Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Backtoblack

Tender is the night By F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Just had a look at the following review on >>an online bookstore<<. Quite the review too.
Will try to get it in town i think

Tender Is the Night is one of the most interesting examples in 20th century fiction of reversing the usual social metaphors. Dr. Dick Diver, a psychiatrist, is examined as a case of mental health. He is also placed in a classic woman's role, that of the desired, amiable beauty sought after by all and sundry. These juxtapositions of the usual social perspectives allow the reader to touch closer to the realities of human need and connection, by piercing our assumptions about what is "right and proper."
The story begins from the perspective of Rosemary Hoyt, an 18-year-old motion picture star, recuperating on the Rivera. One day she goes to the beach and becomes entranced by the Divers, Dick and Nicole, a golden couple with whom she immediately falls in love. Beautiful, young, rich, and looking for adventure, she quickly sets out to capture Dick who is the most wonderful person she has ever met.
Later, the story shifts to Dick's perspective and traces back to the beginnings of his marriage to Nicole. She had formed an accidental attachment to him (a classic psychiatric transference) while residing in a mental hospital. He returned her friendship, and found it impossible to break her heart. They married, and he played the role of at-home psychiatrist tending her schizophrenia. All went well for years, but gradually he became weary of his role. His weariness causes him to re-evaluate his views on life . . . and the psychological profile of Dr. Diver, charming bon vivant, begins.

The tale is a remarkably modern one, even if it was set in the 1920s. Fitzgerald deeply investigates the meanings of love, humanity, and connection. In so doing, he uncovers some of the strongest and most vile of human passions, and makes fundamental commentaries about the futility of fighting against human nature. The result is a particularly bleak view of life, in which the tenders may end up more injured by life than those they tend. What good is it to please everyone else, if they offend rather than please you instead?

The character portrayals of Rosemary Hoyt, Dick Diver, and Nicole Diver are remarkably finely drawn. I can remember no other book where three such interesting characters are so well developed. You will feel like each of them is an old friend by the time the novel ends.

If you have ever had the chance to read Freud, the novel will remind you of his writings. There is the same fine literary hand, the succinctness and clarity of expression, and the remorseless directness of looking straight at the unpleasant. I felt like I was reading Freud rather than Fitzgerald in many sections.

This book should open up your mind to thinking about which social conventions you observe that leave you uncomfortable . . . or which are in contradiction to your own nature. Having surfaced those misfitting parts of your life, I suggest that you consider how you could shift your observation of conventions to make them more meaningful and emotionally rewarding for you.

Be considerate because it pleases you to be, not as a ruse to obtain love!


Backtoblack
Has anyone read it?

BossArky

Not read it yet but got it on ebay last year. May get around to it in the next months. Let me know if it is anygood.

tSubh Dearg

it is an excellent book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I read it years ago but I still remember a lot of it. (In fact I should get around to reading it again, I think I would appreciate it even more now.)

Backtoblack

Didn't have it in Secrets today.. Will pick it up soon though.
The reviews look really good & it has the thumbs up from T.dearg!!
Might try in hog.fig or somewhere when i'm town again.
My to-read pile always has a nice choice.. & have lolita and one or two good ones ordered online.. so but might be a while before i read it too!

Amazotheamazing

Just following on the great Gatsby threads, personally I prefer Tender is the Night, whereas Gatsby is a technically perfect book, Fitzgerald's characters in Tender is the Night are more complete. It's also easy to read it as semi-autobiographical work on Fitzgerald's part and damage done to both his writing and his marriage by the high life in the 1920's, which was something he returned to repeatedly in his short stories, The Crack-up, the Pat Hobby Stories, and Babylon Revisited.

Fitzgerald recognised the huge emotional cost of the 1920's even when enjoying the high-life, in This Side of Paradise he helped open the Jazz Age in Tender is the Night he's consciously closing it. A lot of writers want to define their era, but Fitzgerald did.

quincyk

An enthralling read, and most certainly Fitzgerald's best.




This Side of Paradise is well worth a read, too. Oh, and Brad Pitt's latest film, Benjamin Button, is an adaptation of the novel by Fitz.

shotgun mike

F Scott kicks ass and takes names. if you get a chance read may day, one of the short stories in tales of the jazz age. it's got the most stunning final paragraph in anything i've ever read.

Co-incidentally, F Scott's wife, Zelda Fitzgerald wrote her only book 'Save the last Waltz' about all the same time as tender is the night, and deals with the same characters and issues, albeit from her point of view. fascinating literary footnote, and much more....

zesman

Read recently The Diamond As Big As The Ritz. A strange tale about excess.

godspal

There are two editions of this book due to Scotty taking a slating at the time about his over-zealous investigation of the upper-middle class. (The characters representing a privileged America, while during The Great Depression Working Classes were seen as more fascinating character, case-in-point 'The Grapes of Wrath.)

The Two Editions are written in completely different styles:

1934 Edition:
Three Book Modernist investigation of Dick Diver. The Book weaves and wraps together each and every character's interactions, and F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the great influence that Conrad Joseph had on him by not giving too much of the protagonist's character at the beginning but by developing the character as an entirety by the end. Fitzgerald's realist approach is very in depth examination of Dick Diver. (Remember this book is only loosely auto-biographical, Zelda Fitzgerald did go insane but the comparisons between her and Rosemary Driver are flimsy at best.)

1936 Edition:
Five Book division of the Tragedy of Dick Diver. Fitzgerald is more fatalistic in his approach, we see the problems arise at the beginning of the novel when Fitzgerald starts the novel with the exchange of letters between Nicole and Dick. (Something he reserved for the Second Book in his first edition.) Fitzgerald approaches the novel in a more classical style (The Five Books can be compared to Shakespeare's plays, while the Three Book can be compared to modernist drama such as Ibsen, O'Neill and Strandenberg.)

So!!! After that examination of the differences between the two novels I believe that Fitzgerald was always trying to focus on Dick's tragic fall from grace, consequently I would ask people to please stop using the following buzzwords:

Freud/Freudian
Autobiographical

For they are an insult to F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.

Madou

godspal wrote: »

(Remember this book is only loosely auto-biographical, Zelda Fitzgerald did go insane but the comparisons between her and Rosemary Driver are flimsy at best.)

godspal wrote: »

So!!! After that examination of the differences between the two novels I believe that Fitzgerald was always trying to focus on Dick's tragic fall from grace, consequently I would ask people to please stop using the following buzzwords:

Freud/Freudian
Autobiographical

For they are an insult to F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.

Stop insulting ol' Scotty there, no need for that!

Amazotheamazing

godspal wrote: »

There are two editions of this book due to Scotty taking a slating at the time about his over-zealous investigation of the upper-middle class. (The characters representing a privileged America, while during The Great Depression Working Classes were seen as more fascinating character, case-in-point 'The Grapes of Wrath.)

The Two Editions are written in completely different styles:

1934 Edition:
Three Book Modernist investigation of Dick Diver. The Book weaves and wraps together each and every character's interactions, and F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the great influence that Conrad Joseph had on him by not giving too much of the protagonist's character at the beginning but by developing the character as an entirety by the end. Fitzgerald's realist approach is very in depth examination of Dick Diver. (Remember this book is only loosely auto-biographical, Zelda Fitzgerald did go insane but the comparisons between her and Rosemary Driver are flimsy at best.)

1936 Edition:
Five Book division of the Tragedy of Dick Diver. Fitzgerald is more fatalistic in his approach, we see the problems arise at the beginning of the novel when Fitzgerald starts the novel with the exchange of letters between Nicole and Dick. (Something he reserved for the Second Book in his first edition.) Fitzgerald approaches the novel in a more classical style (The Five Books can be compared to Shakespeare's plays, while the Three Book can be compared to modernist drama such as Ibsen, O'Neill and Strandenberg.)

So!!! After that examination of the differences between the two novels I believe that Fitzgerald was always trying to focus on Dick's tragic fall from grace, consequently I would ask people to please stop using the following buzzwords:

Freud/Freudian
Autobiographical

For they are an insult to F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.

Where would you fit in Fitzgerald's Catholicism into this, the fallen and redemptive figures?

When I said the book was semi-autobiographical, I meant in relation to Scott Fitzgerald himself. Dick Diver does have many of Fitzgerald's characteristics, imo.

godspal

My Master Thesis Bibliography:

Well the idea of repedemption in Tender is the Night is definitely a mis-reading. Who is redeemed by the end of the book?

-Rosemary Hoyt is still an actress still mirroring other peoples wants.
-Dick Diver, the prominent, world renowned doctor is now a local doctor in New Jersey.
-Nicole finds another man who she sees as a father figure begining the whole transference process all over again.
-Tommy Barban is still a soliditary figure. Still a man of action just like in the war.
-Abe North was killed in a speak-easy.

Amazotheamazing

godspal wrote: »

My Master Thesis Bibliography:

Well the idea of repedemption in Tender is the Night is definitely a mis-reading. Who is redeemed by the end of the book?

-Rosemary Hoyt is still an actress still mirroring other peoples wants.
-Dick Diver, the prominent, world renowned doctor is now a local doctor in New Jersey.
-Nicole finds another man who she sees as a father figure begining the whole transference process all over again.
-Tommy Barban is still a soliditary figure. Still a man of action just like in the war.
-Abe North was killed in a speak-easy.

About Nicole, is it not the point that Dick ruins himself trying to redeem someone who doesn't really merit it? That in the end she was no different than the others and that he will never really be accepted as part of their "class"? I dunno, it's a long time since I read it.

godspal

About Nicole, is it not the point that Dick ruins himself trying to redeem someone who doesn't really merit it? That in the end she was no different than the others and that he will never really be accepted as part of their "class"? I dunno, it's a long time since I read it

What?!
He was part of their class from the opening of the novel. Thats why in the original edition Fitzgerald and slowly works backward to show the build up the present in second part, and then the downfall from the end of the second part and for the rest of the third part.
The novel also shows that Dick is somewhat heroised, especially in Rosemary's and Albert North's eyes.

Amazotheamazing

godspal wrote: »

What?!
He was part of their class from the opening of the novel. Thats why in the original edition Fitzgerald and slowly works backward to show the build up the present in second part, and then the downfall from the end of the second part and for the rest of the third part.
The novel also shows that Dick is somewhat heroised, especially in Rosemary's and Albert North's eyes.

Ok, you're the expert, but wasn't he from a fairly poor/middle-class backround, whereas Nicole comes from a rich backround? To some extent, he compromises himself to join their "class".

Btw, I'm thinking of the version of the book which starts with Rosemary arriving in the south of France.

godspal

My memory fails me on this... but I am almost sure that Dick's past is never mentioned. (would really mess with the structure of the books since its suppose to be the analysis of Nicole's past.) might be briefly mentioned, I don't think there was much emphasis put on it.

Amazotheamazing

godspal wrote: »

My memory fails me on this... but I am almost sure that Dick's past is never mentioned. (would really mess with the structure of the books since its suppose to be the analysis of Nicole's past.) might be briefly mentioned, I don't think there was much emphasis put on it.

I thought the fact that it was Nicole's money that allowed him open his own clinic was what ultimately led to his destruction. It robbed him of the ambition to be great in his own right, and made him determined to redeem Nicole. he ends up abandoning his books, his practice etc.

Dick Diver comes from a relatively modest backround, and returns to it. Baby is always making a point of it. He dedicated himself to saving someone without ever seeing the impact it would and was having on him.

godspal

Baby's dialogue is more focused on that he's American... She is an Anglophile after-all.
Dick and Nicole's initial interactions are through letters, and Dick is recruited by Nicole's father.
Tommy Barban was the only character that is distinguished in the novel as being from a working class background. And he is a man of action.
Dick however is a man of inaction.

I think a class reading of Tender is the Night would be a poor interpretation of the novel. It conveniently glosses over more complex parts of the novel such as Rosemary's play, and admiration for Dick.

Amazotheamazing

godspal wrote: »

Baby's dialogue is more focused on that he's American... She is an Anglophile after-all.
Dick and Nicole's initial interactions are through letters, and Dick is recruited by Nicole's father.
Tommy Barban was the only character that is distinguished in the novel as being from a working class background. And he is a man of action.
Dick however is a man of inaction.

I think a class reading of Tender is the Night would be a poor interpretation of the novel. It conveniently glosses over more complex parts of the novel such as Rosemary's play, and admiration for Dick.

But so much of Fitzgerald's work is infused with the distinction between the rich and the rest of us, you can't ignore it.

godspal

yes there is a distinction between the majority of classes and the "luxury" class in Fitzgerald's books. However The Great Gatsby is a much more direct treatment of this idea then Tender is the Night.
Tender is the Night is more of an examination of thought, intention and positions within a niche in society.
Tender is the Night is more intimate then the way you're examining it.

KevinH

The final paragraph of Tender is the Night (I have the 5 book version):

"After that he didn't ask for the children to be sent to America and didn't answer when Nicole wrote asking him if he needed money. In the last letter she had from him he told her that he was practising in Geneva, New York, and she got the impression that he had settled down with someone to keep house for him. She looked up Geneva in an atlas and found it was in the heart of the Finger Lakes section and considered a pleasant place. Pehaps, so she liked to think, his career was biding its time, again like Grant's in Galena; his latest note was post-marked from Hornell, New York, which is some distance from Geneva and a very small town; in any case he is almost certainly in that section of the country, in one town or another."

It's a long time since I read the book, but for some reason that final paragraph stayed with me. Fitzgerald has a gift with words.