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Ernie finally finishes The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

…I can’t step out into those streets without wondering what every soul I meet is thinking of me and of my family…

That line pretty much sums up The Magnificent Ambersons.  George Amberson Minafer grows from a spoiled brat to a self centered young man who wants love, success and happiness just like everyone else.  But he wants the right kind of love, success and happiness, nothing common or too emotional.  He doesn’t care for anyone else but he obsesses about what they think of him.

That’s one of the greatest puzzles of human vanity, dear; and I don’t pretend to know the answer.  In all my life, the most arrogant people that I’ve known have been the most sensitive.

Booth Tarkington writes about a world where a lot happens but the Amberson/Minafer families seem to either ignore the world or are far too concerned with what others think about them to pay any real attention to the change going on all around. 

George’s troubles start when Eugene Morgan returns to town after a long absence to open an automobile factory.  Eugene’s daughter captures George’s eye and his heart (what there is of it) while George’s mother and aunt, both admirers of Mr. Morgan from way back when, renew their friendships. Soon, innuendo and gossip trump loyalty and trust.  The family starts to crack from desperate greed.  The strain brings on illness and death.  As the situation worsens, George forces issues beyond retreat or repair.  To save the family, George destroys all chances of happiness for anyone.

Spoiler alert…the family doesn’t make it anyway.  In the end, financially ruined, turned away by the one person he almost loved, his family dying off; George still manages to hold his head high until suffering the cruelest fate possible. He and the Ambersons have been forgotten by the town.

Tarkington won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for The Magnificent Ambersons and his writing is excellent.  Despite not caring for one single character in this book, I kept reading because the story itself was just that good.  The characters are all very well presented and Tarkington captures the flood of emotions that pour out of almost every scene.

The Stutz Bearcat is probably the most famous car built in Indianapolis, Indiana.  This 1914 model is currently at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Interesting to me, Booth Tarkinton writes about the early automobile industry in Indiana.  The car is seen as the catalyst for change, not only in the Ambersons’ lives but for the town and ultimately the world.  But at the time of writing, the auto industry was cutting edge technology.  Fortunes were made and lost in the early Twentieth Century and Tarkington uses this contemporary boom skillfully.  Reading almost one hundred years later, it doesn’t feel dated in any way.

As a side note, Orson Welles produced a critically accepted film based on The Magnificent Ambersons.  In one of the few times that I have seen a film while in the middle of reading the book, I have to say the film was incredibly disappointing.

Read the book! Skip the movie

Next week:  Sandra finally finishes The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles.

We have seven books left to read to finish our goal of reading 75 books that were on the list of 100 greatest novels of the 20th Century.  Will we make it by the end of the year?  Probably not, but that is the goal!