Tender is the Night
by F. Scott FitzGerald

   F. Scott Fitzgerald is, at times, supremely magnificent in this surprising tale of a youthful achiever who falls upon hard times. Dick Diver's hard times are caused by his weakness for younger women and his propensity for drink. The sharp clearness and surety of his prime are submerged by his weaknesses.
   Naturally there was a good deal of French spoken on the Riviera. I like to learn a bit here and there.
   On p.26, in my edition, there is a paragraph of what it was like to be around Dick Diver. It reminded me a good bit of my 'Wet Weather' essay.
   My predominant impression of the book was the difficulty I had in mastering the pace of the novel. So much of the action was thinking inside the head and, as reader, I compared it to my own conceptions and distortions, that I maintained little continuity in the early pages of 'Tender is the Night'.

 

 

   One little quote: p.177 " ... if you spend your life sparing people's feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can't distinguish what should be respected in them."

 

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