“A sunny place for shady people”

Travelling along the Cote d’Azur, it does not take long to understand why F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of American New World decadence was set on the French Riviera of the 1920’s. The strip of French coast-line, with its average of 300 days of sunshine a year, is still as beautiful and glittering as the lavish world of Dick and Nicole Diver, the wealthy, glamorous but fatally tragic duo of Tender is the Night. The Divers’ world is one which oozes money and decadence, a world which slots perfectly into the the sun-drenched towns along the alluringly blue Mediterranean coast line. It is hard to envisage the tragedy of the novel, with its morass of broken families and identities, taking place in the charming winding streets of each pastel-coloured “vieille ville". And yet, ironically, it is the persistent sunshine which brings out the darker edge in this scenic setting. It is the sun which makes the coast glitter in a way which suggests a restless impermanence, a shroud of volatile and intangible light. Perhaps this feeling is induced by mere paranoia on my part, an impact of the tragic outcome of the novel still firmly imprinted in my mind. Or perhaps, it is the feeling of money in the air, the awareness that this is a slightly rootless world constructed on paper, ink and rays of sun, without anything hugely substantial holding it to the ground. In places such as Beaulieu, Ville Franche and Antibes, the big coastal houses and the littering of private yachts certainly endorse this notion. In Saint Jean Cap-Ferrat, the Rothschild Villa with its intricately designed numerous gardens and 18th century style house, stands again as a reminder of the sheer overflow of money that existed here in the early twentieth century.

Nowhere, however, is this hedonistic excess more obvious than in Monaco, a place of tall, grey concrete, and big, big bucks. The private yachts are stacked high and mighty in its port, almost on top of each other, creating a mountain of luxury which greets you as you enter the tax-free city state. Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s drive past on the roads which annually stage the Formula One Grand Prix. This is the 21st century equivalent of the Diver world, hovering above the ground idealistically and aimlessly, totally divorced from reality. Like the £35,000 bottle of champagne on the bar menu, it is total insanity. And yet, almost a century after the money, sex and tragedy of Fitzgerald’s world, it persists, the sun still beautifully shining on.

Photos all my own