Tender Is the Night is a novel by American writer
F. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
. It was his fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in
Scribner's MagazineScribner's Magazine was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. Scribner's Magazine was the second magazine out of the "Scribner's" firm, after the publication of Scribner's Monthly...
between January-April, 1934 in four issues. The title is taken from the poem "
Ode to a Nightingale"Ode to a Nightingale" is a poem by John Keats written in May 1819 in either the garden of the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, or, as according to Keats' friend Charles Armitage Brown, under a plum tree in the garden of Keats House, Hampstead, London. According to Brown, a nightingale had built its nest...
" by
John KeatsJohn Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
.
In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife
Zelda Sayre FitzgeraldZelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...
was hospitalized for
schizophreniaSchizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
in
BaltimoreBaltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
,
MarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. The author rented the "la Paix" estate in the suburb of
Towson-Places:In the United States:*Towson, Maryland, an unincorporated community in Maryland**Towson Center, an arena in Towson, Maryland**Towson Town Center, a shopping mall in Towson, Maryland*Fort Towson, Oklahoma, a community in Oklahoma...
to work on this book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It was Fitzgerald's first novel in nine years, and the last that he would complete. While working on the book he several times ran out of cash and had to borrow from his editor and agent, and write short stories for commercial magazines. The early 1930s, when Fitzgerald was conceiving and working on the book, were certainly the darkest years of his life, and accordingly, the novel has its bleak elements.
Two versions of this novel are in print. The first version, published in 1934, uses flashbacks while the second revised version, prepared by Fitzgerald's friend and noted critic
Malcolm CowleyMalcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...
on the basis of notes for a revision left by Fitzgerald, is ordered chronologically; this version was first published posthumously in 1951. Critics have suggested that Cowley's revision was undertaken due to negative reviews of the temporal structure of the book on its first release.
In 1998, the
Modern LibraryThe Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
ranked
Tender Is the Night 28th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Plot summary
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who take a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the resort are Rosemary Hoyt, a young actress, and her mother. Rosemary gets sucked into the circle of the Divers; she falls in love with Dick and is also adopted as a close friend by Nicole. Dick first toys with the idea of an affair with Rosemary at this point, which he finally acts upon years later.
However, Rosemary senses something is wrong with the couple, which is brought to light when one of the guests at a party reports having seen something strange in the bathroom. Tommy Barban, another guest, comes loyally to the defense of the Divers. The action involves various other friends, including the Norths, where a frequent occurrence is the drunken behavior of Abe North. The story becomes complicated when Jules Peterson, a black man, is murdered and ends up in Rosemary's bed, in a situation which could destroy Rosemary's career. Dick moves the blood-soaked body to cover up any implied relationship between Rosemary and Peterson.
Once into the book, the history of the Divers emerges. Dick Diver was a doctor and psychoanalyst and had taken on a complicated case of neuroses. This was Nicole, whose complicated, incestuous relationship with her father is suggested as the cause of breakdown. As she becomes infatuated with Dick, Dick is almost driven to marry her as part of the cure. Strong objections are raised: Nicole is an heiress and her sister thinks Dick is marrying her for her money. They do marry, and Nicole’s money pays for Dick's partnership in a Swiss clinic and for their extravagant lifestyle. However, Dick gradually develops a drinking problem. He gets into fights and trouble with the police in various incidents and is bought out of the clinic by his partner. The opening episode almost marks the crossover point whereby Dick becomes the weaker partner, progressively failing in what he attempts while Nicole becomes stronger. Dick's behaviour becomes embarrassing as he mishandles situations with the children and friends. Eventually Nicole has an affair with Tommy Barban, and divorces Dick to marry Barban. Nicole survives, while Dick drifts into ever diminishing circumstances. The underlying theme is then how one person has become strong by destroying another—a point emphasized cynically by Nicole's sister, who having seen Dick originally as the parasite, finally remarks that "That was what he was educated for."
Composition
Fitzgerald began working on a new novel almost immediately after the publication of
The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
in April 1925. His original plan was to tell the story of Francis Melarkey, a young Hollywood technician traveling on the French Riviera with his domineering mother. Francis was to fall in with a group of glittering and charming wealthy American expatriates (based on
Gerald and Sara MurphyGerald Clery Murphy and Sara Sherman Wiborg were wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly in the 1920s, that included a great number of...
and some of their friends) and gradually disintegrate, ultimately killing his mother. Fitzgerald originally intended to call the novel "World's Fair", but also considered "Our Type" and "The Boy Who Killed His Mother". The characters based on the Murphys were originally named Seth and Dinah Piper, and Francis was intended to fall in love with Dinah – an event that would help to precipitate his disintegration.
Fitzgerald wrote several chapters for this version of the novel in 1925 and 1926, but was unable to finish it. Nearly all of what he wrote ultimately made it into the finished work in altered form. Francis's arrival on the Riviera with his mother, and his introduction to the world of the Pipers, was eventually transposed into Rosemary Hoyt's arrival with her mother, and her introduction to the world of Dick and Nicole Diver. Characters created in this early version survived into the final novel, particularly Abe and Mary North (originally Grant) and the McKiscos. Several incidents such as Rosemary's arrival and early scenes on the beach, her visit to the Riviera movie studio, and the dinner party at the Divers' villa, all appeared in this original version, but with Francis in the role of the wide-eyed outsider that would later be filled by Rosemary. Also, the sequence in which a drunken Dick is beaten by police in Rome was written in this first version as well (with Francis as the beating victim); this was based on a real incident that happened to Fitzgerald in Rome in 1924.
After a certain point, Fitzgerald became stymied with the novel. He and Zelda (and Scottie) returned to the United States after several years in Europe, and in 1927 Scott went to Hollywood to write for the movies. There he met
Lois MoranLois Moran was an American film actress.She was born Lois Darlington Dowlin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and died in Sedona, Arizona.-Short career:...
, a beautiful actress in her late teens, with whom he had an intense relationship. Moran became the inspiration for the character of Rosemary Hoyt. Fitzgerald supported himself and his family in the late 1920s with his highly lucrative short-story output (particularly for the
Saturday Evening Post), but was haunted by his inability to progress on the novel. In around 1929 he tried a new angle on the material, starting over with a shipboard story about a Hollywood director and his wife (Lew and Nicole Kelly) and a young actress named Rosemary. But Fitzgerald apparently completed only two chapters of this version.
By 1930 the Fitzgeralds were again living in Europe. Zelda had her first nervous breakdown in early 1930 and was institutionalized in Switzerland. It soon became apparent that she would never fully recover. Fitzgerald's father died in 1931, an event that was written into the final novel as Dick's father's death. Devastated by these blows (and by his own unrelenting alcoholism), Fitzgerald had settled in suburban
BaltimoreBaltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
by 1932, and had finally decided what he was going to write his novel about – a man of almost limitless potential who makes the fatal decision to marry a beautiful but mentally ill woman, and who ultimately sinks into despair and alcoholism when their doomed marriage fails.
While renting a home called "La Paix" on the estate of Baltimore architect Bayard Turnbull, Fitzgerald wrote the final version of
Tender Is the Night in 1932 and 1933. He salvaged almost everything he had written for the Melarkey draft of the novel in some form or other, and also borrowed ideas, images, and phrases from many short stories he had written in the years since completing
The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
. Ultimately, he poured everything he had into
Tender – his feelings about his own wasted talent and (self-perceived) professional failure and stagnation; his feelings about his parents (who on a symbolic level provided much of the inspiration for Dick and Nicole Diver); about his marriage, and Zelda's illness, and psychiatry (about which he had learned a great deal during her treatment); about his affair with Lois Moran, and Zelda's with the French aviator Edouard Jozan (paralleled in the relationship between Nicole Diver and Tommy Barban).
The book was completed in the fall of 1933 and serialized in four installments in
Scribner's Magazine before its publication on April 12, 1934. The book was received with mixed reviews and sales, much to the consternation of the author. It has since grown in sales and reputation.
Film
Fitzgerald's work appears in
Michelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
's 1960 film
L'avventuraL'Avventura is a 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and developed from a story he created. Monica Vitti and Gabriele Ferzetti star. It is noted for its careful pacing, which puts a focus on visual composition and character development, as well as for its unusual narrative structure...
as the book Anna was reading before she disappeared, and in
Wim WendersErnst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
' film
Alice in den Städten (1973—in English,
Alice in the CitiesAlice in the Cities is a 1974 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the first part of Wenders' "Road Movie Trilogy" which included The Wrong Move and Kings of the Road...
) on the coffee table of Vogel's depressed girlfriend. The use of the book in the latter film may have been inspired by actress
Lois MoranLois Moran was an American film actress.She was born Lois Darlington Dowlin in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and died in Sedona, Arizona.-Short career:...
, who was the basis for the character of Rosemary Hoyt in Fitzgerald's novel, and plays an "Airport Hostess" in Wenders' movie.
Tender Is the Night also appears in the movie
Who's That Knocking at My DoorWho's That Knocking at My Door, originally titled I Call First, is a 1967 drama film, which marks Martin Scorsese's debut as a director. Exploring themes of Catholic guilt similar to those in his later film Mean Streets, the story follows Italian-American J.R. as he struggles to accept the secret...
by Martin Scorsese. It is shown towards the end of the film, placed on the night table of the character played by Zina Bethune, during her last encounter with Harvey Keitel's character.
Literature and publications
- Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
begins the 30th Chorus of Mexico City Blues with the line: "Tender is the Night".
Music
- Blur
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
's song "Tender"Tender" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur. It is the first track on Blur's sixth album 13 and was also released as the lead single before the album's release...
" has the opening line "Tender is the Night".
- Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
has a song titled "Tender Is the Night"Tender Is the Night" is a song by Jackson Browne released in 1983 as the second single from his album Lawyers in Love. The song peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot 100, #18 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and #24 on the US Adult Contemporary. Unlike the next single, "For a Rocker", it is...
".
- Sunderland band, Frankie & The Heartstrings, have a song called "Tender", which references Fitzgerald in the opening and the book in the lyrics.
- The fourth track on Tellison's
Tellison is a four-piece indie rock band from London, England, formed in 2003. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Stephen Davidson, lead guitarist and vocalist Peter Phillips, bass guitarist and vocalist Andrew Tickell and drummer Henry Danowski.After releasing three 7" singles...
2007 album, Contact! Contact!- Release history :- Tellison :* Stephen H Davidson — lead vocals, rhythm guitar, lyrics* Peter J Phillips — lead guitar, vocals, keyboards* Andrew J Tickell — bass guitar, backing vocals* Henry S Danowski — drums, percussion, keyboards- Production :...
, is titled "Tender Is The Night" and the lyrics reference Fitzgerald's novel.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The 1962 film
Tender Is the NightTender Is the Night is a 1962 film directed by Henry King, based on the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The soundtrack featured a song, also called "Tender Is the Night", by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster , which was nominated for the 1962 Academy Award for Best Song...
, based on the novel, starred
Jason RobardsJason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Jennifer Jones as the Divers. The song "Tender Is the Night", from the movie soundtrack, was nominated for the 1962
Academy AwardAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Song.
A television mini-series of the book, with script by
Dennis PotterDennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
, music by
Richard Rodney BennettSir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE is an English composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works...
, and with
Mary SteenburgenMary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
and
Peter StraussPeter Strauss is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...
as Nicole and Dick, was made by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and shown in 1985 on the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the
CBCThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
in
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and on Showtime in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Often praised as a brilliant adaptation with an outstanding performance by Steenburgen, this production has never been released on DVD and has since been shown in the US only once, on Bravo. Some scenes of this BBC production were filmed at the
Hotel Waldhaus VulperaThe neorenaissance-style Grand Hotel Hotel Waldhaus Vulpera with Sgraffito-Elements was one of the first addresses in the Swiss Alps and was a major Belle Époque monument in Europe...
.
Further reading
External links
- Tender is the Night, online text at the University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
Library.
- Tender is the Night, New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1956. Preface by Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...
. Scanned book from Internet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Tender is the Night study guide, themes, quotes, character analysis, teacher resources