Due to my insatiable love for The Great Gatsby, I decided that I needed to read something else by Fitzgerald - just to see if it was only Gatsby who pulled at my proverbial heartstrings or if it is something in Fitzgerald’s writing.
Also, it’s almost impossible to
give a plot synopsis of Tender is the Night by F Scott
Fitzgerald without giving away some of the juicy
details, so if you don’t want to read any spoilers, just skip this next part:
Tender is the Night is
ultimately the story of Dick Diver and his wife Nicole. It is broken up into a
three part tale.
Book One begins with a young, beautiful actress named
Rosemary. She is vacationing on the French Riviera with her mother after the
release of her movie “Daddy’s Girl” (a movie where father and daughter seem to
have a somewhat sexual relationship). One day while sitting on the beach she
meets a group of hoity toity people. Uninterested in their company, she meets
another group of people, and she finds herself falling in love with one of the
men in the group, Dick Diver. Rosemary is invited to a dinner party at the
Diver’s home. They appear to be an immaculate couple, with beautiful children
and a beautiful home. Among these guests is a young man named Tommy who
says, rather deliberately to Rosemary, that he likes Nicole very much (which
stood out very blatantly to me, as the reader). One of the guests goes into the
house to use the restroom and upon returning claims that she has a secret about
what she saw going on within the home. Tommy interrupts her and says that she
must not talk about what goes on inside the house. Throughout Book One Rosemary
and Dick flirt with one another. At first Dick acts as though its childish
flirting, he refers to Rosemary as an infant, but soon the flirting turns into
something much more.
(Ok. So a lot of things go on in
each of these books, with a lot of different characters, so trying to summarize
is getting a little hard without confusing you. I am going to try and condense it
down even more.)
While on a trip in Paris it becomes apparent
to Nicole that Dick is showing off for Rosemary, also Rosemary puts the moves
on Dick, they kiss. They find Nicole screaming in the bathroom having a
breakdown, and Rosemary realizes that this is what the guest had seen at the
dinner party inside the house.
Book Two is from Dick Diver’s
point of view. We have lost Rosemary as Dick puts her on a train and sends her
away after Nicole’s mental breakdown. But, Dick’s point of view actually begins
much before they ever meet Rosemary on the French Riviera.
It turns out that Dick Diver is a
psychologist – a great one at that - who by chance met Nicole at a mental
institution. She was sent there after her mother died and her extremely rich father
began to sexually abuse her. Pretty, huh? Anyway, Nicole falls in love with Dick. So they get
engaged. Then through a montage of scenes we are brought back up to the present
day. Dick misses Rosemary terribly and is worried about Nicole’s state of mind.
They travel to the Alps and there he meets
with his old psychologist friends and they propose he start a clinic with them.
They start the clinic, after a while Dick isn’t happy and Nicole begins to have
mental problems again. Dick decides to take a break from the clinic and Nicole,
and heads on vacation. At some point in his travels he is in Italy and runs
into Rosemary. They catch up and finally do the deed.
Book Three is basically just about
the end of Dick and Nicole Diver. Dick can’t stop drinking. He can’t stop being
an asshole to everyone he meets. He pulls out of the clinic that he started,
and the Divers go back to the French Riviera where the story began. Rosemary is
there – she and Dick flirt in front of Nicole. Nicole gets upset - she has an
affair with Tommy – the young man from the beginning of the story. Tommy
confronts Dick and tells him that Nicole doesn’t love him anymore and that they
must get a divorce. Dick agrees.
Nicole marries Tommy and Dick
tries to start clinics in America
but all seem to fail.
SYNOPSIS OVER. Holy cow. And I cut
A LOT of stuff out, too.
For a non-spoiler recap (or just a much shorter recap): This book
is about Dick Diver and his wife, Nicole. They travel to a lot of places. They
meet an actress and have friends. They do dinner on the French Riviera.
Something happens at dinner. More stuff happens. It turns out Dick is a
psychologist – and a good one at that. He has even written a widely acclaimed
text book. They travel some more. You basically watch Dick’s entire life
disintegrate. The end!
I actually really enjoyed this
book, it was very easy to connect to the characters – even more so than in
Gatsby – they had a richness to them, like people you could actually see
yourself sitting down to a French Riviera dinner with.
The novel did seem to draw on for
a long time. Some of the other characters just didn’t really need to be in
there, at least that’s how it felt to me. I understand that through watching
the other character’s lives change, as well as the Divers, you can see the
passage of time and how life affects everyone – for the good and the bad.
It really was a touching story
though; I mean I was pretty emotionally invested in the characters by the end
of the book, particularly Dick.
In the end I was expecting a
different sort of ending. It all wrapped up very quickly. I thought for sure
Dick was going to leap from the top of the cliff on the beach – and I suppose I
would have rather had that than the way the book actually did end.
I think I need to read one more
book by Fitzgerald before I conclude whether it is his writing in general, or
just the one novel, that make me love him.
On to reading!
