To be fair, this really wasn't Fitzgerald's fault.

I love The Great Gatsby and I love The Beautiful and the Damned. And, as my dedication to The List proves, I love reading about rich white people and their Rich White People Problems. But everything about this book rubbed me the wrong way, for the following reasons (none of which, as I said, are Fitzgerald's fault. Well, maybe the last one.):

I first started this as an audiobook, which is a medium that I'm trying to get into thanks to my 40-minute commute to work. The problem is, it might be time to admit that I'm just bad at audiobooks. When the words aren't printed on the page in front of me, my mind tends to wander and suddenly I realize that the narrator is still talking and I haven't been paying attention for the past five minutes and am totally lost. This is a problem, particularly with this book, when you really have to pay attention to every word. But all of that wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that...

This particular recorded version sucked. First, I was completely misled about the plot because the synopsis on the audiobook made it sound like Rosemary was the protagonist, so once I got to Book Two and the narrator kept talking about Nicole I didn't understand what was happening. Also, the particular narrator for this audiobook was awful. His voices were just bad: grating and stupid, and I couldn't understand why he made all the characters sound so plummy and old. Everyone in this book sounded like they were sixty, which is simply wrong.

After soldiering on to about the 3/4 point, I admitted defeat and found a print copy of the book at the library and started reading where the audiobook had left off. I was spared the annoying narration, and by this point had figured out who the protagonists really were, but I still hated the book. And here's why:

I don't care about these characters. Usually I can find some sympathy for Fitzgerald's fascinating and damaged people, but not here. It was probably a result of my bad experience with the audiobook for the majority of the story, but for whatever reason I could not muster so much as an ounce of sympathy or appreciation for these selfish, stupid, rich jerks who can't seem to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to realize how thoroughly they've fucked up their lives. I found myself wishing that all the characters would get shipped to the Congo so they could learn what real suffering looks like, and then I knew that the book could never be redeemed in my eyes.

I'm sorry, Scott. I think you're a genius, I really do, but I have never struggled so much to get through the final twenty pages of a book as I did with yours. Maybe I'll return to this story in twenty years or so, and hopefully then I'll read this under better circumstances. Again, it's really not your fault.

Except the misogyny. That is 100% your fault, you smug self-satisfied patronizing jackass.

This is pretty much a hot mess of a novel, at least by comparison to the tightly formed The Great Gatsby. The first section introduces so many blandly defined characters, I found it really hard to keep all the men in tights straight ..

Beyond her was a fine man in a jockey cap and red-striped tights; then the woman Rosemary had seen on the raft, and who looked back at her, seeing her; then a man with a long face and a golden, leonine head, with blue tights and no hat, talking very seriously to an unmistakably Latin young man in black tights, both of them picking at little pieces of sea-weed in the sand"

Within a few short chapters a naive 18-year old actress called Rosemary has declared her love for the married 34- year old, Dick Diver, (presumably it was his tights that did it). It is fairly certain it will all end badly, it is Fitzgerald after all.
I am being quite flippant about a book that I eventually came to embrace. Things certainly improved as the absurd pomposity of the first phase of the novel settled into something much more melancholy.
In theory, plenty happens within these 334 pages, - there is duelling, murder(s), incest, and much drunken debauch. However, Fitzgerald manages to use these dramatic moments almost as decorative wallpaper to his main story of mental instability, ruinous alcoholism, and unfaithfulness. It is hard not to draw parallels between Nicole and Dick Diver with the marriage of Zelda and Francis Fitzgerald, one of the preeminent couples of the Jazz Age, but I tried to read this on its own terms and have given it alot of leeway for prevailing attitudes of the era towards woman, sexuality, class and race.
There is something bitter-sweet about books written in these interwar years, a kind of post-war euphoria and sudden wealth make it seem like life was one continuous Charlestown and endless loafing about the Riveria and Fitzgerald doesn't disabuse you of that notion.

The great hall, its floor pock-marked by two decades of hobnails, was cleared for a tea dance, and four-score young Americans, domiciled in schools near Gstaad, bounced about to the frolic of "Don't bring Lulu" or exploded violently with the first percussions of the Charleston. It was a colony of the young, simple and expensive - the Sturmtruppen of the rich were at St. Moritz

But Fitzgerald is also adept at painting the darker side of the Jazz age - a dangerous lethargy pervades the page and the faint ridiculousness of Dick Divers denouement seems inevitable.

Tender is the Night though flawed in many respects, I think is a more raw reading experience than Gatsby, almost certainly impacted by what was going on in the authors life at the time. It is almost impossible not to open any section of this and find something stunningly quotable, I luxuriated in this prose. There is droll wit here, sharp social observation. The sum of its sometimes confusing parts is a kind of elegy to a life wasted and good times gone sour.

To me the title was the best part of the book.

Why am I drawn to dark and destructive stories of breakage and damage in beautiful settings?

Please don't answer this question. It is better danced away in a glorious Antibes summer night!

Tender is the literature that touches on the invisible abyss underneath the perfect reflection in the surface.

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.

Αυτός ήταν ο 2ος Φιτζέραλντ (μετά τον Γκάτσπυ φυσικά) που διάβασα, και ίσως όχι ο τελευταίος, αν και δεν τρελάθηκα να πω την αλήθεια.

Αυτό το βιβλίο δε θα το έπαιρνα στα χέρια μου αν δεν το διάβαζα ως συνανάγνωση με δύο άλλα (τελικά) κορίτσια. Που και συνανάγνωση δεν το λες. . .
άλλης της το καθυστέρησε η βιβλιοθήκη και δεν το ξεκίνησε τελικά, άλλη την έφαγε το Κράκεν κάπου στις βόρειες θάλασσες, άλλη το πήρε σε τόμους και διάβασε μόνο τον πρώτο περιμένοντας (ακόμη) τους άλλους, άλλη το διάβασε και το τελείωσε σχεδόν μόνη της, και εγώ κάπου στη μέση όλης αυτής της ιστορίας.

Και φυσικά η συνεννόησή μας ήταν κάτι σαν συνεννόηση μεταξύ τυφλού και κουφο��.
Αλληλοσποϊλεριζόμασταν σχεδόν μέχρι τη μέση του βιβλίου χωρίς να το καταλάβουμε διότι η ελληνική έκδοση ήταν η εκδοχή του 1951 και η αγγλική (η δική μου) του 1934.
Η ελληνική έκδοση είχε τα γεγονότα με χρονολογική σειρά: 1919-1930 ενώ η δική μου τα είχε (άστα τα μαλλάκια σου) ανακατεμένα: 1925, 1919, 1930.

Διαβάστε τη συνέχεια στο μπλογκ μου ΒιβλιοΑλχημείες

Χαχα! Σας την έσκασα με κλικμπέιτ !!

For the longest time I lived an F. Scott Fitzgerald free existence. The name was familiar enough although I mostly associated it with those bulky Penguin Classics which are prone to making me break out in a cold-sweat. Weighty tomes burdened by commentary on class difference, forbidden or tormented or doomed romance, some of which are drier than a mouthful of Jacob's Crackers.

I am F. Scott Fitzgerald-free no longer! And how glad does this make me? Very. I read The Great Gatsby a couple of months ago and decided to go for a second hit with Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald's almost autobiographical tale of gilt edged glitz which conceals the slow ripening of mental decay on the French Riviera.

But first I need to get the childishness out of the way. I approached this book with all literary seriousness - arched eyebrow, wire rimmed glasses and a suitable severe chignon and after a medium sized smirk at introduction to the principle character with the manly moniker, Dick Diver, I was prepared to be serious again. Then it hit me.

Page 4. There it was.
"Lucky Dick, you big stiff" he whispered to himself.

And then I rolled off the sofa, laughing. And so begins my encounter with Tender is the Night, which is otherwise quite serious but in places, far from tender.

Published in 1934, at a time of economic austerity, Fitzgerald's emotionally disturbed tale of rich people being a bit sad, but still being rich, was not well received and was soundly panned in a number of reviews. Presumably the people of America waved their empty plates, wiped the dust from their eyes and shouted "Yes life is not great but try an empty belly, Dust Pneumonia and burying your own children".

Mental health and sexual abuse, are by no means, trifling issues and they are key issues in Tender is the Night, however set against a back drop of yachts, lavish parties and luxury mansions at a time of national economic catastrophe, well presumably they just seemed a bit less important.

Add to this to the fact that frankly, none of the characters are particularly likeable, well you can see why people looked askance at the time. Dick Diver falls into a number of unfortunate but obvious traps. Marries way out of his league, marries a mentally unstable patient with whom he was originally professionally involved and then to cap it all, has an affair. Way to go Dick. I'm pretty sure that the Hippocratic oath probably says "don't do this" against all of these possible actions.

Because this book is based on Fitzgerald's own experiences with his wife Zelda it is better than Gatsby. Not happier, not brighter, not more exhilarating to read but it has a clarity that makes the characters more real. After all, nobody said you had to like them or their actions.

Came across a Bukowski poem about this book, and I think it might act as a surrogate review:

"...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?
down 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."

('Their Night')

A harsh critique, but I think that is the whole point of the book, to delineate the moral vacuity and shallow affectations of the Jazz Age bourgeoisie.

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.

So disappointed with this.. started great but every paragraph, every page felt heavier than the last one..

The title is from Ode to a Nightingale by Keats. It is Fitzgerald’s last novel and is now thought of as one of his best, getting onto all the must read lists. It has also been touted as a feminist novel (I kid you not). His relationship with his wife Zelda and her mental ill-health are also well known. Fitzgerald is a chronicler of the Jazz age. He is undoubtedly a talented writer but he was also indifferent to politics and felt literature should not be used for political purposes or to support activism.
The plot I am sure is well known. Dick Diver is a doctor specialising in mental health. At a clinic he meets a very young woman (Nicole) who is there because she has had a breakdown following abuse by her father. To cut a long story short they marry, despite his being old enough to be her father. Some five or six years later they are living on the French Riviera with a couple of children and Dick and Nicole meet Rosemary Hoyt a young (17) American actress. Dick and Rosemary have an affair. The novel charts Dick’s gradual descent into alcoholism and its effects. There a couple of films, a stage production and a ballet (yes really!)
There are two versions of the novel. The original has a fractured structure and chronology with an extended flashback in the middle explaining how the Divers met. A later posthumous revision put the novel into chronological order. I read the original version.
Given that Diver has a number of similarities to Fitzgerald (and is certainly based on him), there are a number of indications of feelings about women that I noted:
“Their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man’s world – they preserved their individuality through men and not by opposition to them. They would all three have made alternatively good courtesans or good wives not by the accident of birth but through the greater accident of finding their man or not finding him.”
And:
“Like most women she liked to be told how she should feel.”
Nicole is also modelled on Zelda and her comment on Dick’s decline is telling:
“But you used to want to create things—now you seem to want to smash them up.”
Also telling is that Nicole in the novel is seen as needing rescuing and as having mental health problems from the start; she marries her therapist! In real life Fitzgerald also had an affair with a seventeen year old actress.
None of the characters are particularly likeable, but I think Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the female characters is particularly problematic. They have no real depth or agency and are dependent on men. The female role is a supporting role. Here is Dick speaking and Nicole responding:
“I envy you. At present I don’t seem to be interested in anything except my work.”
“Oh, I think that is fine for a man,” she said quickly. “But for a girl I think she ought to have lots of minor accomplishments and pass them on to her children.”
Then of course there is the issue of race. For example:
“a big splendidly dressed oil Indian named George T. Horseprotection”
And:
“He was not quite light enough to travel in a Pullman south of Mason-Dixon; he was of the Kayble-Berber-Sabaean-Hindu strain that belts across north Africa and Asia, more sympathetic to the European than the mongrel faces of the ports”.
Then there is the black male who was murdered and left in Rosemary’s bed. The characters of colour have even less agency than the women.
The concepts of womanhood are not very palatable. Rosemary, the film star is idealised and young with plenty of male attention. Her breakout film was a silent movie and indeed throughout the novel she doesn’t really have a voice. Nicole does but hers is seen as suspect because of her mental health. There is an incident where Nicole takes the wheel of the car and scares Nick, exactly mirroring an incident between Fitzgerald and Zelda.
On the whole the problems outweighed the lush writing.

i knew a dick once. his name was sam, and he was a star. people gravitated toward him everywhere he went. i did, too. he radiated light and fun and when he talked to you, he made you feel like the most important person in the room. he partied hard, and he was the type of person you wanted to party with, because it was always a good time. he was the son of a diplomat, knew five languages, and always knew exactly what to say or do to get the situation how he wanted it. when i was about sixteen, we spent an amazing weekend together, that took us from manhattan to new jersey to connecticut, all for good reason, and it was one of the most memorable weekends of my life.

we talked very infrequently for the next few years, and then we hit it back up again, online, and he was such a blast to talk to. so we made plans to meet up. but i was older and wiser then. and as much as i wanted to be with him, to breathe in his intensity, his vitality, i was more guarded. id been burned by then. by friends who were fun and energetic but weren't, when it came down to it, there in any meaningful way. there was one in particular who taught me that lesson... and when sam inevitably disappointed me, i stood my ground. i didnt want to be friends with someone like that. i said that i wanted to believe he wasnt like that, that he was all the positive things i knew to be true but also reliable--that he was reliable--but that now i knew he wasnt.

i wanted him to fight for me. to show me i was wrong. if he had insisted, i'm sure i would have continued to be friends with him. and it wasnt like a hard line was drawn in the sand or anything. but he just wasnt interested in continuing a friendship with someone who maybe wasnt as dazzled by him anymore, i think. but as things worked out, that was the last time i spoke to him. he died four years ago. that they held memorial services in literally ten different countries. so, see, i'm not exaggerating the effect he had on people.

i'm not sure what my point is, except that dick reminded me of sam. and like sam... dick was a remarkable character. i was so disappointed in his decisions, wanted to be disgusted by his actions... but somehow, what i really felt, was empathy. love. pity. there's so much pain in this book, so much longing, so much sorrow. i dont know. i guess maybe life is just hard for everyone, and when faced head on with that, it's hard to begrudge him his choices.