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| Tender Is the Night (Penguin Modern Classics) | 
| Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Publisher: Penguin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.09
Buy New: $10.59
You Save: $5.50 (34%)
New (11) from $10.59
Avg. Customer Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 76216
Media: Paperback
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0141183594
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780141183596
ASIN: 0141183594
Publication Date: April 26, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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Amazon.com
In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafes of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirees, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were part of this gang of literary Young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters, psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former patient turned wife, Nicole. Certainly the hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided the inspiration for the clinic where Diver meets, treats, and then marries the wealthy Nicole Warren. And Fitzgerald drew both the European locale and many of the characters from places and people he knew from abroad. In the novel, Dick is eventually ruined--professionally, emotionally, and spiritually--by his union with Nicole. Fitzgerald's fate was not quite so novelistically neat: after Zelda was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and committed, Fitzgerald went to work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1937 to pay her hospital bills. He died three years later--not melodramatically, like poor Jay Gatsby in his swimming pool, but prosaically, while eating a chocolate bar and reading a newspaper. Of all his novels, Tender Is the Night is arguably the one closest to his heart. As he himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession of faith."
Product Description
Published in 1934, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year. "It's amazing how excellent much of it is," Ernest Hemingway said to Maxwell Perkins. "I will say now," John O'Hara wrote Fitzgerald, "Tender Is the Night is in the early stages of being my favorite book, even more than This Side of Paradise." And Archibald MacLeish exclaimed: "Great God, Scott...You are a fine writer. Believe it -- not me."Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character -- lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative -- Tender Is the Night, Mabel Dodge Luhan remarked, raised F. Scott Fitzgerald to the heights of "a modern Orpheus."
Download Description
"Published in 1934, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year. ""It's amazing how excellent much of it is,"" Ernest Hemingway said to Maxwell Perkins. ""I will say now,"" John O'Hara wrote Fitzgerald, ""Tender Is the Night is in the early stages of being my favorite book, even more than This Side of Paradise."" And Archibald MacLeish exclaimed: ""Great God, Scott...You are a fine writer. Believe it -- not me."" Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character -- lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative -- Tender Is the Night, Mabel Dodge Luhan remarked, raised F. Scott Fitzgerald to the heights of ""a modern Orpheus."" "
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| Customer Reviews: Read 130 more reviews...
More personal than The Great Gatsby September 3, 2008
Tender Is the Night is the story of a very dysfunctional American couple, the Divers, slowly disintegrating in Europe. Much less economical and symbolic than The Great Gatsby, it is a personal work. There are some problems with this novel, such as the coincidental way in which characters meet each other again across Europe and the poor development of some of the important secondary characters. However, one is convincingly drawn in to the initial magic of the Divers' relationship and its gradual collapse.
 not reading this August 20, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You don't need to buy this book to know it sucks. Just click "look inside" on the left side of the item page. The book starts out describing some building. Ok, do I have to be a student of architecture in order to appreciate this book? The first paragraph is supposed to pull the reader in. I'm not sure I can express how NOT PULLED IN the first paragraph makes me. So superficial, mundane...oh, DO I need a 3rd adjective? I don't know what kind of "great minds" like to waste their lives away reading about the paint job of some building. Even if it's only a couple seconds, we as mere mortals DO NOT have even the slightest amount of time to waste. If I'm going to waste my time, I'd rather it be on my own terms, and not on those of Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald.
mastery of language July 28, 2008
I think you need a quiet place and state of mind to really appreciate this book, because it is not only the stories of these characters but the way they are presented...so incredibly tragic, poetic and beautiful. The author did an incredible job in inviting readers into the labyrinth of hope, despair, conflicts, alienation of the characters so intimately. Great book.
 Story without an ending July 6, 2008
"Tender is the Night" is a poignant story of a psychiatrist who fell in love with his patient and married her to stay close. Fitzgerald wrote the book under the impression of psychological problems of his wife Zelda; thus, the story is very real and sincere.
The book manages to show complexity of characters underneath the casual masks. Dick Diver (the psychiatrist) is not merely a great doctor; he is a husband as well, which means two most important things in his life (work and Nicole) closely intertwined. Nicole (the patient) is not merely a rich psycho; she manages to remain strong through her disease, understand and forgive her husband, and find a new, happier marriage, after Dick became miserable in his alcohol addiction. Rosemary (a young promising actress) does not have a crush on Dick; she loves him for the first and, arguably, only time in her life. Fitzgerald's characters are not ordinary people, as there are no ordinary people in life, in general.
Fitzgerald did not create a happy ending for the story, as there would be no happy ending in life. Confessions are made, and characters found their niches in life, but at the same time, there is some sense that the story is not over by the end of the book. "Tender is the Night" leaves the reader astonished, eager to know the end, at the same time showing that there is no end to some stories. They dissolve in the air and disappear slowly, as the letters from Dick to Nicole.
Tough Times on the Riviera April 23, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Not the most cohesive of Fitzgerald's work, Tender is the Night does deliver on Fitzgerald's beautiful prose and heartbreaking characterizations. The novel explores the disintegration of a promising young American doctor whose idealism comes under the crushing weight of hard capitalistic power. At times it becomes difficult to believe in the main character's steady decline since early in the novel he is depicted as so brilliant and thoughtful. However, Fitzgerald tries (and generally succeeds) in making the argument that American idealism is a fragile thing and not impervious to the destructive power of money.
Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets
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