From the Lists: #28 Tender Is the Night

With the recent release of Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby, (which I really liked - purists can howl and berate me in the comments area about my pedestrian taste in movies), I was eager for another Fitzgerald novel. Like Gatsby, Tender Is the Night (1934) follows another doomed relationship between expats Dick and Nicole Diver.

Dick is a psychiatrist, Nicole was his patient, but is also an obscenely rich heiress. They live the lives of migratory socialites moving from city to city, season to season, home to home. On the surface they are a model couple with a beautiful family and a close circle of friends. As we learn more about their relationship, we see it is built on the shakiest of grounds.

Their life is determined by the cycles of Nicole's breakdowns, recoveries, seeming happiness, manic states, and breakdowns. Dick, always on alert for changes in Nicole's behavior, is also a bit of a cad. I am unsure how I feel about this character. He is charming. Women find him handsome. He has given his life to Nicole's care, yet he can be a surly drunk, enjoys his mostly innocent dalliances with women (loves to be chased, but not very happy when caught), and is sadly unsatisfied in his life's circumstances. Like Sister Carrie (#33) this novel follows the trajectory of one partner's rise as the other partner falls or dissipates into alcohol.

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald

This novel is also somewhat autobiographical in that it closely mirrors the events of the Fitzgeralds'
lives during this time. Like Dick, Fitzgerald felt his career was a failure and that he was stagnating. He incorporated in the novel his feelings about his parents, who provided much of the inspiration for Dick and Nicole, details of his own marriage, Zelda's mental breakdown, her subsequent stay at a Swiss psychiatric hospital, his affair with actress Lois Moran, and Zelda's affair with the French aviator Edouard Jozan.

For me, I thought the novel's use of flashback was quite ingenious, allowing the reader to build a relationship with the characters before learning all their dirty secrets. The writing style was concise with lovely use of descriptive passages reminiscent of Gatsby. I could feel the sand, the sun, the warm breezes, the sultry evenings, the crispness of the alps, as well as Dick and Nicole's desperation to appear happy and normal to the end.

Sophomoric Moment

While reading Tender Is the Night, I could not help but giggle when "Dick hardened himself for what he knew was coming..." or the inevitable "Dick stiffened..." We never really get out of high school do we?