The result is that Tender is the Night, in addition to resembling the life of its author, also tends to resemble the life of its lead character: events appear both beautiful and blurred. Somewhere in the haze is the sense that something very significant and powerful is being stated about marriage, but the exact point at which it clearly comes through (and the exact point at which the scales of the Divers' fortunes tip) isn't so easy to find. Although this is not, ultimately, a flaw on the book's part--even drunken wisdom is wisdom--it does feel like a missed opportunity on Fitzgerald's part, a chance for analysis rather than self-destructive sentiment.
Still: whatever the weaknesses of the book's sober moments, Fitzgerald can write a wonderful, witty, icily drunken party scene. And, even if the book is a haze, it's often a beautiful haze, a drunkard's ode to a drunkard's life, a sentimentalist's ode to the progressive destruction of sentimentality that is marriage. Due to its garbled chronology and its reluctance to spell out certain critical elements of its plot, Tender is the Night misses many of the most interesting marks it aims at. But all the same, there's a special beauty even in a stumbling attempt.
