"TENDER IS THE NIGHT" BUT ALAS SHE IS CRUEL AS WELL...

There is something about this one. No, really. It has taken me SO long to both read the book and write the review that I was actually beginning to believe (yes, I am superstitious) that it really was never meant to be. Not that there is anything wrong with the book. Quite the opposite in fact, I will go as far as saying that it is writers like Fitzgerald that remind me why literature and writing are art-forms. But it is true that I read less these days. I guess it’s the day job, one gets tired and distracted at work you know, you have very little energy left to actually “concentrate” on anything, much less a serious novel like Tender Is The Nıght… And I mean, you actually want to concentrate on those things not skim through them with your eyes half closed before you go to bed. Time management, that’s what it all comes down to; time management and the rigors of modern living. That, however, I will gripe about in another entry…
Tender is the Night is the story of the Divers. Dick and Nicole Diver are social butterflies, perfect couple, perfect host and hostess with the perfect children. They are universally loved, admired and envied by all who know them and lead an enjoyable and uneventful existence… That is until one summer on the French Riviera, Rosemary bursts into their lives. Rosemary is a young starlet, guided carefully by her mother through both life and Hollywood. However there is one thing mothers cannot guide and that is love. And Rosemary falls for Dick, on the spot. The trouble is, he falls for her as well… Now, a married man having an affair may not exactly be the end of the world in most cases. However, Dick and Nicole have a secret. And this may actually be the end of a world if not the world…
Now some of you may have guessed this is a semi-autobiographical story… Scott F. Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda suffered from the same sort of problem as Nicole (though I sincerely doubt they were for the same reasons). Neither do I know whether Mr. Fitzgerald ever had an affair. However, the way the Diver’s relationship is played out, the sentiments portrayed and the reactions are deeply realistic and easy to identify with. Perhaps it is because they are so close to the truth… Or have their roots in the truth…
The thing I love about Fitzgerald is his style. Now I didn’t feel this so much in The Great Gatsby, but in this novel, I was somehow so struck by the way Fitzgerald said something I quite forgot to concentrate on the content… It’s hard to explain and it hasn’t happened to me very often either, I guess it’s like being so struck by the colors or brushwork in a painting you don’t really notice the subject. Not that the subject is not well chosen, oh Lord no. Indeed, sometimes it was the twists in the story or even some consideration thrown in as an afterthought that made me put down my book and drift off into a reverie…
Tender is the night is like a beautiful, sad dream. No other way to describe it. Never have I seen so much substance packed into such a tiny book… It won’t go down in a gulp… But, hey, in these overly fast times we do a little too much gulping for my liking… Who knows, you might enjoy a good ponder, give it a go…

THE GREAT GATSBY

In my neighborhood, conveniently close to my house there is a bookstore. In that bookstore there is a section where they sell vey reasonably priced modern classics that I often haven’t read before. It’s a pretty small section, the bookstore is dedicated to the “newest thing” more often than not but I tend to check it regularly for bargains. On one such occasion I came back beaming armed with two such modern classics. One of them is the above mentioned Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wolfed the book down in a matter of two days (to give it it’s due my edition is only a 172 pages long). By the time I had got through it I felt as if I had been hit by a bus…
Nick Carraway is a rather reserved young man living in Long Island. He is a realist with feet firmly planted on the ground, leading a very “normal” life and going down to work in the city every day. Next to his modest home is a stately mansion, filled with all the riches a man could desire. It is the setting of lavish parties everyone who is everyone goes to – regardless of whether they were invited or not. The owner of this house is Gatsby. Jay Gatsby. He is something of a man of legend, no one quite knows his origins or his business, all they know is that he is ridiculously rich, mysterious and never drinks at his own parties… He does however, have a secret. A secret Nick Carraway will become privy to, entangled in and changed by…
I was absolutely bowled over by this book… A lot of people, I have been surprised to find out, have a slight prejudice towards Fitzgerald. My grandfather who is a literature professor benignly said “Well, light fiction is also necessary of course”. My grandmother refused to read it point blank – deemed it a waste of time. However I think this is a grave misjudgment of the novel. You will have to get to the end to truly understand the deep and tragic message underlying the whole novel; basically it is dreams, it is real life, it is pursuing a dream at all costs and truly fighting for it… Nick Carraway seemed rather constipated to me all through the novel if you will. I got so aggravated with him I wanted to give him a good shake. I know see that he had to be that way – there is a Carraway and a Gatsby in all of us, the question is of course which one gets the upper hand…
I read a little (a very little mind you) about Fitzgerald’s own life after that… He died tragically young at 46 – and I am sure he had a lot more to offer us. And his beloved wife Zelda was prone to mental breakdowns that shook their marriage and them both individually… I can’t help thinking Fitzgerald’s battle between dreams and real life is in fact heavily influenced by this… I know I am being rather tiresomely underhand about the whole thing but I really want you to unravel Gatsby’s secrets for yourself. Let it suffice to say that even those of us with the teeniest hint of a dreamer hidden in our souls will find a little piece of ourselves in this novel… And be truly moved by it…