- Author : F.Scott Fitzgerald
- Binding : Paperback
- Dewey Decimal Number : 813
- EAN : 9780140282559
- ISBN : 0140282556
- Label : Penguin Books Ltd
- List Price : $16.50 (USD)
- Manufacturer : Penguin Books Ltd
- Number Of Pages : 400
- Package Dimensions : 1.18 inches (Height) x 6.93 inches (Length) x 0.62 pounds (Weight) x 4.33 inches (Width)
- Publication Date : 1999-02-25
- Publisher : Penguin Books Ltd
- Studio : Penguin Books Ltd
In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafes of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirees, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were part of this gang of literary Young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters, psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former patient turned wife, Nicole. Certainly the hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided the inspiration for the clinic where Diver meets, treats, and then marries the wealthy Nicole Warren. And Fitzgerald drew both the European locale and many of the characters from places and people he knew from abroad. In the novel, Dick is eventually ruined--professionally, emotionally, and spiritually--by his union with Nicole. Fitzgerald's fate was not quite so novelistically neat: after Zelda was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and committed, Fitzgerald went to work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1937 to pay her hospital bills. He died three years later--not melodramatically, like poor Jay Gatsby in his swimming pool, but prosaically, while eating a chocolate bar and reading a newspaper. Of all his novels, Tender Is the Night is arguably the one closest to his heart. As he himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession of faith."
- Amazon.com Review
In "Tender is the Night", Fitzgerald distilled much of his tempestuous life with his wife Zelda, and the knowledge of the wrecked, fabulous Fitzgeralds adds poignancy and regret to this tender, supple and poetic portrait. To the just-fashionable French Riviera come Dick and Nicole Diver - handsome, rich, glamorous and enormous fun. Their dinners are legend, their atmosphere magnetic, their intelligence fine. But something is wrong. Nicole has a secret and Dick a weakness. Together they head towards the rocks on which their lives crash - and only one of them really survives.
- Product Description
Customer Reviews:
Customers rated Tender is the Night (Essential Penguin) 4.0 stars out of 5.0 based on 150 reviews:Highly Recommend
by C. W. Swenson (Sioux Falls, SD) - 2010-07-05
An entertaining and illustrative portrayal of a golden time. This is Fitzgerald at his best!Masterpiece, but ...
by indyjones11 (atlanta) - 2010-06-24
What a difference the edition makes. The re-ordered sections change the entire pacing. The original version, published in 1934 echews the chronological narrative and packs a different punch. Revised in the early 50s (posthumously), the later version is easier to follow, but loses a bit in the build up. A classic either way - perhaps strong than Gatsby.Why is Fitzgerald so attracted to such loathsome characters?
by J. Edgar Mihelic (Chicago) - 2010-06-15
Now, I have an admission to make. In my own fiction, I tend to get lost in my own little world, fall in love with my language and my parataxis, and subject my reader to little in-jokes that make me laugh. For example, in a recent work of mine, I included a little part about T. S. Eliot's Wasteland. I referenced, what I though to be heavy handedly, the "game of chess" section, and what I hoped to be more oblique, the "death by water" part. This was done because I was trying to get across the theme of decay. Ok, so it did not work. I can accept that fact. Maybe I have to be more aware of the audience, or something along those lines. The point here is that my own idiosyncrasies perhaps do not translate well. I have the same problem reading Fitzgerald that I suppose that people have when reading my own work. Alcoholics living out their own malaise in high society do not interest me. I cannot find the characters that Fitzgerald writes about compelling. I find myself disgusted at their self-indulgent and harmful acts. The knowledge that these characters come from real life in the circles that Fitzgerald lived in pushes me over the edge. He obviously had interest in these sorts of people. It cannot be denied that he the prime chronicler of the Jazz Age. Dick, Nicole and their lot are loathsome characters. I first read this book, two years or so ago, and I have to say that I have no desire to revisit it. There are other more pressing things on the schedule, like washing my hair. Fitzgerald got closer to a sympathetic character when he fleshed out Nick in The Great Gatsby. I think this is because he was portraying someone more like himself. Nick was more of an outsider looking in, or in his case, at the other end of the egg. Fitzgerald is able to create someone who you can sympathize with, because Nick somehow comes across as the most human of the characters that I can remember. Nick possesses a certain sense of longing to belong that seems to be indicative of Fitzgerald himself. He appears as an outsider in this expatriate community, or even the riche community of Gatsby. The question I have is, "Why is Fitzgerald so attracted to such loathsome characters?" He to seems entranced by broken people in circumstances that would seem to be the embodiment of success on some levels. These characters all have a façade that seems smooth and glassy, only you can see the imperfections the closer you get. Dick, Nicole, Rosemary, Abe, Jay, and Nick all have their failings in the realm of fiction. Fitzgerald has his own, and so does Zelda. I have no answers for my own question, and as a reader, I cannot get past this isolation that Fitzgerald uses by focusing on such unsympathetic characters. His writings have long been canonized, and are taught all over, but I have a distance with him that is greater than the one I feel when reading Hemingway.As Mediocre As It Can Get
by Taka (T.Kyo, Japan) - 2010-03-25
The first 40 pages is dull. So is the middle 100 pages. The ending is probably one of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever read as it ends not with not a bang but a sad whimper in diminuendo as if the author just didn't want to work on it anymore and dashed off a coda. Fitzgerald's lyricism, in my opinion, is simply overrated. Granted, there are some breathtaking passages (which I took note of), but most of the writing was just dull, dull, dull. He would've benefited tremendously from studying storytelling as well since he makes the middle portion so deadly dull that it made me want to chuck it across the room, and butchers the last portion so badly that it came across as amateurish - choppy, rushed, and consequently ungraceful - which gives credence to his own remark about the book: "I would give anything if I hadn't had to write Part III of Tender Is the Night entirely on stimulant..." He also makes tons of basic storytelling faux pas, such as redundant attributions (e.g. "I think so, too," he agreed), unnecessary and dull passages that add practically nothing to the story, a whole section (the middle section, more specifically from p.114 to 207) where we follow the main characters wander around without any specific objective except to kill time, and the last part that's haphazardly and painfully put together. The result is a very uneven book with deep pits of absolute boredom. Didn't really like itTaken aback.
by Courtney E. Flores (San Leandro, California) - 2009-10-17
I was excited to start this book at first. The story started off somewhat slow. Not till I started the middle of the book then it started to get exciting. The ending did not turn out how I expected. Overall, I felt depressed after reading this story.
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