Monday, April 12, 2010

Tender Is The Night

So far I love this book! The imagery is so clean and refreshing as the setting is on the French Riviera. I have gotten a little confused by all of the different characters she meets within the first day, but after a little help from sparknotes the characters and their profiles are clear! In this passage, Rosemary (The main character an American Actress) is awake in the night because she can not sleep thinking about her new love.

"It was a limpid black night, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. The horn of the car ahead was muffled by the resistance of the thick air. Brady's chauffeur drove slowly; the taillight of the other car appeared from time to time at turnings- then not at all. But after ten minutes it came into sight again, drawn up at the side of the road. Brady's chauffeur slowed up behind but immediately it began to roll foreward slowly and they passed it. In the instant they passed it they heard a blur of voices from behind the reticence of the limousine adn saw that the Diver's chauffeur was grinning. Then they went on, going fast through the alternating banks of darkness and thin night, decending at last in a series of roller-coaster swoops, to the great bulk of Guasse's Hotel.

Rosemary dozed for three hours and then lay awake suspended in the moonshine. Cloaked by the erotic darkness she exhausted the future quickly, with all the eventualities that might lead up to a kiss, but with the kiss itself as blurred as a kiss in pictures. She changed position in bed deliberately, the first sign of insomnia she had ever had, and tried to think with her mother's mind about the question. In this process she was often acute beyond her experience, with remembered things from old conversations that had gone into her half-heard."chapter 9


I love this passage because of the array of emotions that Scott Fitzgerald portrays through one character in one scene.I also love the words like "cloaked", "erotic" and "suspended" it adds so much power into the sentances.The aura of romance, fashon, wealth and summer also make the book so much more enjoyable! I will probably read this book again this summer when -like Rosemary- visiting the beach.

4 comments:

  1. The way you describe this book sounds really good, but it confused me quite a bit. I also liked the choice of words that were used, like you said, like "erotic" and "alternating banks of darkness." It really helps draw the reader in.

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  2. I agree with you that Fitzgerald really draws the readers in with his complex mindset and amazing vocabulary. I was confused on some of the words when reading and glad we switched books because i think i can understand Where Are You Now much better. I think this book is fit for an older person who can get more out of the story.

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  4. I reallly like how much you seem like you enjoy this book. I didnt get into it, but the way you talk about it makes me want to read it. I thought it was a little confusing and not too entertaining but you have a really good talent at making me/ maybe other readers want to read things that you write about.

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