Talk:Tender Is the Night

Tender is the Night/Sparknotes
I have noticed that the plot summary for the Wiki entry is word for word the same as the Sparknotes summary198.183.167.2 (talk) 22:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I've removed the plot summary section, but if someone could write a new one, that'd be very helpful. --JayHenry (talk) 13:53, 15 February 2008!(UTC)
 * This is an out of date discussion. A new plot summary has since been added. Motmit (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This article terribly over-simplifies the plot and Fitzgerald's aim in writing Tender. "The underlying theme is then how one person has become strong by destroying another," it says, anonymously. Perhaps someone who has read The Crack Up could have another go, or rather keep this as a 'plot summary' and not a half-baked analysis that could ruin the experience of would-be readers or mislead those who want to understand it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.168.163 (talk) 15:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Critical reaction
In the last sentence of the plot summary someone described what they thought the underlying theme of the novel was. The point of American literature is to be interpreted by the reader, and I think that the underlying theme is debatable, and therefore an opinion based comment. Any reader could look at the book through a number of different lenses and come up with a different conclusion as to what the theme of the book is.

I noticed that in the references there is a [1] as the fourth reference. That should be looked at. I am assuming that it is a technical error. I also feel that for a novel made by one of the more commonly known authors, should have more references and be just as specific in the reference section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mckayla.griesbaum (talk • contribs) 18:52, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

You say 'The book was received with mixed reviews and sales, much to the consternation of the author. It has since grown in sales and reputation.'

I feel that this statement deserves a good deal of fleshing-out. It would be most interesting to know how such a poorly-received novel has since acquired such high status. What did the early critics say? What caused the public to start buying the book eventually in such quantity? 109.154.26.148 (talk) 15:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I feel, quite literally, as if I were in fact F. Scott Fitzgerald or whatever his name was and that I can speak for him.
I deplore the use of footnotes, but when you're writing an encyclopedia, you need them. I mean, if you think such-and-such, then the less you blame that on other people, the better. But if your feelings (whatever those are, if anything, likewise "emotions") pertain, say, to corrupt 20th century authors, you should present some proof that such an author actually lived. If you want to claim that her corruption was evident to others, you should find some objective test of that, and present the findings. The first footnote in the article here occurs at the end of the body of the article, which is in the two sections "plot summary" and "composition". It merely affirms that, well, I don't know what it's there for: "The Composition of Tender Is the Night. MJ. Bruccoli. 1963." Is the entire twelve hundred word essay accounted for by that citation: how could it be? Then comes the "characters and setting" section, with no citation. It says in part, "The characters of his books are almost projections of his life put on paper, explained through someone else's ventures. Though, a reader can conclude that the characters are also living products of their environment in the book." The second sentence does not follow from the first. What is not written in this article is as telling as what is: it would seem that F. Scott's infidelity must have had some detrimental effect on his wife. And in the novel summary, when the murdered "black man" turns up in the hero's beloved's bed, surely the circumstances of the murder have something to do with the story, but no mention here. This is all to make the point that if literature is to be something more than politically correct doggerel, literary criticism must have some scientific method. The present author of this article should account in particular for this sentence: well, let me set it up with some preceding sentences: "There he met Lois Moran, 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."

To whom did it become apparent, and how does the present author know this? How could it be possible to know this? Is it possible to lose one's mind? Surely it is attached to the body by some durable means. Now it may turn out that if you read this novel you would find damning criticism of the mental health industry, and an astonishing power of irony on F. Scott's part to deliver that condemnation despite his being the main bad guy in the real-life story that provides the fact base for that condemnation. That is, perhaps the novel is his confession, his bid for atonement. That sounds like literary criticism. Eh?Chrisrushlau (talk) 01:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)