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Summary
Summary
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend's copy of Tender Is the Night, "If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God's sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith." Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental patient, Nicole, who becomes his wife; and the beautiful, harrowing ten-year pas de deux they act out along the border between sanity and madness. In Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald deliberately set out to write the most ambitious and far-reaching novel of his career, experimenting radically with narrative conventions of chronology and point of view and drawing on early breakthroughs in psychiatry to enrich his account of the makeup and breakdown of character and culture. Tender Is the Night is also the most intensely, even painfully, autobiographical of Fitzgerald's novels; it smolders with a dark, bitter vitality because it is so utterly true. This account of a caring man who disintegrates under the twin strains of his wife's derangement and a lifestyle that gnaws away at his sense of moral values offers an authorial cri de coeur, while Dick Diver's downward spiral into alcoholic dissolution is an eerie portent of Fitzgerald's own fate. F. Scott Fitzgerald literally put his soul into Tender Is the Night, and the novel's lack of commercial success upon its initial publication in 1934 shattered him. He would die six years later without having published another novel, and without knowing that Tender Is the Night would come to be seen as perhaps its author's most poignant masterpiece. In Mabel Dodge Luhan's words, it raised him to the heights of "a modern Orpheus."
Author Notes
F(rancis) Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. He was educated at Princeton University and served in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1919, attaining the rank of second lieutenant. In 1920 Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre, a young woman of the upper class, and they had a daughter, Frances.
Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the finest American writers of the 20th Century. His most notable work was the novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). The novel focused on the themes of the Roaring Twenties and of the loss of innocence and ethics among the nouveau riche. He also made many contributions to American literature in the form of short stories, plays, poetry, music, and letters. Ernest Hemingway, who was greatly influenced by Fitzgerald's short stories, wrote that Fitzgerald's talent was "as fine as the dust on a butterfly's wing." Yet during his lifetime Fitzgerald never had a bestselling novel and, toward the end of his life, he worked sporadically as a screenwriter at motion picture studios in Los Angeles. There he contributed to scripts for such popular films as Winter Carnival and Gone with the Wind.
Fitzgerald's work is inseparable from the Roaring 20s. Berenice Bobs Her Hair and A Diamond As Big As The Ritz, are two short stories included in his collections, Tales of the Jazz Age and Flappers and Philosophers. His first novel The Beautiful and Damned was flawed but set up Fitzgerald's major themes of the fleeting nature of youthfulness and innocence, unattainable love, and middle-class aspiration for wealth and respectability, derived from his own courtship of Zelda. This Side of Paradise (1920) was Fitzgerald's first unqualified success. Tender Is the Night, a mature look at the excesses of the exuberant 20s, was published in 1934.
Much of Fitzgerald's work has been adapted for film, including Tender is the Night , The Great Gatsby, and Babylon Revisited which was adapted as The Last Time I Saw Paris by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954. The Last Tycoon, adapted by Paramount in 1976, was a work in progress when Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood, California. Fitzgerald is buried in the historic St. Mary's Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Robinson's ( Dominic ) flat depiction of the clash between Romans and Goths in A.D. 410 is more bad historical romance than good historical fiction. Epic action turns into cliched narrative, most notably in the love story between a Roman princess and a Gothic king, who are ``worlds apart, enemies.'' During the Goth's attack on Rome, Atawulf (Bold Wolf) saves 20-year-old virgin Princess Gala Placidia (Dia) from being raped. Bold Wolf is under orders from foster brother Alaric, King of the Goths, to protect Dia and bring her to him as a hostage. A forbidden romance blooms instantly when their ``gazes touched.'' Sometime during the pillaging and plundering, Alaric dies and Bold Wolf is named the new King. What Dia doesn't know is that Bold Wolf has made a proposal to Emperor Honorius, Dia's brother, to marry her as ``market value for alliance and land.'' Clearly, Dia must grow from ``weepy child'' to a politically correct ``warrior'' in this world of ``foundering ships, deathly fever, shallow graves.'' But be assured that love rules in this inconsequential tale. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The author of Dominic (1991)--a grue-streaked tale about a dwarf in and around the decaying fourth-century Roman Empire-- offers another adventure in roughly the same venue in the early fifth century. Robinson's story this time, waterlogged with wildly anachronistic dialogue and mind-sets, is based on the true history of Galla Placidia (``Dia''), daughter of the Emperor Theodosius and sister of Emperor Honorius, who marries King Atauf (here, ``Atawulf'') of the Visigoths. The opening execution of a treasonous cousin, regally witnessed by Dia, is fairly grisly, but except for occasional slash-and-slice warfare, this mainly tells how the Roman princess learns to stop waxing imperial all the time, to recognize good Goths, and unexpectedly to fall in love. About to be assaulted when the rampaging Goths sack Rome, Dia is rescued by Atawulf, brother of Gothic King Alaric. Once cleaned up after a bloodbath, Atawulf stirs a spark (``The hard terrain of his muscled arms...brought to mind the contained heat of a volcano''). On the long road south to Sicily, Dia meets the king and his sensible female relatives and, eventually, begins to be at one with her captors; after the death of Alaric and a ragged retreat, she will invite the army into Hadrian's villa to recover. It's here that Dia and Atawulf finally make thunderous love. A shaggy captive-princess saga set in a not-often-utilized period of history. Gory Dominic had more pep and variety.
Booklist Review
The year is A.D. 410, and the army of Alaric the Goth has invaded Rome. Princess Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius and half sister of the reigning Honorius, is taken hostage by Alaric's brother Bold Wolf. Along with several of her women, she is forced to accompany the huge contingent of both warriors, their wives, and children on their march through Italy. Although it is clear that the Romans are in no position to put up a defense, the plight of the Goths becomes desperate as they forage the countryside in search of food. Dia, meanwhile, finds herself increasingly drawn toward Bold Wolf, despite being initially repulsed by his barbarian ways. Following Alaric's death, she leads the Goths to Hadrian's magnificent villa at Tivoli, where they find a place to rest and recover, and where Dia and Bold Wolf declare their love. Although the emphasis is on the love story, this novel has some interesting historical details, including the clash between the cultures of the Romans and the barbarian invaders. Robinson's novel should appeal to fans of historical romance. ~--Mary Ellen Quinn
Library Journal Review
The author of Dominic ( LJ 10/1/91) again takes her readers back into the shadowy ancient world. In 410 A.D., when his only sister is taken captive by Visigoth raiders, the Roman Emperor Honorius refuses to ransom her. Taken charge of by Atawulf, foster brother of King Alaric, Placidia travels with the Goths as they push through Italy, burning and destroying the land all the way to the toe. Dia and Atawulf fall in love, resist the attraction they feel for each other, fight, and make up, all in typical formulaic romance fashion. But love must conquer national enmity, aided by secondary characters on both sides. The difference in this novel is the time period and the unusual circumstances surrounding the lovers. Robinson has done her research, and she makes a lighthearted romantic romp more interesting with historic details. This second novel is good fun.-- Andrea Lee Shuey, Dallas P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.