Tender Is The Night

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.

Dick and Nicole’s marriage is not an ordinary one. Although he declares his love for his wife, there was one more reason for which they have tied the nuptials. Nicole has spent her young years in the asylum, from which she was passed on into the hands of a young and handsome doctor. Together with a gorgeous wife, Dick has inherited Nicole’s family fortune and her peculiar medical case that he spent years of studying.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t Nicole’s character closely based on Scott’s own wife Zelda? Dick and Nicole’s relationship reflected the one Scott and Zelda had for years. Nevertheless, Dick’s character was well built. I loved to hate him, but at the same time felt sorry for the life he has wasted. He was not meant to be tight to one person, one place, one job. He is a free spirit that needed to be fully unleashed.

This is a beautiful work of fiction: the language, the story, the characters… Scott Fitzgerald’s novels tend to move me in a way not many authors do. I think of the characters past the final pages of the books, his stories stay with me for a long time.



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