Reprehensible characters, beautiful settings and intriguing prose: Tender is the Night is not as enjoyable as his better known novel, but it was a satisfying enough read. Though the stretch of years between parts broke the narrative up too abruptly and seemed to me to increase the dullness of the plot at times. ( )

I had to force myself to finish this. The writing itself was exceptional, but I just couldn't stand any of the characters. And I don't enjoy reading about people self-destructing, even when they are so unsympathetic. It didn't turn out quite as bleakly as I came to expect, and that sort of rang false based on what had come before, but oh well. I was at least halfway through the thing before I connected it to what little I knew of Fitzgerald's wife and their marriage. ( )

I had forgotten how depressing F. Scott can be, and I think more than usual in this book. Talk about a tragic ending! ( )

Whenever F. Scott Fitzgerald is mentioned the first thing that comes to mind is "The Great Gatsby". Fitzgerald only published 5 full length novels and one of them was not released until after his untimely death at the age of 44. "Tender is the Night" was the last novel published while he was still living. At the time he was struggling with serious personal problems: alcohol abuse, financial debt, and his beautiful socialite wife Zelda was in and out of mental hospitals suffering from schizophrenia. The glamorous lifestyle F. Scott and Zelda lived during the 1920’s was falling apart, and so was their marriage. "Tender is the Night" mirrors the pain, confusion, frustration and dissatisfaction in F. Scott’s life.

Told in three parts "Tender is the Night" begins on the beach at the French Riviera, a playground for the idle rich during the late 1920’s. Part 1 is seen through the eyes of Rosemary Hoyt, a young beautiful American actress on vacation. Her first day on the beach she meets the perfect couple, Nicole and Dr. Dick Diver, charming hosts to an intimate group of friends. From the moment Rosemary meets the Divers she is attracted to Dick, and much to Nicole’s dismay he draws Rosemary into their clique. Rosemary is dewy fresh, lighthearted and enthusiastic. In contrast, Nicole is disciplined, refined, and socially reserved. An affair seems inevitable. Towards summer’s end, filled with self assurance and in total command, Dick says, “I want to throw a really bad party….where there is a brawl and seductions and people go home with their feelings hurt and women pass out…..” It is no surprise that Part 1 ends with drama, scandal, and disarray.

Part 2 drops back to 1917, and tells in-depth story of Nicole and Dick Diver’s romance and marriage. Highlighting particular events of the early years of the Diver’s relationship, the story weaves its way back to the present.

Many Fitzgerald fans were dissatisfied with the sequence of Part 1 and Part 2, but I found it ingenious. It allows the reader to initially see the Diver’s from an unbiased objective point of view as Rosemary saw them. As in "The Great Gatsby," Fitzgerald liked to reserve an element of surprise; as the reader eventually learned of Gatsby’s true character, they also experience the shock of finding out that Nicole and Dick are not the perfect couple. In the conclusive Part 3 Dick and Nicole’s relationship spirals out of control as the Divers struggle to find themselves and deal with their tumultuous lifestyle and troubled marriage. "Tender is the Night" does not quite live up to the standard of "The Great Gatsby", but it certainly has intriguing characters and a very powerful plot. ( )

We break ourselves against one another; shattering our spirits against the unyielding hardness, the unforgiving and jagged defenses which protect our loved ones’ spirits. It is a necessary and all too familiar part of life. Sometimes the collision chokes a relationship, killing it before it can grow, and other times, it nurtures a bond until it flowers and sustains life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life was filled with such collisions, most notably his marriage to Zelda. Zelda’s fragile and oft broken psyche and the strained love between her and Fitzgerald clearly inspired him to write [Tender is the Night]. The novel follows the Divers, Dick and Nicole. Dick, a psychiatrist, falls in love with a patient, Nicole and begins a life altering obsession to cure her. During one of Nicole’s interludes of sanity, the couple meets Rosemary, a self-obsessed, narcissistic teenage actress. She tempts Dick and they have a brief love affair. Dick’s betrayal forever alters his love of Nicole, as she becomes increasingly paranoid and distrustful and he wallows in guilt and weakness.

The book’s story is not particularly engaging, as these spoiled and selfish people seem to randomly careen around, bumping into each other. But on several occasions, Fitzgerald’s pain and anguish over his wife’s malady and their tenuous bond to each other bleed through the rest of the story and characters, quickening the novel. I can’t say I enjoyed reading [Tender as the Night], though it certainly seized me in the occasional moment of raw emotion and pain. Fitzgerald wasn’t always telling a good story but often transposed powerful feelings, ones which must have afflicted him, into the book. And most every page offers graceful, harmonic language. Often, I turned off the processes in my mind with sort through story and plot and character to simply absorb the rich, powerful prose.

Bottom Line: A classic for two reasons: the way Fitzgerald can string words together and the glimpse it offers into lives cursed by madness.

4 bones!!!! ( )