Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Fitzgerald's most personal novel June 21, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
In a Swiss sanatorium above lake Zürich, Dr Richard (Dick) Diver meets a fascinating young patient, Nicole Warren. Nicole suffers from Divided Personality at its acute down-hill phase which translates in her fear of men because she was the victim of incest after her mother's death.
Nicole's state improves after some time at the clinic and Richard marries her. They move to the French Riviera where they live in the glamour provided by Nicole's family money but soon their luck runs out.
This novel is Fitzgerald's most personal one if one considers that his own wife Zelda became increasingly troubled with mental illness in the 1930s and so the story of Dick Diver and his schizophrenic wife Nicole shows the pain that the author went through himself. It is the moving account of the collapse of a marriage and an attempt to diagnose the sickness and destruction that money breeds. Dick's final loneliness in the novel reflects Fitzgerald's own dive into drink and despair.
Beautiful Writing June 4, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This review is intentionally very short, as other reviews consider the novel in more detail. It is worth noting that this novel demonstrates Fitzgerald's skill as a writer to the full, and is a pleasure to read.
The purpose of this review is to clarify a point raised in another review, which asks about why this Popular Classics edition appears to present a corrupt, or at least unauthorised text. The reason for this is that it follows the structure of the novel as set out in the 1951 revision, edited by Malcolm Cowley, based on notes and corrections made by Fitzgerald himself. This revision of the original 1934 text rearranges the novel into chronological order, and divides the text into a different number of sections. This is why the Spark Notes referred to by another reviewer are confusing: they describe the 1934 text. It should be noted that, according to the Penguin Modern Classics edition at least, current critical thinking prefers the 1934 edition, as Cowley's interventions in the later edition make it unclear the extent to which Fitzgerald's intentions were followed.
Of course, no exam board would ever bother to be clear as to which text is to be studied: that would be far too easy for us all, wouldn't it?
A story of destructive love. June 4, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a powerful story of two people loving each other for the wrong reasons and whose love takes a course neither truly wants, but can't seem to move away from. Told in a deceptively simple style, it has great depth in it's story telling and a way of making you feel as deeply as the characters. It may not have the most positive of endings, but I like it all the more for this reason, as it is truer to real life. A beautifully written book to be enjoyed again and again.
 Penguin Popular Classics? March 28, 2006
4 out of 16 found this review helpful
I've read this book before a long time ago, so I don't remember all of what happens, but it seems like this particular edition is different from the one I read before. Most of the reviews of it and even SparkNotes say that the beginning is set in the French Riviera, and told through Rosemary's perspective, but my book starts in Switzerland with Dr. Diver's arrival. Maybe I just forgot about this part or something, but I'm not sure. Also, Sparknotes has the novel divided into three parts while this edition is divided into five.I know Penguin Popular Classics has an abridged version of Les Miserables that doesn't mention anything about it being abridged on the outside of the book (this puzzled me for a really long time in the bookstore, because I was staring at two different versions of it and wondering how one could be 200 pages and the other 1,000), so I was wondering if maybe this is a different version of Tender is The Night as well? If anyone knows maybe they could respond... Thanks
Beautiful and complex December 3, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Tender Is the Night" was first published in 1934. Bitter and gloomy, it is often seen as F. S. Fitzgerald's most complex and intense work.
The story is set on the lavishly beautiful French Riviera during the turbulent 1920s. The Divers, Dick and Nicole, are as charismatic and dazzling as the era they represent. Intriguing and fashionable, rich and beautiful, they live as glamorous a life as can be. But the idyllic idleness is just an illusion. In the harsh reality Nicole is devastated by mental illness and Dick, a brilliant psychiatrist, acts as both her husband and her therapist. He is earnest and determined to help her but the complexity of their relationship is so destructive that it leads Dr Diver to his own deterioration.
Mirroring the intensity of F. S. Fitzgerald's stormy marriage to Zelda Sayre, "Tender is the Night" conveys a strong sense of disillusionment and self-destruction. Lustrous and bleak at the same time, it is a poignant composition of beauty and tragedy, a delicate study of serenity and interpersonal conflicts.
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