poco de Nicole, que para mí es la columna de toda la novela, pero siempre es presentada por Dick, como si a él pertenecieran su personalidad, pensamientos y comportamiento, de tal suerte que el filtra que podemos saber de ella o no, las veces que logra escapar de esta censura sus pensamientos son profundos y excepcionales, como muestra:

“No te voy a pedir que me quieras siempre como ahora, pero sí te pido que lo recuerdes. Pase lo que pase, siempre quedará en mí algo de lo que soy esta noche.”