# books / Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

This was a regrettable re-read. In my memory Tender is the Night was a pleasant, clever novel. My opinion of it this time is quite different.

Clearly the light, airy, bright prose that make Gatsby a masterpiece did not come to Fitzgerald this time. In its place is a contrived wax-work that is hard to behold. Where Gatsby’s description is etherial and dazzling, here it is heavy, cumbersome, trying hard to sound witty. Its verbosity, and repetitive nature, re-combing trodden ground, reads like an early draft.

The novel turns on the downfall & degradation of Dick, but the reader never truly understands his initial height. We are told countless times how Dick is charming, at length we hear in abstract terms that he makes his companions feel entertained and special, but we never once see this in action. Consequently, it is impossible to fall in love with the Divers the same way Rosemary and others do. We do not see what they see, we do not feel anything for the Divers at all.

The plot and characters carry potential, but it feels a wasted effort, as if Fitzgerald had only a blurry image of them himself.