TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Books of The Times
Books of The Times
By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN, April 16, 1934
The
critical reception of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night"
might serve as the basis for one of those cartoons on "Why Men Go
Mad." No two reviews were alike; no two had the same tone. Some seemed to
think that Mr. Fitzgerald was writing about his usual jazz age boys and girls;
others that he had a "timeless" problem on his hands. And some seemed
to think that Doctor Diver's collapse was insufficiently documented.
With
this we can't agree. It seemed to us that Mr. Fitzgerald proceeded accurately,
step by step, with just enough documentation to keep the drama from being
misty, but without destroying the suggestiveness that added to the horror
lurking behind the surface. Consider Dr. Diver's predicament in being married
to a woman with a "split personality" deriving from a brutal
misadventure in adolescence. He had married Nicole against his better judgment,
partially because she brought him memories of home after years spent abroad. He
was drawn into accepting her money, for reasons that living up to a certain
income and "cushioning" existence were bound up with the cure. His
husband-physician relationship to Nicole, involving constant companionship, cut
him off from his practice, and he thought wistfully at times of how the German
psychiatrists were getting ahead of him.
With
all these factors preparing the ground, it would merely take the sight of an
uncomplicated girl (Rosemary) to jar him into active unrest. And when Nicole,
subconsciously jealous of Rosemary, comes to a new phase of her disease, and
attempts to throw the car off the road when Dick is driving with her and the
two children, it is enough to give any one the jitters. Weakness indeed! The
wonder to us is that Dick didn't collapse long before Mr. Fitzgerald causes him
to break down. And when he does collapse, his youth is gone, it is too late to
catch up with the Germans who have been studying new cases for years. This
seems to us to be a sufficient exercise in cause-and-effect. Compared to the
motivation in Faulkner, it is logic personified.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário