i liked this one a lot!

Tender in the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota before going on to Princeton in 1913, where he was a leader of theatrical and literary activities. He left due to academic problems and joined the army in 1917. He married Zelda in 1920, and their turbulent life together was a symbol of the jazz age, with the two becoming as large as the characters in his novels. He was popular in his day and his stories were in demand because they expressed the zeitgeist of the era. Under the surface, though, Zelda was struggling with what would eventually be diagnosed as schizophrenia (though it is perhaps thought that she was in reality suffering from mistreated obsessive-compulsive and bipolar disorders), and Scott with alcoholism. The combination led to financial difficulties and acute stress. Scott died of complications of alcoholism in 1940, and Zelda died in a fire in a mental institution 8 years later.

Tender in the Night (1934) draws heavily on the lives of the Fitzgeralds and the experiences of Zelda in the throws of her mental illness (Scott had been known to crib from her diaries uncredited… nice). The story revolves around a love triangle. Dick Diver is a psychiatrist who marries a beautiful and wealthy patient, Nicole. After about five years of marriage, the beautiful young actress Rosemary entered their lives. Dick’s increasing love for Rosemary clashes with his resentment at being both husband and caretaker, and he gives into his desire for Rosemary; Nicole, hurt and confused, returns the volley by taking up with a Frenchman. The two divorce, and at the end of the novel Dick fades off into obscurity. Much of the novel is semi-autobiographical. Dick is modeled after Scott himself (in fact, Hemingway famously critiqued Fitzgerald for creating a simple re-imagining of self), Nicole’s mental illness models Zelda’s, and Rosemary seems to reflect a beautiful young actress named Lois Moran who Scott took up with.

What troubles me about this novel is the way it paints Nicole’s illness as the impetus for Dick’s drinking and demise. Had Nicole only been healthy, the novel seems to say, they could have had a successful life. It denies the extent to which this was Dick’s choice; indeed, his own psychological desire to caretake is the impetus for this marriage. He desires Nicole only once he knows the horrors of her upbringing, her schizophrenic break having been caused by a rape perpetrated by her father. Interestingly, Dick seems to be attracted to women with inappropriate boundaries and incestuous parental relationships: Rosemary’s relationship with her mother could certainly never be describe as healthy. Though not sexual, it is emotionally incestuous, because Rosemary cannot bear the thought of loving anyone but her mother. Even by the end of the novel and after the passage of time, Rosemary claims to have only ever loved two people: Dick, and her mother. What attracts him to these women? I wonder to what extent his inability to pick “healthy” women is relevant to the state of the ex-patriot community as a whole?

I enjoyed this novel, but I feel like I don’t have a lot to say about it. I think perhaps my lack of background on Fitzgerald and the Jazz age may be a barrier to a deeper understanding of this text — but I can’t say 100% that that is true. This one needs a little more thinking.