Tender is the Night: I took my time reading Tender is the Night, and I'm glad I did. It merits a lot of thought. At the risk of eliciting an Oh-my-god-we-know-what-the- book-is-about-from-freshman-literature-just-get-on-with-it reaction, let me do a quick synopsis.
Dick Diver is prodigal young psychiatrist starting his career in Europe just after WW1. A handsome alpha-male, he is admired by all. He's is practicing at a plush sanatorium, when a beautiful schizophrenic named Nicole comes into his care; her illness having been brought on by an act of incest. In time, he commits an egregious violation of ethics by falling in love with Nicole and marrying her and taking her away under his personal care.
Nicole it seems is enormously wealthy. They fall in with a well-heeled party crowd; rich but damaged revelers who swarm around Dick and Nicole as their ideal. However, privately Nicole needs constant attention and always seems to be teetering on the brink of a meltdown. The combination of the hedonistic life and neediness of his wife begins to act as a drain on Dick. His work -- his psychiatric theories, his writing -- gets thrown by the wayside.
Into this mix appears Rosemary, a naive, teenage flavor of the month actress who develops an intense crush on the rather older Dick. The attraction in mutual and immediately obvious to Nicole. Although they don't consummate their mutual attraction the Dick/Rosemary relationship in combination with other events takes its toll on Nicole and she breaks down, and seems to be regressing.
More and more Dick's facade of masterfulness starts to slip away, accelerated by the death of his father. He subsequently does meet up with Rosemary again and they make love, but there is no follow through emotionally. Dick is left feeling beaten and unhappy and worst of all, he begins to see himself as a kept man. He frequently over drinks and engages in embarrassing behavior.
Meanwhile, perhaps in response to Dick's degradation, Nicole becomes more and more self-assured. She slowly comes to term with her past. She even takes a certain cruel pleasure in the image of Dick as a kept man. In time she takes her own lover. She and Dick finally divorce.
A dry description such as that makes it seem like the stuff of bad soap operas, but each flex point in the plot carries an stunning amount of emotional complexity, and when considered as a whole I cannot think of a more fully realized piece of humanity. It is on the face of it one of the purest tragedies ever written. It is the story of a man who is drained of life by his own idealism.
At the outset of his adult life Dick is brimming with intellectual energy and the power of his youth as he begins his career in psychiatry. He has high minded revolutionary ideas that he wants to pursue. He is clearly accustomed to being personally impressive. In fact, he is said to think of this time as his "heroic period."
Then comes the encounter with Nicole and subsequent romance and marriage. We try to discern what it is about Dick that would make him take such unethical actions -- what was it about Nicole that triggered them? Fitzgerald doesn't take the clear and easy road. We are left with a raft of possibilities: 1) Her physical beauty, 2) The professional challenge she offers, 3) Her money (we are forced to wonder if Dick isn't such a hero and is motivated by easy leisure as much as anyone else), 4) His chivalric instinct (he does see himself as heroic, after all).
Any one alone would be the stuff of boilerplate. Fitzgerald gives us all of them -- subtly, sometimes not until well after the fact. Character and motivations proceed to feed off each other and while we are left with uncertainty about the specifics, we are more certain of the character in full.
At each turn of the plot we are offered similar open-ended options -- the fateful meeting with Rosemary; interactions with the crowd of flawed and damaged hangers-on who circle the couple; an ultimate attempt to preserve his marriage and resume his career; the final betrayals. All of which continually build Dick's humanity through half-understood hints about motives.
At the end of the book, the point of view shifts to Nicole. She is now fully "cured" and has no need for Dick's attention any longer. Now it's she who is fully alive while Dick is spiritually drained. She has begun an affair and wants divorce. Perhaps she resents his affair with Rosemary. Perhaps she is simply a different person from when they met and no longer loves him. Perhaps it's an affirmation of independence. Perhaps she feels a debt of guilt to him for his years of care and it manifests as hostility. Again we don't know the specifics but the character is fuller for them.
Some reviewers, on full contemplation, think that end came because of Dick's ultimate success in curing Nicole, which was, at least superficially, his goal. Thus, there is a certain happy aspect to the ending. His work is done, so he can ride off into the sunset. That is, I think, way too easy. It may also be important to remember Fitzgerald, was in a real-life disaster of a marriage to a nut case. I doubt he found anything happy in such situations.
The end of the book is, in its way, as harrowing as any horror story. We stay in Nicole's point of view as her communication with Dick dwindles. In time, he no longer writes or asks for time with their children. He moves to from small town to small town, each more remote than the last. Eventually, she only knows what she hears piecemeal from rumor. At the end, she only thinks of him in passing once in awhile. The heroic young man, who so many loved when it was to their benefit, has ceased to exist except as an occasional musing in the mind of disinterested soul.
I wish I could do that. I wish I could write a character and story so complete. I wish I could find the perfect balance between the vague and the complex. It takes incredible talent, something Fitzgerald had in excess.
I'm going way out on a limb here, but upon consideration, I think it beats Gatsby.
