Tender Is the Night

Well written but still hard to read.

I've decided that I have gotten to far away from the novels that I enjoyed in High School and opted to re-read a lot of them, the first being "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and this being the second. I wasn't convinced beginning my second read of "Tender is the Night" that the value I placed on it so many years ago will be the same, but; as I have continued, I'm becoming reassured.

It took two attempts for me to finish this book. The first time I lost interest in the beginning. The second time, I lost interest half-way through and finished it anyway. There's a lot of great writing and I was somewhat engaged in the female characters, but Dick always seemed lacking somehow, and that feeling just increased. I also wasn't interested in the meandering plot. So this was not the most enjoyable read for me.

The 4 sessions were really divided in thought and score and once again left me thinking about how like minded people seemingly gravitated together. Things we were all in agreement with were the shallow characters and the use by the author of many minor roles. This was something that is usually evident in all classics and was definitely a characteristic of novels of that time. It is widely known that Fitzgerald had a tendency to write about things in his own live (the old "write what you know") and certainly Nicole mirrored many of Zelda personality traits. I obsessively loved this book and found no fault really, I think it is certainly a book that you have to "sit into", and although his writing was typical of the time if you hadn't read this style in a while it is hard to get a rhythm. I think the main difference with the scores occurred because we are used to book having a clear point, be it a murder, crime, love story, but Fitzgerald just wrote about an average (all be it upper class) man trying to find his way. Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients. The story mirrors events in the lives of the author and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald as Dick starts his descent into alcoholism and Nicole descends into mental illness. One of the things that really struck me was the themes, in a time where nothing was talked about and everyone was supposed to keep a stiff upper lip, this author shyed away from nothing, it is a rare find of a book that in the 1920's discussed mental illness and its many nuances.