Tender Is the Night

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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."

Book 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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"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."" "

Customer Reviews:

a dull book full of dull pompous characters........2007-08-18

i usually finish a book this size in about 3 days. "tender is the night" took me about 7 months to painfully crawl through. i could only handle a few pages at a time. it was like a sleep inducing narcotic, without being any fun at all. I read and (i believe) i loved "the great gatsby" about 20 years ago. i had been thinking it was time to reread that work, but now i am afraid to. "tender is the night," was soooo bad. if the characters in this tedious book were drawn from the lives of the fitzgeralds (as i've read they were), then it's no wonder that zelda went insane & f scott drank himself into an early grave. (Dear God, as i write this i can sense the gravitational pull toward the unhelpful button that is being exerted on computer mouses all over america. what am i doing! yet i can't help myself. on i go.) who could stand such pompous dullards for company? if all books were filled with people like the ones found in this novel, I would simply read "Marley & Me," and call it a day for book reading. yuck.

Fitzgerald's weakest novel, but a good read...........2007-07-07

Through the narrative, it's clear that Fitzgerald cannot choose which character to develop, and in the end, none is explored satisfactorily. As a panorama of failed marriage, "Tender" lacks the strength of "The Beautiful and Damned", which I consider to be similar and superior, though less popular.

But still, F. Scott Fitzgerald is F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the writing is wondrous, but this is not his quintessential book.

If the absurdist movement is regaining steam in American culture, this explains the resurgence of popularity in this novel, which though strong in the first third, turns out as an unsatisfying mess.

Fitzgerald's most personal novel.......2007-06-21

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.

I love books and this one is just bad..........2007-04-22

Boring, outdated ex-patriate story of life in Paris between the wars, focusing on a young American actress, a psychologist Dr. Diver and his wife, an American baroness with issues. Lots of drinking and gossip.

Fitzgerald would give anything for a happy ending?.......2007-04-16

Why does Nicole and Dick's marriage disintigrate? The obvious answer is that Dick compromised his integrity marrying Nicole for her money and that Dick is an egomaniac, needing to be needed.

The deeper more true answer is that Nicole and Dick didn't have a partnership. She was sick and couldn't give very much back to Dick--to the relationship. And it gets tiring or boring always doing the same things for the same person to save them from themselves over and over again. Co-dependent relationships don't work.

Although a lot of the discussions about mental illness are extremely dated, some of the descriptions are painfully accurate. I identified with Nicole's sister who could only stop worrying about Nicole if: 1) Nicole married a Doctor to take care of her, and 2) if Niole lived near a sanitarium.

This is what it is like to have a loved one who is mentally ill:
"It was necessary to treat her [Nicole] with active, affirmative insistence, keeping the road to reality always open, making the road to escape harder going. But the brillance, the versatility of madness is akin to the resourcefulness of water seeping through and over and around a dike. It requires the united front of many people to work against it".

Too bad there are no organized ways of providing an organized front in our culture to help the mentally ill.

Perhaps Fitzgerald (FSF) would have swapped his well being for Zelda's--a prayer, "Lord, take my sanity but give Zelda back hers. Unlike Nicole, Zelda didn't get better.

I loved the description of the Rivera and Switzerland in the 1920s. I wish i could have been a part of it. The first part of the book is like watching the movie "To Catch a Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. You just love the ambience.

I liked this book better than _The Great Gatsby_ because I cared more about the characters and because it is autobiographical, and because I have had a loved one who is mentally ill.

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Tender is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Recorded Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0788707272

Product Description

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night, he captured all the sophistication and elegance of the 1920s. And he revealed the dark brutality lying just beneath the surface in this civilized, glittering society. As his last completed work, this haunting tragedy is one of the great American novels. On the rosy sands of the French Riviera, a radiant young American film star, Rosemary Hoyt, falls in love with a handsome doctor of psychiatry. But as the dazzle of their perfect summer fades, their adulterous affair casts long shadows over their lives. Dr. Divers fragile relationship with his wealthy but unstable wife disintegrates as his career and reputation dissolve in rounds of cocktails. Both a compelling story of passion and a searing commentary on dependency, Tender is the Night resonates with Fitzgeralds finely-tuned language. Although the autobiographical ties are clear: alcoholism, mental illness, the ennui of luxury, Fitzgerald crafts these elements into a brilliant parable of an age.

Reader's Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night

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As Essential Companion to the Novel
Fitzgerald scholar explains the novel's numerous references

Reader's Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night
Matthew Joseph Bruccoli , and Judith S. Baughman
Manufacturer: University of South Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

ASIN: 1570030782

Customer Reviews:

As Essential Companion to the Novel.......2001-03-29

It is interesting to note the evolution of Ernest Hemingway's reaction to "Tender is the Night". When the novel first appeared, Hemingway, while noting some fine passages, dismissed "Tender is the Night" as yet another example of F. Scott Fitzgerald's decline as both a writer and a person. However, as the years passed and Hemingway revisited the novel again and again, he came to regard it as Fitzgerald's best book.

Hemingway's reaction has always interested me. It was also a source of frustration as I tried without success to get through "Tender is the Night". At first I thought my abandonment of the novel was due to the introduction of too many characters too early in the book, but Bruccoli's very fine companion has made me re-evaluate this view. I think my earlier frustration was a direct result of my unfamiliarity with many of the places and people that Fitzgerald alludes to throughout the novel. Bruccoli gives succinct descriptions of people and places that may not be familiar to modern readers, but he also goes further. He points out logical inconsistencies, chronological errors, and outright mistakes that can distract (or confuse) the reader.

Is this effort worth it? Most definitely. Bruccoli's work pays off handsomely, helping to bring into focus a beautiful, intricate novel.

Just ask Papa.

Fitzgerald scholar explains the novel's numerous references.......1997-01-29

As the volume's introduction points out, this "is not a critical study: it does not analyze the putative meanings of Tender is the Night." Instead, Bruccoli's purpose is to briefly explore the novel's genesis, creation, publication, and aftermath. The main course of this feast, however, is a lengthy section of explanatory notes on Tender's numerous references. The text is additionally buttressed with photos and illustrations as well as a time scheme and chronology of events. Bruccoli's presentation is thorough without being pedantic, making this quite readable by scholars and students alike. One only hopes that someday this material will be shuffled with Fitzgerald's novel for a long-overdue annotated edition of this greatly underrated work.--Michael Rogers

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Tender Is the Night

Manufacturer: Charles Scribner's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: B000F1ULBC

Product Description

A psychiatrist, Dick Diver, treats and eventually marries a wealthy patient, Nicole. Eventually, this marriage destroys him.

Tender Is the Night (Twentieth Century Classics)

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Tender Is the Night (Twentieth Century Classics)
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Tender is the Night
F Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Book-of-the-Month Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0965684393

4 Book Collection : Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, the Great Gatsby,the Last Tycoon.

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4 Book Collection : Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, the Great Gatsby,the Last Tycoon.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Scribner's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

$Endless Passion: Night Magic\Tender Touch\Sweet Mystery (Arabesque)$
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very disapointed.

Endless Passion: Night Magic\Tender Touch\Sweet Mystery (Arabesque)
Lynn Emery
Manufacturer: Kimani Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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$Sweet Passion: Bands Of Gold\For All Time\Between The Lines (Arabesque)$ Sweet Passion: Bands Of Gold\For All Time\Between The Lines (Arabesque)
$Unforgettable Passion: Sealed With A Kiss\Against All Odds\Ecstasy (Arabesque)$ Unforgettable Passion: Sealed With A Kiss\Against All Odds\Ecstasy (Arabesque)
$Perfect Passion: Heart's Desire\A Magical Moment\The Look Of Love (Arabesque)$ Perfect Passion: Heart's Desire\A Magical Moment\The Look Of Love (Arabesque)
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ASIN: 1583147365

Customer Reviews:

very disapointed. .......2006-08-06

i didn't like this book. i'm normally a person that can't stop reading a book till i've reached the end, but all three stories in this book were not interesting. there was way to much background info and not enough focus on the characters. the first two stories were so boring that i didn't really read the last story in detail. it was just bad. please take my advice and don't waste your money on this one like i did. i don't even remember what the stories were about cause they were so awful.

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Tender is the Night
F Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Charles Scribner's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night and This Side of Paradise (Monarch Notes & Study Guides)

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F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night and This Side of Paradise (Monarch Notes & Study Guides)
Stanley Cooperman
Manufacturer: Monarch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

A devoted fireman and a driven businessman, strangers with the same face. On that fateful Tuesday, one will leave the Twin Towers alive--but will he ever find his way home? Winner of the Silver Medallion Book Award.

Customer Reviews:

There's no other word but AMAZING!.......2007-02-23

This is the first book I ever read by Karen Kingsbury. Actually, it was the cover that caught my eye but even as I gazed at the picture of the twin towers, I thought to myself, "I....don't know about reading something on this order." I am SO glad I took the plunge because I found out well-written Christian Fiction is the best! Here's a tip. Make sure you have "Beyond Tuesday Morning" waiting in the wings for you'll kick yourself if you don't.

I am now an avid reader of Ms. Kingsbury's work and have a whole shelf dedicated just to her in my own personal library. All I have to do is see her name on a book and it's mine. It is so great to be able to say that about an author, isn't it?

"Oceans Apart" and the "Redemption" series would be my next recommendations to a new Kingsbury fan.

PS I GAVE THIS BOOK 5 STARS BUT THE COUNTER SLIPPED AND I COULD NOT EDIT IT! WHAT A BUMMER.

Wonderful book that will make your heart hurt........2006-12-29

I have this book in the double book edition that also includes "Beyond Tuesday Morning." The author does a great job writing about what it possibly could have been like in the Towers that day. She writes with sensitivity, but is able to express the raw emotions that many felt that day. More importantly, she is able to weave scripture and biblical insight into the book. Even I had a few "ah ha" moments about my own life in relation the scriptures that were helping the characters. All in all, I love the book, but of course since it deals with 9/11, it brings up sadness and pain that all of us felt on that day. Both the books show the ultimate path to healing and who we are to draw our strength from. I think this would be a good book for anyone who is trying to move past pain in their lives.

One Tuesday Morning.......2006-11-10

Boring, unrealistic and duplicative. My book group recommended it and I couldn't even get through it. Obvious ending, ridiculous plot. Don't bother. Read Gods in Alabama for some entertainment.

Good!.......2006-09-27

She isn't my favorite author, but I like this book. It gave a different view from what I've seen before. It was very heart felt, and touching. It's worth reading!

Excellent book, but have tissues on hand!.......2006-09-03

This book was excellent. Kingsbury did a wonderful job weaving the story together. It was an excellent look at 9/11 from a faith perspective. Can't wait to read the sequel!

One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning (911 Series 1-2)

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Moving Through Grief

One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning (911 Series 1-2)
Karen Kingsbury
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0310606519

Book Description

ONE TUESDAY MORNING

The last thing Jake Bryan knew was the sound of the World Trade Center collapsing on top of him and his fellow firefighters. The man in the hospital bed remembers nothing. Not rushing with his teammates up the stairway of the south tower to help trapped victims. Not being blasted from the building. And not the woman sitting by his bedside who says she is his wife.

Jamie Bryan will do anything to help her beloved husband regain his memory. But that means helping Jake rediscover the one thing Jamie has never shared with him: his deep faith in God.

Customer Reviews:

Moving Through Grief.......2006-11-05

This fictional story about families affected by 9-11 and their courage to mourn their losses and move into living again is truly inspirational.

One Tuesday Morning and Beyond Tuesday Morning

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Excellent story

One Tuesday Morning and Beyond Tuesday Morning

Manufacturer: Alive Communications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0739448005

Product Description

Everything changed on 9/11... and now Jamie Bryan must pick up the pieces....

Customer Reviews:

Excellent story.......2006-09-11

I read these two books about a year ago. It was a difficult book to read because it was so close to something that could have happened about Sept. 11, 2001. There is a very good message to all of us.
Don't miss this one.

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One Tuesday Morning
Ora Ayal , and Naomi Lhow-Nakao
Manufacturer: Dobson Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning (911 Series 1-2)
Karen Kingsbury
Manufacturer: Alive Communications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R2Y4FS

One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning SC - UK

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One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning SC - UK
Zondervan Publishing
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0310608228

Tuesday mornings in the kitchen: the closing of one needed resource opened many, many other doors.(mission knocks) : An article from: Presbyterian Record

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Tuesday mornings in the kitchen: the closing of one needed resource opened many, many other doors.(mission knocks) : An article from: Presbyterian Record
Jane Docherty
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Presbyterian Record, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 906 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Tuesday mornings in the kitchen: the closing of one needed resource opened many, many other doors.(mission knocks)
Author: Jane Docherty
Publication: Presbyterian Record (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 130 Issue: 1 Page: 35(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Karen Kingsbury Set (One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, Even Now)

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Karen Kingsbury Set (One Tuesday Morning, Beyond Tuesday Morning, Even Now)
Karen Kingsbury
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000V0HRDM

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One Tuesday Morning/Beyond Tuesday Morning (911 Series 1-2)
Karen Kingsbury
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NTZJ4K

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