Day 51
Total - 5 books 197 pages
Result - 1 book 130 pages to reach goal
Getting closer to the end and realising that this book, for me, is difficult to pick out the intended themes. But I think I've picked up on one so far, and that is random violence and how it touches everyone's lives, sometimes in direct and sometimes in fleeting, affecting ways. This book is filled with so much random violence, towards everyone.
Actually I noticed it way back in Book 1 after that random woman shot that random man on the train platform, and then soon after when the black man ended up dead. But it just continues. Then you find out that Nicole was molested by her father, then there's Nicole causing a car wreck, then there's Abe dying in from a fight, then there's Dick not only getting into a fight but it turning into him being brutally assaulted by the Italian police, and there's probably others I'm missing at the moment. Oh yes, of course, the duel in the beginning as well.
I'm enjoying the book and others may not like it, but I like the disjointedness of the plot, how it starts in one place, then in Book 2 flits back and forth and in places has an odd narrative structure. It's not erratic, it seems done in a more tasteful way. I like that he chose to be creative in the telling of the story.
I also like how as I near the end, many of the random old characters are coming back into the story here and there and having new and surprising roles. At first one thinks Baby will be a character only ever mentioned by Nicole, then when we might her one thinks she'll only be a minor stuffy character not ever in on the action, then she happens to be in the same city when Dick is brutally assaulted and gets called into action in a big way for a moment.
Also, I have no idea how it will end yet, but so far near the ending I like how the book started with Rosemary and Dick and that lot sort of "on top", the ones to watch who are having the times of their lives, as witnessed by the McKiscos et al "watching" them and being presented unflatteringly and somewhat relatively unaccomplished and unfulfilled themselves, yet by the point where I'm at in the book, the McKiscos have now become the "it" people and successful and their personalities have bettered, while Dick and his crew have all somewhat declined. Even Rosemary, I haven't quite grasped how famous she is at the moment, but I'm gathering that the film she's in now, she may not have a huge role (she says it's a good part, paraphrasing, "if they don't cut it out of the film"), meaning she may be on the decline from her early "Daddy's Girl" stardom.
My best guess for the title is in reference to Nicole's mental illness that can really extend to any of us; i.e. her mental condition is fragile but any of us can be fragile in certain ways. I do love how evocative the title is. Even before I started reading it brought to mind a warm, gentle yet somehow precarious night, a soft breeze blowing, romantic, comfortable, a cool summer night when everything is in full bloom yet is refined in the night. Tender can also mean raw though, and I have to think Fitzgerald thought of that as well when naming it.
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