UChicago Class of 2018 Book Club discussion

I'm currently on page 87, but I feel really confused by Fitzgerald's writing. Is it just me or is this book much harder than The Great Gatsby?

For example, this doesn't seem to make sense:
'Their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man's world--they preserved their individuality through men and not by opposition to them. They would all three have made alternatively good courtesans or good wives not by the accident of birth but through the greater accident of finding their man or not finding him.'

first sentence -- they got individuality with men, unlike most american men.

second sentence -- the would be good mistresses or wives, depending not whether they were wealthy or not, but whether they actually found a man that suited them or not.

tender is the night is a lot more difficult than The Great Gatsby. It's less obviously symbolic, and he brings the ol' fitzgerald deep descriptive analysis to bear on characters and personalities less so than on the world that surrounds him. However, I think you'll find if you push through it, you'll find it a great book and easier to read as you go. Theres a flashblack that starts probably 150 pages in, and if your interest isn't running a lot higher by that point, i'd be surprised. he wanted to change it to have the flashback come first, but died before he could change it in a next edition.

dont worry about finding the book too tough or strange -- after all, so did everybody else at the time.

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to buy a physical copy later this week and try to annotate it as I read. Maybe that will help me understand the book better.