Глубокий психологический роман, поднимающий проблемы врачебной этики и любви, морального выбора, эгоизма и альтруизма, профессионального выгорания, измены и праздности высшего класса, благодарности и использования партнера. Я не считаю, что Дик женился из-за денег – он ездил третьим классом, когда путешествовал один. Но семья Николь и она сама использовала Дика - неоплачиваемый труд круглосуточного личного врача. Был ли их брак с самого начала обречен? С какого момента началось падение вниз и разрушение жизни, карьеры, брака? Не с того ли момента, когда он начал думать за двоих? Мог ли блестящий психиатр сохранить собственное психическое здоровье?

Tender Is the Night is a flowery derision of the beautiful people’s world and a bitter tale of ruination.
There are man and wife living in comfort and luxury…
She is enigmatic and beautiful…

She sat in the car, her lovely face set, controlled, her eyes brave and watchful, looking straight ahead toward nothing. Her dress was bright red and her brown legs were bare. She had thick, dark, gold hair like a chow’s.

He is courageous and beautiful…

Save among a few of the tough-minded and perennially suspicious, he had the power of arousing a fascinated and uncritical love. The reaction came when he realized the waste and extravagance involved. He sometimes looked back with awe at the carnivals of affection he had given, as a general might gaze upon a massacre he had ordered to satisfy an impersonal blood lust.

Then a seductress arrives… The girl is adolescently naïve and beautiful…

Her fine forehead sloped gently up to where her hair, bordering it like an armorial shield, burst into lovelocks and waves and curlicues of ash blonde and gold. Her eyes were bright, big, clear, wet, and shining, the color of her cheeks was real, breaking close to the surface from the strong young pump of her heart. Her body hovered delicately on the last edge of childhood – she was almost eighteen, nearly complete, but the dew was still on her.

But there is no love triangle really… Everything is entertainment and fun: crazy drinking bouts, curious drunken escapades, extravagant jolly trips, lavish shopping sprees… So many open roads for the asking… But all those roads go to mirages and emptiness…
And emptiness is a mire – first it sucks one in and then it sucks out one’s soul.

"Tender is the Night" is the story of Dick Diver, a charming young psychiatrist, whose life spiraled downhill due to alcoholism and the pressures of marriage to mentally ill Nicole Warren. He is trying to be a psychiatrist, a husband, and even a father figure to Nicole. The young Dick Diver is based a bit on the author's friend, Gerald Murphy. As the novel progresses, the characters of Dick and Nicole increasingly resemble Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

I had mixed feelings reading the story. On one hand, Fitzgerald has written many beautiful and insightful scenes in the book. He's included interesting themes of mental health treatment, sexual abuse, a difficult marriage, infidelity, and alcoholism. The novel is set in wonderful settings--the French Riviera, Paris, and Italy. The characters are partly based on the rich, famous, and artistic people the Fitzgeralds socialized with in the 1920s. But the story contains many incidents that never go anywhere. The first part of the book, involving the young starlet Rosemary meeting the married Dick Diver, is overly long and slow.

I've done some reading in the past about Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald so it was heartbreaking reading about the decline of Dick Diver. "Tender in the Night" is a flawed book, but a beautifully tragic story. 3.5 to 4 stars.

Summers by the sea, sailboats in Capri,
These memories shall be our very own.
Even though our dreams may vanish
With the morning light,
We loved once in splendor
How tender, how tender, the night.

Perhaps when people burn too brightly, they burn out too soon. One thinks of such things, when reading Fitzgerald, as once glamorous movie stars who turn into haggard parodies of themselves. Dick Divers is such a one. He is brilliant, enthralling; a meteor streaking across the stage of life. His marriage to Nicole Warren, an heiress who suffers from mental illness brought on by a sordid event early in her life, is a disaster. He attempts to operate as both her husband and her doctor, and succeeds in being swept into her strained world, which does more to ruin him than to help her.

The dualism in his views of her--that of the husband, that of the psychiatrist--was increasingly paralyzing his faculties. In these six years she had several times carried him over the line with her, disarming by exciting emotional pity or by a flow of wit, fantastic and disassociated, so that only after the episode did he realize with the consciousness of his own relaxation from tension, that she had succeeded in getting a point against his better judgment.

Theirs is a shallow world, made up of trysts, parties, bar fights, and beach lounging. They have too much money to necessitate work or encourage meaningful endeavor. They are bright and shiny and alive, with no place to go except down into dullness, dissipation and ennui.

So much of Fitzgerald’s own struggles with Zelda have found their way into this book, that it is easy to believe everything that the main character, Dick Diver, experiences and thinks. While many authors manage to write books completely divorced from their own experiences, Fitzgerald borders on autobiography in his. Perhaps part of the fascination is looking for glimpses of the man behind the characters he invents.

The novel is divided into three books, the first of which lays a foundation for things to come. I felt almost sickened by the casual flirting and purposelessness of the characters in this section. I was not truly interested in any of them. But, book two advances the story beyond the surface and delves into the heart of these people, and I was happy to have stayed for the finish of the ride. By the end, I felt a great deal of emotion for both Dick and Nicole and the kind of sadness one might feel for real people who seem to be handed the world and waste the opportunity.

Losing is a part of being a human, and sometimes the more you lose, the more vulnerable and tender you are
a kind of social and psychological story follows the life of Dick Diver and the nature of his marital relationship over years
his life gradually was torn apart, he was lost between a trivial life, the psychological problems of his wife, faded career and an affair with a young actress
finding himself adrift in a world that is entirely purposeless
bitter but beautiful written novel, Fitzgerald writes cleverly about the glamorous entertaining life of rich people at the french riviera

apparently the novel reflects Fitzgerald's own experiences and struggles with alcoholism and being with a partner suffering from mental illness

If I had to rate Fitzgerald’s novels (1 being the most loved):
1.tThe Great Gatsby
2.tThe Last Tycoon
3.tThe Beautiful and Damned
4.tThis Side of Paradise
5.tTender Is the Night

Fitzgerald admitted that he was experimenting with a couple of narrative techniques in Tender Is the Night. And he didn’t pull off either one.

The first experimental technique utilized is the flashback—Fitzgerald is telling the story out of order. But – good grief—this flashback is the entire Book One, a third of the novel! In addition, most readers are at least slightly biased toward the character that they are first introduced.

The second experimental technique is the fade-out ending, which is another term for a boring, lackluster, unmemorable ending.

These techniques didn’t come together, and the pacing is incredibly uneven. There is no suspense; the book is boring, and then the ending is breathtakingly abrupt.

Now, Fitzgerald’s problem is that he forgot his own writing philosophy. He wanted to focus on how the reader felt. “I believe that the important thing about a work of fiction is that the essential reaction shall be profound and enduring.” The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 362

Although Rebecca by du Maurier was published in 1938, after Tender Is the Night, that is the tone I believe Fitzgerald was trying to achieve but he failed epically.

None of the characters are likeable and this book was boring until the end, which seemed to come out of nowhere and landed like an unexpected punch (and not in a good way).

Bits of stardust can be found sprinkled throughout, but it wasn’t enough to redeem this novel (Sorry, Fitzgerald—you know I still love you….muah!)

And with that, I will remind those who read the book of this Bible passage, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $60.18 for a First Edition Library copy on Mercari
Audiobook – Audible – 1 credit (Audible Premium Plus Annual – 24 Credits Membership Plan $229.50 or rough $9.56 per credit)

Connect With Me!
Blog Threads BookTube Facebook Insta My Bookstore at Pango

Βαρετο οσο δεν παει.... δεν με τραβηξε, με το ζορι 200 σελιδες ...
Εχει καλλιτεχνικη αξια, καλες περιγραφες, αλλα δεν με τραβηξε ουτε το σκηνικο ουτε η εποχη.. ισως επανελθω καποτε..

Tender Is the Night is actually--believe it or not, I did graduate high school--my introduction to the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read this for a Dive Bar Book Club I've joined, partly to spur me into reading authors like Fitzgerald. I only finished the first third. When the story transitioned away from Jazz Age starlet Rosemary Hoyt and onto the author surrogate Dick Diver, I started to skim. Most of you will recognize these symptoms. I didn't connect to the material at all. There's magnificent writing here but "story" I missed. I'll try Fitzgerald's short stories.

“Dick cercò di rilassarsi: la lotta sarebbe presto incominciata a casa e avrebbe forse dovuto vegliare a lungo ricomponendo l’universo per lei.”

È stato molte volte detto - e scritto certo in tutte le lingue - che l’amore dovrebbe essere una fusione tra due persone, una fusione fisica e mentale e spirituale che faccia di due esseri un essere solo.
“Tender is the night” viene a raccontarci quel che accade quando questo obiettivo è raggiunto, e le conclusioni che se ne traggono non sono felici neanche un po’. Non dico tragiche, perché c’è così poca tragedia nella vita di tutti i giorni che al massimo chiamiamo tragico il tragicomico. Conclusioni che lasciano l’amaro in bocca, piuttosto, e un senso diffuso di disagio e in un certo modo anche una diversa consapevolezza.
Io non sono mai stata davvero innamorata e quindi per me è difficile parlare di un libro come questo e capirlo in tutte le sue sfumature di sentimento. E se le considerazioni che faccio sembreranno un po’ ciniche e un po’ banali, vi chiedo scusa.
“Tender is the night” è un romanzo che sviluppa una pluralità di livelli di lettura. Possiamo leggerlo come un’analisi sociale e materiale di un certo periodo storico, l’indagine critica di una società di villeggianti spensierati e spiagge e soldi spesi con incoscienza, notti profumate e calici di champagne, il tutto avvolto da una cappa di decadenza e di struggimento, di segreti e convenzionalità. Possiamo leggerlo come la storia di un matrimonio senza lieto fine. Possiamo leggerlo come la fine di un matrimonio – dell’unione di due spiriti in uno – e una progressiva disgregazione, un trampolino di lancio verso una rinnovata individualità. Possiamo leggerlo come una presa di coscienza, un’emancipazione femminile. Possiamo leggerlo come il racconto di un’anima comprata e pervertita dal lusso. Ma se non riusciamo a leggere questi livelli tutti assieme, non riusciremo ad avere un disegno completo, non riusciremo compitamente a definirlo. E difatti “Tenera è la notte” sgambetta via da ogni tentativo di definizione.

Il livello che maggiormente ha attirato la mia attenzione è quello del rapporto tra Dick e Nicole, marito e moglie, lui bravo psichiatra di media estrazione, lei ricca paziente malata di schizofrenia, ora tornata a una vita “normale”. Seguiamo la loro storia tappa per tappa, dal tenero innamoramento in una clinica svizzera – e l’innamoramento è l’unica cosa davvero tenera che questo romanzo ci prometta – a una vita matrimoniale di alti e bassi, grandi slanci affettivi e improvvise ricadute, fino all’interruzione finale.
Nel loro stare insieme, fin dalle prime battute, Dick e Nicole commettono molti passi falsi. Una statuina di porcellana e il suo guardiano non potrebbero mai essere troppo felici assieme. Ed ecco Dick che vigila la sua statuina, badando bene che non caschi dalla mensola, e quando cade è lì tutto pronto a raccoglierla e a rimettere insieme i cocci con l’attacca-tutto, fiducioso che potrà incollarla per sempre e che il risultato finale non ne verrà mai pregiudicato. Ma anche stanco, a un certo punto, e sfiduciato che un padrone degenerato abbia posto quella statua su una mensola inclinata. Nicole è la statuina vezzosa, tutta contenta di essere protetta e raccolta dalle mani forti di Dick: si agghinda, si pavoneggia, si fida di lui, confida in lui ed è sempre certa che sarà lì per raccoglierla. Ma è una statuina, per l’appunto: non può pensare che i pensieri che Dick le presta, non brilla di luce propria se non è guardata, sarebbe incapace di badare a se stessa. Finge, talvolta, che ci riuscirebbe, ma ha troppe crepe per non cedere di nuovo.
Nel rapporto tra Dick e Nicole c’è tanto poco scambio quanto ce n’è tra il domestico e il suo pezzo di porcellana. Ma Dick e Nicole sono persone, e il loro rapporto non può restare così per sempre. Ed è così che certi ladri di sentimenti si intrufolano e forzano le serrature e infilano i grimaldelli un po’ qui e un po’ lì, cercando di separarli. Dick non riesce a reggere la parte dell’infermiera e si avvia verso un cammino di abbruttimento. Nicole, da parte sua, non ce la fa a restare una bambola, e cerca un suo cammino, cerca pensieri che siano suoi e sentimenti che siano suoi e si emancipa, si individua, guarisce. Più Nicole guarisce, più Dick si profonda, e sempre meno si immergono l’uno nell’altra. Quando riemergono, sono due persone separate, due persone prive di comunicazione. È la fine dell’uno e l’inizio dell’altra.

C’è una certa tristezza nel pensiero che tanto amore faccia male. Non si dovrebbe amare così: Nicole dovrebbe essere solo Nicole e Dick solo Dick e io solo io. Ogni tentativo di sovrapposizione è una perdita e una corruzione. E la profonda tristezza sta forse in questo, che l’amore ci promette un’identificazione a tempo indefinito, ci spinge a soffrire delle sofferenze dell’altro, ad amare quello che egli ama, e alla fine torna a dirci che era tutto uno scherzo: ma cosa fai? Ci hai creduto? Ma non lo sai che ti rovina la salute? E allora che dovremmo fare, non amare? O amare in modo diverso, amare in modo superficiale? Ecco, questo è il mio amore, quello è il tuo, teniamoli disgiunti e poi restituiamoceli quando ce ne siamo stancati.

Scott mise molto di sé e di sua moglie Zelda e dei piccoli avvenimenti di tutti i giorni in questo romanzo. Non tragici, come dicevo, ma tragicomici, per farci subodorare quel tanto di squallido e di farsesco hanno le nostre esistenze. Di Scott e di Zelda io so poco, quasi niente, se non qualche accenno crudele dalla penna di Hemingway. Mi aspettavo maggiore crudeltà in questo romanzo, più frecce scoccate, più ferite mortali, ma in fondo perché tradire la realtà per il romanzo? Nella realtà veniamo feriti per così piccole cose che quando le allestiamo per un romanzo paiono buffe e marginali. Ma così è la realtà. E noi non vorremo mica dipingere un mondo che non esiste?
Esista e non esista, il mondo dipinto da Scott è incantevole. Incantevole, generosa, gentile, evocativa la sua penna, poche parole, pochi tratti e tutto un disegno nella mente del lettore. Una grande abilità narrativa che la traduzione italiana a tratti imbruttisce e a tratti impreziosisce, ma senza che il lettore si senta davvero tradito.
Potrei dire molto altro, ma sarei di troppo. Concedete fiducia, pazienza, coccolate questo romanzo fino a farlo diventare una cosina indifesa e malleabile, e ne vedrete grandi cose. Grandi balsami versati sulle vostre piccole ferite, grandi come capocchie di spillo, e forse qualche insegnamento da trattenere.

Not sure why I found this, a novel I've always held up as a great disappointment, suddenly piquing at me like a specter. Or actually, I do: I began to wonder if this was a text I encountered at the wrong point of my life. And that turned out to be exactly the case, as it really does require a certain maturity & enough life experience to understand the specific type of grief one feels for a paradise lost.

If recent revisits to formative texts n  This Side of Paradisen & n  The Great Gatsbyn was to experience something of n  Babylon Revisitedn's reckoning with the loss one's youth, then this reading of Tender is the Night felt like laughing with a teenage nemesis over a shared recognition that you'll make quite excellent friends now.

Which is not to say that this novel isn't profoundly flawed; one viscerally feels Fitzgerald's strain & eventual defeat in molding this material into the perfected forms of his best work. Long passages are gloopy, characterization are often shaky, the narrative constantly seems to lose the thread. I was profoundly uninvested in the extended mid-novel flashback into Dick Diver's past. But all these technical problems cobweb across some of the most sublimely gorgeous individual lines & paragraphs to be found in ALL literature (there were moments I gasped).

Somehow there's a profound beauty in this novel's defectiveness, the gaps somehow gesturing toward something ineffable—& ultimately profound.

Rating bumped from two stars to four.

"Then he put in a call for Nicole in Zürich, remembering so many things as he waited, and wishing he had always been as good as he had intended to be."

LETTURA DI GRUPPO DUSTY PAGES: Gdl maggio

Ero scettica lo ammetto, soprattutto dopo aver letto la prima parte. In quel momento mi sono chiesta se valeva la pena di continuare. Poi, ricordando anche il Grande Gatsby, mi sono fatta forza e grazie anche ai commenti delle altre ragazze l'ho continuato. Per fortuna. Sono contenta di aver letto questo libro.
Il libro di si dive di tre parti. Nella prima parte abbiamo il punto di vista di Rosemary, un'attrice in erba che con sua madre arriva in questo albergo della Costa Azzurra e conosce Dick,Nicole e tutta la combriccola.
Questa parte è frivola come frivola e giovane è la nostra protagonista. Leggiamo così delle vacanze di questi ricchi annoiati.
La seconda parte, è quella che mi ha letteralmente straziato il cuore. Se nella prima parte l'impronta generale era la superficialità e la frivolezza, nella seconda abbiamo profondità e dolore. Fortunatamente qui i protagonisti sono Dick e Nicole. Leggiamo la loro storia. Sentiamo i loro sentimenti. Soprattutto quelli di Nicole. Davvero in alcuni momenti dovevo fermarmi perchè dal troppo dolore non riuscivo ad andare avanti.
La terza parte è il declino e la rinascita di questi due personaggi. E' stato davvero un colpo al cuore.
Anche se più che dolore qui ho provato tanta amarezza, nostalgia e rimpianto, proprio come Dick e Nicole.

Devo dire che Fitzgerald è fantastico. Sembra sempre che il suo sia un libro sciocco, e invece alla fine, storia e personaggi ti entrano dentro. I suoi finali ti lasciano sempre un pò di malinconia, e dell'amaro in bocca. Ma riflettono perfettamente lo stile di vita e la fine degli Anni Ruggenti. Che vi confido mi piacciono molto ^^

Se non avete letto nulla di lui ve lo consiglio. Per me è stata una dolce scoperta.

There is much tenderness inside this book, but you must work to get to it and you need to keep your heart open. In many ways, Tender Is the Night is more ambitious, though provoking and profound than the novel Fitzgerald is better known for, aka The Great Gatsby (although, I always insist there is a great deal of depth in that one, even more than people notice). Nevertheless, Tender Is the Night definitely doesn't read as easily.

Tender Is the Night feels more personal in tone. There is no framed narrative here, you don't get to see the protagonist through Nick's eye. What you get is a pretty clear picture of a man. Tender is the Night is definitely more autobiographical than the The Great Gatsby, perhaps more than any other work of his. The writing, albeit beautiful, doesn't flow as easily. You get the feeling that this wasn't an easy book to write. The reader can definitely see a lot of Fitzgerald in Dick, a man married to a glamours rich heiress. While you can glimpses of Fitzgerald's married life in other works of his (think his short stories), none is as detailed as this one. As a reader, one can see how much work Fitzgerald has put into this book and by that I don't mean just the years and the number of pages. It is an ambitious book. However, it is also difficult book. It is not easy to read.

There is something very depressive about this novel, and it is not just the sadness that penetrates its pages. I hate to say, but I felt like sometimes Fitzgerald was a bit too indulgent. Not in showing himself in a good light, in fact, it was just the opposite. There were moments when I felt like the writer dived a bit too much into self-piety. As wonderful as it is to see him so honest, it is also painful to read at times. To be completely honest, this book did leave a bitter taste in my mouth, like the medicine that might be good for you but it sure doesn't taste so. Tender Is the Night is perhaps a bit like bitter medicine for the soul. I often felt overwhelmed while I was reading it, and kind of afraid I might get lost in this novel (as bizarre at that might sound).

...“Strange children should smile at each other and say, "Let's play.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

In a way, reading this book is a lot like getting to really know a person. It takes time, vulnerability and an open heart to get at the bottom of it. Perhaps that is what this great novel is really like- a real person. A tormented but beautiful human being. Maybe I'm getting a bit too metaphorical, but reading it was an intense and even a bit mystic experience. Mysticism aside, what kind of novel it is?


It tells the story of Dick and Nicole, a wealthy American couple enjoying their permanent European vacation lifestyle...or are they truly enjoying it? Their marriage is both happy and sad, both tragic and beautiful. They are both good and bad one for another. Nicole used to be Dick's patient (mental patient) and it seems he is genuinely concerned for her. He is definitely not with her just for her money, but Dick might be getting himself lost in their extravagant lifestyle. Money can make things seem more unreal, and this couple does have issues.

The protagonist Dick is, at times, really a dick. Dick can be the worst kind of misogynist and the narrative voice is much alike to the leading character. The novel is very much focused on him, and that makes it seem more realistic but it also takes away from the other characters. We don't really get to see what Nicole is feeling. Similarly, a young American actress Dick becomes enamored with is never given a voice of her own. It seems a bit of a missed chance.

As fascinating is to see Dick's tragic life story, at the same time the novel feels over written with so many (often mean) things being said about everyone and everything. Perhaps that is another aspect of it that makes it feel depressive. The writer is often critical and mean to just about anyone: the rich, the poor, the Americans, the Europeans, the non Europeans, the Blacks, the list is endless. With him being so negative about everything, you get this feeling that it's at least a democratic kind of hate maybe, but nevertheless all that hate can get so tiring. It is easy to see that Dick is deeply unhappy. Paradoxically (or perhaps not), as his wife gets better, Dick gets worse, perhaps because he loses his purpose- that of being her doctor/caretaker and protector. He begins to doubt himself.

I must admit that as a reader I often felt like a tennis ball being tossed around. At times this novel moves quite quickly. So many things happen and they don't seem to leave a trace...at least not at first. The hectic rich lifestyle soon loses its charm. The individuals in this book, they often feel lonely. In that sense Tender Is the Night seems authentic. Not just in that sense. Despite it being a bit overwritten, this novel does feel very much feel authentic and real. Often very open and sincere in his writing (sometimes revealing too much), Fitzgerald definitely manages to touch and move its reader.

Tender Is the Night does a great job of drawing out human imperfections. The main characters are in so many ways detestable, but at the core of their being they are also very tender. It takes to be a good writer to get a reader to really care for them, too see the human under the glam and the sorrow, under it all. I cared alright, much to my surprise because on the conscious level there is so much to swallow. But I swallowed it somehow and it made me feel more humble. It made me see how fragile we are all. A sad but a beautiful work.