Tender is the night, peaceful is the Rivera setting and fascinating is a novel that is scathing in its messaging as it mediates in heavy themes of infidelity, materialism, alcoholism, child abuse, mental illness, and vanity but most of all moral suppression in pursuit of pleasure.

A novel that makes no apologies for shining a light on the moral shortcomings of society, the burden of class, wealth and expectation, and the power of love and lust that turns people blind, as the characters are forced to live with the consequence of decisions taken when none of their lives remain unchanged.

The Plot

Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are a rich couple who take a holiday in the French Riviera with other America expatriates, Dick a successful psychiatrist, Nicole a wealthy heiress, and with no shortage of wealth they live the dazzling champagne lifestyle to the fullest. And into that world of decadence steps seventeen-year-old Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress who unashamedly believes “It is not necessarily poverty of spirit that makes a woman surround herself with life—it can be a superabundance of interest...”

And her interest is both Dick and Nicole. Rosemary wants Dick as a lover and wants to be like Nicole his wife. A self-absorbed girl who begins to recklessly court the couple, as cracks begin to show in their marriage. Meanwhile, Nicole remains a mental ward of her husband after suffering abuse at the hands of her father, leaving her with a vulnerable mental state that she does well to hide from many, as Dick, the eternal white Knight, fails to see the all-important delineation of husband and doctor. However, more importantly he fails to deal appropriately with the advances of Rosemary, who he professes to love.

Review and Comments

Tender is the night is a theme driven novel, complex but poignant, expressive in its portrayal of a high society and people that are flawed, and powerful in its messaging of the consequences. A novel that does not shy away from painting a sad and heart rendering story as though the author has his own moral obligation to highlight such fables as teachings of consequence whilst he laments in the failure of a society where idealism is only a dream and aspiration.

I felt the story lost its way a few times in the middle, as though it was trying to pad out the story length. However, this is one of the best theme driven books I have read. The characterisation is superb but all of the characters are unlikeable, in some way, which is in itself a bold move as the reader is forced to observe a society through the authors lens and in it, he exposes the failings and weaknesses in human behaviour.

Fitzgerald has a beautiful writing style where the power of his work sits with the messaging and themes that he effortlessly introduces without overburdening the reader. Excellent.

3.50 Stars (round down) — I grabbed this from one of my many recent #bookhaul trips to Savers recently, largely as it was referenced by a certain psychotic stalker that is also an insatiable book-lover, and expert — seen on Netflix. You know whom I mean. Anyways, I’m so glad I got into this one, it’s an excellent read and nearly a rounded-up 4⭐️ but the verbosity and few too many ‘wordy’ passages just had me rounding down. But make no mistake, Fitzgerald’s classic is a worthy investment, layered and beautifully executed.

Tender is the Night, is a complex & emotionally charged novel that explores the glamour and excesses of the Roaring Twenties. The story follows the rise & inevitable fall of Dick and Nicole Diver, a couple whose marriage is threatened by their individual struggles with mental illness and some ferociously indulged infidelity.

Fitzgerald's prose really is captivatingly beautiful and evocative, transporting the reader to the luxurious locales of the French Riviera and the Italian coast. As Fitzgerald writes, "On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people; a decade ago it was almost deserted after its English clientele went north in April." However, the author's tendency towards verbosity can at times make the story feel bogged down by unnecessary details and tangents.

The characters are flawed, human and definitively multidimensional, with their own ambitions & insecurities that drive & anchor their actions. As Fitzgerald writes of Nicole, "He felt he knew her, as if he could reach out and touch her and yet she remained just beyond his grasp." While the portrayal of mental illness may be considered dated and stigmatizing by modern standards, it is nevertheless a significant aspect of the novel's exploration of human nature and relationships.

One of the most compelling aspects of Tender is the Night is its commentary on the destructive nature of wealth and excess. The lavish parties and extravagant lifestyles of the characters serve as a stark contrast to the underlying emotional turmoil and instability that plague them. As Fitzgerald writes, "The strongest guarded secret within the immigration files is the fact that the hopeful immigrant who seeks the life of the New World and the endless opportunities of America is not an American at all, but a European in search of something more permanent than a revolution."

In the end, Tender is the Night is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that delves into the complexities of human relationships, mental illness, as well as the corrosive effects of excess. While its length and verbosity may be a barrier for some readers — there really is a bit of waffle in parts — its themes and well crafted characters make it a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the literature of the Jazz Age.

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?

Ci si sentiva soli e tristi, ad avere il cuore così vuoto l'uno per l'altra.

Una struggente storia d'amore? L'antenato dei romanzetti rosa odierni? Non direi. Piuttosto la discesa in un abisso. Raccontarlo non è facile, recensirlo tantomeno. Del resto in questo romanzo non succede pressoché niente. Niente d'importante, almeno. È, come ho già detto, un viaggio nella follia, ma non solo follia amorosa, anche follia mentale, fisica, morale, sociale. "Tenera è la notte" è un bellissimo titolo, un titolo misterioso e al contempo emblematico. Ci ho riflettuto su dalla prima all'ultima pagina, e alla fine sono giunto alla conclusione che quella notte è la notte dentro ognuno di noi. E non è tenera. È terribile. Tenera nel suo lato più pacifico, distruttiva nell'assenza di pace, di controllo.

Così mi sono tuffato sulle prime centoquaranta pagine pensando a quanto fosse futile Rosemary ai fini del romanzo, ma poi ho capito che era il modo di Fitzgerald per mostrarci il suo rapporto con la moglie visto dall'esterno, visto in modo ingenuo, un rapporto devastante che solo loro conoscevano.

Si passa dunque a Dick e al suo lavoro, ai giorni del suo incontro con Nicole, alla malattia della ragazza che poi fu l'unica cosa che lo portò ad amarla con tutto sé stesso. Il deterioramento di lei che porta al deterioramente di lui, lentamente, complice Rosemary, la bambina, complice la società senza valori, complice l'amore, il non amore, la malattia, la schizofrenia, il buio, la notte; una tenerezza mancata e assente, una famiglia disperata dentro e perfetta fuori.

Non posso dire di essere impazzito per questo libro. Mi lascia dentro un certo qual senso di disagio e di incompletezza, ma poiché sembra scritto da Dio ed è, per l'appunto, un abisso, mi sento di riservargli un elogio particolare. Fitzgerald ha scritto un romanzo chiaramente personale, un romanzo che ha fatto scoppiare in lacrime molte persone da quando fu scritto nel lontano 1934. A me non ha fatto piangere, non mi ha commosso, però mi ha aperto la mente, mi ha reso triste e anche malinconico. Una scrittura elegante e ipnotica che ti conduce nei recessi dell'animo di una malata e di un innamorato che cade a pezzi, un'onda distruttiva che si porta con sé il dottore e il paziente, se li porta via, via, e non li rimanda più indietro. Un vuoto di ideali, un paradosso nel mezzo delle due guerre più brutte della storia dell'uomo, un amore diverso dall'amore classico, un amore sofferto, calpestato, rivoltato, battuto. La lucidità porta con sé gli ultimi baci, il voler bene non è più un atto ma un modo di dire.

Sapeva finalmente il numero della terribile porta della fantasia, la soglia della fuga che non era fuga; sapeva che per lei, adesso e in futuro, il peccato più grande consisteva nell'illudere se stessa. O si pensa o gli altri devono pensare per noi, e toglierci il potere, pervertire e disciplinare i nostri gusti naturali, incivilirci e sterilizzarci.

Signori, "Tenera è la notte" è forse un capolavoro - termine banale -, o forse non lo è, ma quel che è certo è che si sprofonda. Si sprofonda tanto.

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..

Rosemary (young movie star) and husband and wife, Dick and Nicole Diver, all expats in France… Dick is originally a psychiatrist and Nicole was his patient - a psychologically unhealthy relationship for both.

My version is the original, with time jumps (many editions were chronological). The middle period of the story (the start of the original structure), when Dick first meets Rosemary is somewhat slow. Once you understand more about Dick and Nicole, it gets better.

A bit like Thomas Hardy, some of the characterisation is weak, though there are some vivid descriptions and epithets.

No me ha gustado nada de nada. Me ha parecido aburrido, vacío, machista y con personajes altamente insoportables. La trama no ha conseguido engancharme en ningún momento y creo que si lo he terminado ha sido por pura inercia.

Entiendo que la idea de Fitzgerald era mostrar la decadencia de las clases altas tras la Primera Guerra Mundial, gente ociosa que se sentía intocable, a la vez que resulta ser un episodio autobiográfico de su relación con su esposa, Zelda. Pues bien, me ha sido imposible separar al autor de la obra, y he encontrado a un Fitzgerald posesivo, orgulloso, envidioso y muy machista. El personaje principal, Dick Diver, es él mismo hablando y no he podido evitar verlo de otro modo (y más después de saber ciertas cosillas desagradables sobre este escritor). He subrayado auténticas perlas del machismo, pero en cierto punto ya desistí por aburrimiento y porque se me iba a quedar el libro lleno de lápiz. No entiendo cómo alguien puede ver algo así romántico, pues para mí la toxicidad es evidente.

Me ha parecido una novela horrible en todos los sentidos, en la que no he podido desarrollar ninguna empatía ni atracción por ningún personaje, lo que me ha llevado a que me dieran igual todos y lo que les pasaba. Con los secundarios casi ni molesté en aprender los nombres, no me interesaban. Llegada a cierto punto me daba lo mismo que los arrollara un tren, que les tocara la lotería o que se torcieran un tobillo. Hay veces en que hasta los villanos me gustan más al leer un libro o ver una película, me gustan los personajes complejos y hasta con malicia, pero aquí es que son todos tan rancios y antipáticos... puff.

Encuentro que el libro tiene muchas páginas y situaciones que no me han dicho nada en absoluto. No me ha sorprendido en ningún momento, no tiene nada especial ni impactante. La primera parte es aburrida; las otras dos, prescindibles. El desenlace soso, simple, patético. Me da cierta rabia todo esto, porque creía que era un libro que me iba a gustar, pero igualmente no me arrepiento de haberlo leído, ya que quería hacerlo. De lo que me arrepiento es de haberme gastado 11 euros con él.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Modern Classic

This is the second book I read by F. Scott Fitzgerald after The Great Gatsby. The story in this novel is set in the 1920s in France and is about a young couple, Dick Diver, and his wife, Nicole Diver, and how their marriage has a strong shake-up.

Dick is a psychiatrist, and he marries his patient Nicole, who is a wealthy woman. From the outside, this couple looks happy and appears to be in the perfect marriage, but things from the inside are much more troubling. With the arrival of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt, she and Dick get attracted to each other, and this affair affects the married couple in a big way.

The novel explores some critical subjects like mental health, alcoholism, love, loss, and the effect wealth has on people. So, there are hard-hitting themes that will be relatable to many readers. While the premise sounded quite good to me, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted. I think The Great Gatsby is a better book than this one.

One of the most significant problems with this book is that it moves at a very slow pace. You will need to exercise a great deal of patience until something occurs. If you have a short attention span, you will not be able to connect with a plot that slow. It truly needs lots of patience. If you are OK with that, you may like it. In my opinion, it was merely an average book.

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.

SPOILERS


n  "He wished she had no background, that she was just a girl lost with no address save the night from which she had come."n


Tender is the Night is a love story. It is also a story about loneliness. But mostly, it is about the need to love and belong. Dick Diver falls in love with mentally ill woman and marries her. But he never truly finds happiness with her. He falls in love with an young actress, but he never gets to be with her, because his connection with and his love for his sick wife are too strong. And he goes through life alone, leading a battle that cannot be won. This is a beautiful and touching book, but it is also adamant in the way it shows what loneliness, what falling in love with the wrong person can do to us. Still, does loving a person you cannot be happy with mean that you have truly chosen (as much as love is choice) the wrong person? There are those of us who love those that cannot be reached, that cannot be saved, even those don’t love us back. For which do we need bigger strength? To quit loving such person or to go on loving them? Is Dick’s growing detachment from Nicole a sign for the diminishing of his love or his loss of hope? Can a distinction be made? Do we love a person only when we believe there is a chance for them to turn into what we need them to be and for us to be happy with them? We dream of finding that perfect person, for the connection that breaks us apart and builds us all over again, but what happens when we meet an already broken person whose pieces are there, waiting for us to pick them up and put the puzzle back together, only to realize that there will always be a piece that will be missing, that won’t fit as we need it to? I believe that when we love, it is forever. Love that dies is no love, unless the object of our love changes severely. But maybe sometimes the person hasn’t become so different as we think, maybe they are the same, and it us who have changed without realizing it and this has lead to a change of heart.


n  “Think how you love me. I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am tonight.”n


If the person we have grown to love stays forever there, under some form, does the part of us that loves this person goes on existing even while we feel that with another part of ourselves we slip away from our loved one’s reach and start needing new horizons, new lands to explore, new hearts to conquer? Is there such thing as loving only with a part of yourself or is love something that sweeps you completely and you love with your whole being? Do humans have the potential, the depth to love absolutely and completely? Or is love fragmented, like we are fragmented? Is it possible for the part that loves and the part that stays indifferent (or even hates) to be two sides of the same coin, two faces of the same feeling? Dick Diver goes on loving his wife, but a part of him grows cold. This terrible contradiction comes not from weakening of his love for her, but from his inability to connect to her. Are love and connection the same thing? I thought so. I am not so sure anymore. He loves her, but feels disconnected from her.


n  "He moved on through the rain, demoniac and frightened, the passions of many men inside him and nothing simple that he could see."n


If we are ready to love without connection does that make our love extraordinarily strong or not strong enough? Can a man who loves a woman whole-heartedly accept only half of her, fragments of her, isn’t the strongest kind of love the one that compels us to either have a full possession of somebody or walk away, because we love them too much to bear to have only fragments of them? Or is the strongest love the one because of which we are ready to make any sacrifices and accept even the smallest particles, when even the smallest piece is better than nothing, when we are ready to sacrifice our life, our pride, our very essence? Dick Diver feels like he has lost an essential part of himself, a part that leaves any real feeling in him incomplete. If we sacrifice too much for the loved one, so much as we no longer feel as ourselves, can love survive? Does true love transcends all? Which is the stronger? The love we bear for the other person or our sense of self? When the sense of self vanishes, do we keep loving? Would Dick have been happier had he left Nicole? Would he have been happy with Rosemary? I think not. When we love somebody, we bear all their baggage, their pain overwhelms us, it becomes a part of us, but the same is valid for their joy, for everything amazing they are and everything amazing they give us. We are overwhelmed, but the mere fact that we love someone so deeply as to let ourselves be overwhelmed gives us a sense of security and belonging and fullness.


n  "He knew that the price of his intactness was incompleteness."n


n   They made no love that day, but when he left her outside the sad door on the Zurichsee and she turned and looked at him he knew her problem was one they had together for good nown


Is his love for her weakness or strength? Or both? When we truly love, how much do we belong to ourselves and how much to the other person?


n  "There were now no more plans than if he had arbitrarily made some indissoluble mixture, with atoms joined and inseparable; you could throw it all out but never again could they fit back into atomic scale. As he held her and tasted her, and as she curved in further and further toward him, new to herself, drowned and engulfed in love, he was thankful to have an existence at all, if only as a reflection in her wet eyes."n


I believe that no two people are absolutely alike or absolutely different, therefore there is no such thing as an absolute harmony or absolute disconnection. The relationship between Dick and Nicole, however strong or weak, keeps on living and tearing him apart. When the relationship does not bring us happiness, when the pain prevails, is it still love? Does true love mean that no matter the circumstances, we can always find some happiness, some spark there? Or do we love even when the passion no longer exists and desperation and emptiness fill our hearts and minds and hang over us and touch us like a pale, cold sun, so alike and unlike the real one that once kept it all alive, but has now melted and disappeared into space, leaving us merely with the memory?


n  It was not so much infatuation as a romantic memory. She was still his girln


Tender Is the Night left me incredibly satisfied and yearning at the same time. I wish Scott Fitzgerald had developed Nicole’s character more. Or Rosemary’s. But with Dick himself being the main focus and how his love and longing, pain and loneliness affect his life and personality, they were more of a catalyst for him than actual characters in the novel. I think that had Fitzgerald given them more personality, this would have been a five-star book for me. Still, it was a great experience. One I am tempted to go back to one day.


Read count: 1

"Oh no, this wealthy hot barely legal teen needs me to take care of her body and her mounds of money forever because she's mentally unstable! What shall I do? Wait - oh man, here comes another hot barely legal teen! Am I going to have to have sex with her too?!" COOL STORY, F SCOTT FITZGERALD.

When Fitzgerald finished this gem, he was stunned by the poor reviews it received. I honestly think it's a profoundly more true and powerful book than Gatsby ever will be. His effortless and viceral writing tells a story of such complex and accurate human relationships, I often find myself reflecting on Dick Diver as a friend I should check up on, and part of me thinks I spent a year of my youth hanging out on the French Riveria having too much to drink, but somehow pulling it off sophistication. Now that I sound like a lunatic, I must express this is not normal for me. The world and characters really got under my skin. After my first reading I woke myself by weeping...and I was weeping for the characters. That has never before or since happened to me. It is a work of profound beauty and pain about the resilience of the human spirit. If you're feeling the world is too glib, I feel this is a great antidote.