The Magnificent Ambersons

The Growth Trilogy #2

by Booth Tarkington

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1918, The Magnificent Ambersons chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist of Booth Tarkington's great historical drama is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family's magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class. Today The Magnificent Ambersons is best known through the 1942 Orson Welles movie, but as the critic Stanley Kauffmann noted, "It is high time that [the novel] appear again, to stand outside the force of Welles's genius, confident in its own right." "The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," judged Van Wyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and town--the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Amber-sons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end."

Booth Tarkington (1869-1946), a prolific writer who achieved overnight success with his first novel, The Gentleman from Indiana (1899), is perhaps best remembered as the author of the popular Penrod adventures and Seventeen (1916). He was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize for the novel Alice Adams (1921).

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, Literature, American, Novels, Book Club

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction/Novel more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike and Colson Whitehead. Although he is little read now, in the 1910s and 1920s he was considered America's greatest living author.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

ABSOLUTEY MAGNIFICENT......... could not put it down!!!!! Review later -- Time to hike! xoxo

Update:
Thank you *Anne*!!!! ...... for telling me about this book!

I knew nothing about Booth Tarkington until just a few days ago.
For those who might not either, ( okay, maybe just a few of you)...
Booth Tarkington was a leading American novelist of the Interwar period. He was famous for this book, ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ and ‘Alice Adams’.
Although he was considered by many to be American’s greatest living author in the 1910’s and the 1920’s, being one of only three novelist to win the Pulitzer Prize multiple times, his works are sadly neglected today. I plan to read more of his books.

‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize.
The setting is largely a fictionalized version of Indianapolis and much of it was inspired by the neighborhood of Woodruff Place.
Woodruff Place it’s a neighborhood in Indianapolis located about a mile east of downtown, and was once considered to be one of the most affluent neighborhoods before the beginning of a gradual decline as the automobile led to the development of newer upscale subdivisions beginning in the 1910’s.

From the start of this story, Tarkington painted a marvelous visional experience of the town.....( almost a character in itself)....with the most enjoyable characters a reader would want to spend time with, from any novel.
The story spans over 50 years. We experience the changes through three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family, once the envy by many.....with their wealth and prestigious social status -
As the years went by - rural small town society and the Amerson’s fortunes began to decline with the rise of the automobile - and the industrial revolution massively increasing.

What makes this book so adoringly charming - are the characters.... especially the relationships between George - Lucy - Isabell - and Eugene. AND THE DIALOGUE: it’s ruthless, gutless, and often humorous in that dry-wonderful way....and simply delicious!

And George, poor George? arrogant George? Foolish George?
...George Amberson Minafer....is one heck of an unruly character. The first time he told someone to go to hell, he was only nine years old. And that person was an adult. ( spoiled, snobbish, better-than-thou).... but.....I just couldn’t find it in my heart to hate him

And Lucy.... dear beautiful, wise, Lucy.... she is a character to love....
George loves her too...
Lucy loves him....
But.....I’m not spillin the beans .... on how that turns out.

This ‘fall-from-grace’ story was sooooo compulsively and compelling to read ....my entire soul is enriched.

HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. A ‘treat’ read.....
A REALLY SPECIAL ‘classic’!
$1.99 Kindle special! SUCH A DEAL!!!!

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the tropes of the All-American novel notwithstanding, the best part of "Magnificent Ambersons" is the creation of its protagonist, Georgie Amberson, perennial brat & complete a$$hole. His impressions on the town, of which he is the most affluent and expectation-filled member, of the riffraff, are outstandingly hell-air-eeous!

There are multiple love stories, some romantic, some familial. There are several dashes with history, especially with the invention of the automobile. Yup, a novel about America with a precocious imp in the center of it. THE stuff Pulitzer Dreams are made of!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was not at all about what I had anticipated it would be, and surprised me in a very good way. Booth Tarkington is one of those names you know, you feel you certainly must have read, but then you realize you never have. I have two of his novels on my Pulitzer challenge, this one and Alice Adams. I am looking forward to the second now that I have sampled the wares.

Written in 1918, The Magnificent Ambersons is the story of George Amberson Minafer, a pompous, spoiled, arrogant little SOB who you want to smack around the ears, and who inspires that same desire in many of the people he meets. He is the grandson of a man who has made his own fortune and whose children take the money for granted and spend it. But the world is changing rapidly, the stock market is full of new opportunities, but fraught with risk; there are new inventions everywhere, but it is difficult to sort the ones that will succeed from the ones that won't and you might be tempted to bet that the horse and buggy isn’t going to be usurped by the automobile, much to your own dismay. In short, millionaires are being made and broken and the city is spreading outward, spurred by more mobility, and the influence of a single family is being diminished with the spread.

But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace. I think men’s minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can’t have the immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may be that George is right, and that the spiritual alteration will be bad for us.

Substitute “computer” for “automobile” and you will see that we have witnessed the same kind of society change in our lifetimes. I’m not sure whether that comforts me or not, but it does put a different perspective on what I sometimes view as the out-of-control progress of our world, the progress that doesn’t stop to consider the harm that might be done along with the advancement.
There was so much here that I could relate to our own lives and times. Our economy is a shifting sand and technology did to many industries, two of which were my own mainstay, exactly what the auto did to horses.

The hubris of those who have inherited wealth, instead of earned wealth, is not something that has changed much either, and I could identify with the thrifty older people, who were viewed as miserly because they wanted their children to hold on to a little of the wealth instead of treating it like a well that could not go dry.

George is an enigma, in a way. He is arrogant and self-centered, but he is also proud and intelligent. He could do something with his life, had all the people in his family not treated him like he was a crown prince. Everyone suffers the consequences of the man they have created from the overindulged boy. In this world where we are always trying to buy our children more "things", I believe there is some good advice on child rearing in these pages, as well.

It’s been the same all his life: everything he did was noble and perfect. He had a domineering nature to begin with, and she let it go on, and fostered it till it absolutely ruled her. I never saw a plainer case of a person’s fault making them pay for having it!

You don’t want to like George, but at some point you do, because you feel sorry for him, knowing he is never going to build happiness without laying a solid foundation; but foundations are not something he thinks he needs, he believes his grandfather has laid a foundation that will support him forever. Of all the people who do not see George clearly, George is the worst offender. He never sees himself as he is and never stops to consider that “noble and perfect” might not be the adjectives that most people would readily apply to him.

I loved this quote, Eugene speaking of George:

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. The people who have done the most in contempt of other people’s opinion, and who consider themselves the highest above it, have been the most furious if it went against them. Arrogant and domineering people can’t stand the least, lightest, faintest breath of criticism. It just kills them.

Confess, you know someone like this, don’t you? I think all of us do.

I could go on quoting this book endlessly. I marked dozens of passages. I will not do that...I will only suggest that you might find it an interesting read if you have any empty space on your TBR. When I started writing this review, I had decided I was giving this a 4-star rating; by the time I got to this point, I realized I really thought it was an amazing book and that it deserved all 5-stars. I like a book that makes me think of things that go beyond the story itself, a book in which the characters are drawn clearly as individuals, but have that element that can make them stand for a society as a whole or a segment thereof.

I think the Pulitzer committee got this one right...they don’t always do that.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In all my life, the most arrogant people that I've known have been the most sensitive. The people who have done the most in contempt of other people's opinion, and who consider themselves the highest above it, have been the most furious if it went against them. Arrogant and domineering people can't stand the least, lightest, faintest breath of criticism. It just kills them".

Now admit it, you got a mental picture of a certain man currently in the news, a man we've all had just about enough of in the last 4 years, didn't you? This book was written more than a hundred years ago, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1918. So either Booth Tarkington had a crystal ball, or this type of person has been around for all of history.

George Amberson Minafer was born with a spoon in his mouth, and his adoring mother and grandfather used that spoon to feed him the belief that he was the most wonderful person ever born, he could do no wrong, and everything he did and said was just perfect. The people of the town were just waiting for the day when George "gets his comeuppance". The beauty of this book for me was that George did get his comeuppance in the end, and the journey was long and painful. He is taken down by life, as is everyone in the end.

As well as being a satisfying family saga, this book shone an historical light on the early years of the 20th century, with the invention of the automobile and the growth of small villages into sprawling cities, hints at coming pollution, and the downfall of the American spirit when profits and making money took the place of the old ways of thrift and independence. This was an old-fashioned novel in the best way, and I really enjoyed reading it at last.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Magnificent Ambersons is the story about the changes in the early 20th Century brought on by the beginnings of the Industrial Age, as seen through the changing fortunes in the lives of one family. It's a wonderful character driven story, told with sharply ironic humor and wit. I enjoyed it far more than I expected, often chuckling and laughing at the wonderful dialogue and the narrator's ironic and haughty descriptions of people and the town. The story flows easily and the characters are wonderfully contrived. I listened to the story in audio which was superbly narrated by Geoffrey Blaisdell.

The setting is a fictional Midwestern American town appropriately named Midland. As the story opens the Ambersons are the richest family in their small town and the pace of life is slow.

"A lone mule drew the car in good weather. one mile in... 20 minutes..... They had time for everything … time to think , to talk, to read....to serenade... ."

During this slow paced time we first meet Isabelle Amberson, as a young beautiful woman. She is being courted, and one of her beaus, Eugene Morgan, in a drunken moment makes a fool of himself while trying to serenade her. This leads Isabelle to choose another boring but safe suitor, Wilbur Minafer. It is the wrong decision because she loves Morgan, not Wilbur, but the Ambersons are all about appearances and pride. These attitudes will be passed down to Isabelle's son, George and will eventually lead George to make decisions for which both he and Isabel (and others) will pay for dearly.

When Isabel marries Wilbur Minafer the town gossips, like a greek chorus:

"She couldn’t love Wilbur Minafer so she’d put all of her love on her children and ruin them.”

Isabel only ends up having one child but the gossips turn out to be right, and all of her love is spent on this one child, George. He is completely spoiled and, naturally, grows up tyrannical and selfish. I had mixed feelings about George, disliking him when he was arrogant and obnoxious but liking his deep sense of loyalty to the few people he loves and for other reasons which show up towards the end of the novel..

This story is about a changing world and that change is initially introduced in the persons of Eugene Morgan and his daughter Lucy. Eugene, a manufacturer of "horseless carriages," is George's mother old beau. Now widowed, he has returned to set up a shop in the town . At this point George laughs at him both for his lower social position and for the absurdity of believing that a machine can replace a horse. George hates automobiles, and insists that they are nothing more than a passing fad.

At the same time he falls in love with Eugene's daughter Lucy. For some reason, she's attracted to George despite the fact that nearly every word he says is off-putting . These sections of the novel are among the most fun. The dialogue between George and Lucy is often hilarious because Lucy never takes to heart George's attempts at domination, his bad humor nor his arrogance.

At the same time, Eugene and Isabel start seeing each other again (after George's father dies) and George is appalled when they become engaged. He puts a stop to it in a cruel fashion and Isabel goes along with it. Isabel allows herself to give up Eugene at George's insistence due to his caring too much for appearances and how it would look if she remarried. Isabel says to George, " I shouldn't mind anything if I have you all to myself." For a mother to feel and say that to a son we can see that George had no chance to grow up to be be anything but domineering and arrogant. George knows that by forcing his mother to give up Eugene that he has lost any chance at love with Lucy, so George and Isabel leave for Europe for 3 years and in that time their town is transformed.

Tarkington’s descriptions of these transformations are masterful. The small town speeds up and spreads out leading to faster cars, urbanization, decaying neighborhoods, industrial growth, pollution and declining fortunes. When Isabel and George return from Europe the transformations are complete. This includes the rise of Eugene Morgan who is now wealthy and the once-mocked horseless carriage is the coveted automobile while the Amberson district goes downhill.

I will say no more so as not to spoil the story as it proceeds from here.

A wonderful novel which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1919. Highly recommended.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First and last 100 pages are exquisite - as good as anything I've ever read. Middle section bogs down in some repetition and tedious dialogue as the world passes the Ambersons by and they fritter away their lives in clueless trivialities. Many readers will not be able to stand the uncompromising stubbornness of the spoiled Georgie Amberson Minafer. All in all, what a talent for description and grasp of the novel's time Tarkington has. The style pulls you right along, simple yet not simplistic. The subtitle of the book, written in 1918, might have been "How the Automobile Effed up America" (both the environment and the communal way of life). Lots of prophecy in that.

[After reading the book, I thought a fresh revisit of the famous Orson Welles 1942 film version would be illuminating, and I have to say that seeing the film on the heels of this reading changed my perception of the film, for the better. I'd always admired the film, but assumed due to RKO's infamous interference and cutting that the last part of the movie did not jibe with the book and was weak, but this turns out not to be true. After watching the movie I was astonished at the skill of Robert Wise and the RKO editors for managing to keep virtually the entire plot, key scenes and major dialogue exchanges from the book in the film. Where the film is weak in comparison to the book is in conveying how Tarkington expresses the gradual financial, social, and personal downfall of the Ambersons, including their environs and their place as well-known pillars of the community. This takes place incrementally in the book, so that the reader is aware of the acidic decay taking place while the Ambersons seem clueless to it, but it is virtually unremarked in the film until the final minutes, where it is very abrupt and not fully explored in all its implications. Welles gets the mood and plot right, but skimps somewhat on the thematic elements.
Also, Tarkington's book makes you feel sorry for George Amberson Minafer when he does get his comeuppance, even though you've hated him throughout the book. I don't get that same sense in the film version. I also believe the "true to my own true love" quote at the end of the film (which is the same as in the book) is open to a different, and wrong, interpretation in the film. I always thought that the film was implying that Eugene Morgan and Aunt Fanny---looking dewey eyed at one another---were somehow going to thus hook up, which seems all wrong. In the book, it is clear that his "true love" remains the dead Isabelle Amberson Minafer. By making peace with her son (and Eugene's enemy) George Amberson Minafer, he is thus remaining true to his own true love. The movie seems to twist this for the sake of a happy ending, though perhaps I misread that. Anyway, the film is no substitute for the book, but it is perfectly realized and cast, and both book and film amplify and enlighten aspects of each.:] -EG
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FYI: A few of my favorite, thoughtful passages from the book:
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"I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles," he said. "With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization--that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure.
But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace. I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles; just how, though, I could hardly guess. But you can't have the immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward ones, and it may be that George is right, and that the spiritual alteration will be bad for us.
----
There were the little bunty street-cars on the long, single track that went its troubled way among the cobblestones. At the rear door of the car there was no platform, but a step where passengers clung in wet clumps when the weather was bad and the car crowded. The patrons--if not too absent-minded--put their fares into a slot; and no conductor paced the heaving floor, but the driver would rap remindingly with his elbow upon the glass of the door to his little open platform if the nickels and the passengers did not appear to coincide in number. A lone mule drew the car, and sometimes
drew it off the track, when the passengers would get out and push it on again. They really owed it courtesies like this, for the car was genially accommodating: a lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once and wait for her while she shut the window, put on her hat and cloak, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the "girl" what to have for dinner, and came forth from the house.
The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry on the part of the car: they were wont to expect as much for themselves on like occasion. In good weather the mule pulled the car a mile in a little less than twenty minutes, unless the stops were too long; but when the trolley-car came, doing its mile in five minutes and better, it would wait for nobody. Nor could its passengers have endured such a thing, because the faster they were carried the less time they had to spare!
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"He can try," said Amberson. "He is trying, in fact. I've sat in the shop watching him try for several beautiful afternoons, while outside the windows all Nature was fragrant with spring and smoke. He hums ragtime to himself as he tries, and I think his mind is wandering to something else less tedious--to some new invention in which he'd take more interest."
------
The Major was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life. No business plans which had ever absorbed him could compare in momentousness with the plans that absorbed him now, for he had to plan how to enter the unknown country where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson—not sure of anything, except that Isabel would help him if she could. His absorption produced the outward effect of reverie, but of course it was not. The Major was occupied with the first really important matter that had taken his attention since he came home invalided, after the Gettysburg campaign, and went into business; and he realized
that everything which had worried him or delighted him during this lifetime between then and to-day--all his buying and building and trading and banking--that it all was trifling and waste beside what concerned him now.
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The elevator boy noticed nothing unusual about him and neither did Fanny, when she came in from church with her hat ruined, an hour later. And yet something had happened--a thing which, years ago, had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. They had thought of it, longed for it, hoping acutely that they might live to see the day when it would come to pass. And now it had happened at last: Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance.
He had got it three times filled and running over. The city had rolled over his heart, burying it under, as it rolled over the Major's and buried it under. The city had rolled over the Ambersons and buried them under to the last vestige; and it mattered little that George guessed easily enough that most of the five hundred Most Prominent had paid something substantial "to defray the cost of steel engraving, etc."--the Five Hundred had heaved the final shovelful of soot upon that heap of obscurity wherein the Ambersons were lost forever from sight and history."Quicksilver in a nest of cracks!"
Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance, but the people who had so longed for it were not there to see it, and they never knew it. Those who were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magnificent Ambersons transported me to a mid-western town in the early 1900s at the dawn of the industrial age. As automobiles begin to appear, as soft black coal pollutes the avenues, the most prominent family in town (the Ambersons) are forced to change.

The reader feels little sympathy for George or his mother. George's mother is blinded by love for her son and creates a spoiled, self-centered boy and man. George (for most of the novel) is an unlikable combination of privilege, delusion and snobbery. But I didn't need to like George to be riveted by his story. The ending is rushed and felt almost tacked on - otherwise I enjoyed every page of this novel - or rather every word - I listened to an excellent audio rendition by Geoffrey Blaisdell.

[Loretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a memorable story. Descriptions were good but this one wasn't for me.

[Chavelli Sulikowska · Rating 5 out of 5]

“At the age of nine, George Amberson Minafer, the Major's one grandchild, was a princely terror…”

I just wanted to throttle George “Georgie” Minafer through at least the first half, no, three quarters, of this novel. He is a rude, spoilt, obnoxious and down right cruel child and matures into a uppity, self righteous and still over-indulged young adult. So, it was with this frustrated state of mind I energetically ploughed through this seemingly much underrated 1919 Pulitzer Prize Winner. In fact, Tarkington is one of only two to have received the Pulitzer on two occasions. Applause please.

The Ambersons represent the last vestiges of American old money. Set at the start of the 20th century, Booth’s tale is essentially one of social unravelling, the demise of the upper-class and the birth of a modern nation; heralding new technologies, which meant more factories and more employment and more prosperity. The result was the rise of the middle-class, a catalyst for a monumental wave of city building and urban sprawl, effectively changing the shape of the American landscape.
But rather than embracing the change and capitalising on new investment opportunities, the Ambersons, particularly George, remain stuck in their old ways, incapable of adapting to the changing world order, in complete denial. That they are about to go down on a fast sinking ship – Titanic like, refusing to give up their fancies and fineries in the face of inevitable demise, clinging on to their archaic way of living, only makes their fall from grace that much more “magnificent.”
Booth’s characterisation is good – each of the characters are deeply flawed and frustrating in some way: particularly George for all his arrogance and self righteousness, his mother Isabel for blind adoration of her son in spite of his despicable behaviour – even when his actions deny her of her own chance of true happiness, his uninspiring father and other spend thrift relatives.

Lucy, George’s love interest, and her inventor father, Eugene, are a breath of fresh air. They are symbolic of a new rising class in America, where wealth is made by the man and not simply idly inherited through the family line. Against much mockery, Eugene adheres to his vision to invent the modern automobile, and proves himself, becoming a successful and wealthy entrepreneur. They are modern, embrace the societal changes and the good fortune it brings – “There aren't any old times. When times are gone they're not old, they're dead! There aren't any times but new times!"

Meanwhile, George, in spite of his real affection for Lucy, refuses to submit to his heart – instead, he remains obstinate, refusing to give up the old way of life even as it slips from beneath him and he falls on his face. But luckily for George, Lucy in all her infinite optimism and wisdom recognises a chip of goodness (somewhere!?) inside George, and in spite of his moodiness, tantrums and rebukes, she remains committed to believing in his reformation, even as years lapse, as – “arrogance turned gentle melts the heart…” And in the end, I must admit I hate George a lot less than at the beginning. In fact, one could say I even started to feel some sympathetic warmth towards him as he starts to right some wrongs.

However, this new America is far from perfect. Development, technology and economic prosperity as we know comes at a price. It makes our lives both better and worse at the same time. Booth describes the unfettered urban sprawl, ugly factories and looming skyscrapers, a constant choking haze of pollution and squalid working conditions, particularly for migrants – “All the people were soiled by the smoke-mist through which they hurried, under the heavy sky that hung close upon the new skyscrapers; and nearly all seemed harried by something impending…”

Perhaps the modern message here is that sometimes we need to hit rock bottom before we are able to realise the only way is up. And then the climb is necessarily hard and bitter, and hopefully we learn from the experience. The world is constantly changing, that rug, always being pulled from beneath us. Sometimes without warning, but most often, we are simply deliberately ignorant of the ‘writing on the wall’ – pollution, population explosion, climate change, risk of pandemics etc., are some current examples to name a few. Like Booth’s character’s we must finally realise, that we risk our own destruction if we do not acknowledge the need to change our behaviours, adapt to new realities and ways of living and prepare for a very different future.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There aren't any old times. When times are gone they're not old, they're dead! There aren't any times but new times!”
― Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons



This is one of those fantastic little classics (it won the Pulitzer Prize's second prize for the Novel category in 1919) that while not exactly ignored, certainly aren't read as frequently today as the author's talent should demand. It was made in 1942 into a movie by Orson Wells (his second film) so it does have that anchor to keep it from slipping further into the darkness of the past. I guess old fiction is like old families.

"Nothing stays or holds truly.
Great Caesar dead and turn'd to clay
stopped no hole to keep the wind away;
dead Caesar was nothing but tiresome bit
of print in a book that schoolboys study
for awhile and then forget."
-- Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1

I guess the same can be said of literature. Most books are eventually pulped. Even the good and many, many of the great ones too are soon forgotten. The writer's impulse is for some glimmer of immortality, but memories and readers are damn fickle things. We collectively shrug off and forget those we recently purchased, those banging the publisher's gongs to get attention, and to hell with all those public domain dead writers -- even if they did write such beautiful books.


___________________

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

At this link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Diane, Leslie and I have shared our thoughts as we all read it at the same time.

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There are two reasons to read this book, no three:
I wanted to test the author; I had not read him before, and it is considered a classic. Secondly it draws a picture of a time and place - Midwestern America at the turn of the 20th Century. Industrialization, railroads, cars and new opportunities to make something of yourself even if you are not born into wealth. Thirdly, by looking at George Amberson Minafer, the grandson of the town's most prominent citizen and its founder, we can observe the socio-economic repercussions of the era on a personal level. The wealthy, the renowned, the privileged, what happened to them with the changed times?

The book was first published in 1918. Booth Tarkingtonshows that he was prescient of what was to come. We see this through what some of the characters say. I am thinking of Eugene Morgan; he saw with foresight both the money that could be made through "horseless wagons" and the changes, both good and bad, that they would bring.

A word about character portrayals and family relationships. You could label this as a novel of the genre "dysfunctional families", here a dysfunctional family of the early 1900s. What happens when a mother has only one child and she sacrifices all for him? It's a boy, namely the above named George. At the beginning the characters feel two-dimensional. Personification rather flat, but pay attention. Watch what is happening. At the start George is pampered, arrogant, over-bearing, domineering, despicable in all respects. Will he change? Will he get his comeuppance? There is heavy foreshadowing.

The book is easy to read and has little extraneous information.

The audiobook narration by Peter Berkrot is very good. He definitely does dramatize, but he does it well and in all the right places. It is easy to follow. It is rather trying though to listen to family arguments - with one person yelling at another, with bouts of rampant crying - on an audiobbok. Beware. Well done, but unpleasant nevertheless. What I noted was that the dialogs were amazingly good. You've heard arguments. You know the nasty things people say.

I am glad I read the book. I am glad I tested the author. I think it takes the socio-economic changes of the era and shows on a personal level how people reacted, more specifically how those who had before stood on the top rung of the ladder felt when they tumbled down. However, it is just that I was always observing. I was not there. I remained a spectator even during those unpleasant squabbles.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The winner of the second Pulitzer prize, The Magnificent Ambersons, is actually a riches to rags story of the social and financial descent of the Amberson family in an unnamed 'midland' city as industrialization at the end of the 19th century outpaces their mode of life. The descriptions of US society of the fin de siecle period are memorable and there is humor here mixed in with the pathos. Booth created a particularly unlikeable protagonist and readers will relish his fall from grace, his come-uppance which all the other characters in the book are also anticipating.

My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

[Misfit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow. This is what writing is supposed to be, although I'm having a terrible time putting my feelings into words. I loved the way the author used spoiled, self-centered George to show the reader the changes brought about by modern inventions and industrial growth, instead of telling us about these changes. How refreshing. I did like George a lot, but there were things he did to try to stop those changes in his life, to the point of alienating those he loved most, things that just make you beg for comeuppance day - but when that comes - oh sniff.

Does he get a happy ending? No, I'm not telling but I loved it.

“Her eyes would look wistful no more.”

Have some tissue handy. Booth Tarkington is an author I somehow missed in my school years, and only stumbled upon him whilst shopping the free classics on Amazon last year where it languished with all those other classics I'd downloaded, but thumbs up to the hardworking ladies at Legacy Romance for hunting down these older classics, spiffing them up and giving them a new lease on life in the digital world. I very much appreciated the addition of a write-up on the author, a glossary of terms used in the book and the period images at the end. My copy did have a few formatting errors, but I've been told those are being corrected for the final copy. Five big stars for this one - don't miss it.

Advance copy provided by Legacy Romance, thank you.

[ALLEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virtually Booth Tarkington's only novel not a juvenile (what 1919 called today's "YA"), THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is probably his finest of all, and certainly his fullest. Narrated in retrospect (flashback) from the viewpoint of an Indianapolis-like Midwestern city, it tells the tale of the decline and fall of the Amberson clan, who made their haul in real estate and business, only to fall prey to rapid industrialization and the overweening snottiness of that gleaming heir, young Georgie Minafer. Poignant -- and very useful as a study of American mores and social change. Most American cinemaphiles know that Orson Welles' 1942 movie was good, but a bit of a hack job due to studio interference. I'd advise seeing it anyway, but reading this novel in full. You might indeed find it a worthy American counterpart to Thomas Mann's BUDDENBROOKS.

Note to reader: Please buy or borrow an unexpurgated version of AMBERSONS. By way of comparison, CreateSpace, according to its listing, has fewer than half the number of pages of the edition pictured above (Kindle; 292 pp.), or the B&N paperback version that I read (below), with a flat 300 pages.


(Image courtesy barnesandnoble.com)

[William Durden]

It always cracks me up that this is the #100th book on the Modern Library top 100 list. I haven't actually read very many books on that list, but I'm always proud of the fact that I've read the one that just barely made it.

[Gary Inbinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Nothing stays or holds or keeps where there is growth, he somehow perceived vaguely but truly. Great Caesar dead and turned to clay stopped no hole to keep the wind away. Dead Caesar was nothing but a tiresome bit of print in a book that schoolboys study for awhile and then forget. The Ambersons had passed, and the new people would pass, and the new people that came after them, and then the next new ones, and the next—and the next—”

This is a quote from Booth Tarkington’s great American novel; a story about the decline and fall of a wealthy Midwestern family, from the post-Civil War “Gilded Age” to the second decade of the 20th century. Tarkington made brilliant use of tragic irony as a plot driver. Early on, Isabel Amberson rejects Eugene Morgan because she feels humiliated by his drunken behavior during a romantic serenade. After rejecting Eugene, she enters into a loveless marriage with Wilbur Minifer; her son George is the spoiled product of the loveless marriage. Wilbur is considered a steady and sober choice for a husband, but he ultimately turns out to be a poor businessman whose bad investments help dissipate the family fortune. Moreover, Major Amberson, Civil War veteran and founder of the dynasty, loses even more through his bad investments, as does his ex-Congressman son, George. As the Amberson's fall, Eugene rises, becoming a pioneer in the automobile industry, a 20th century tycoon. And the automobile, industrialization, urban sprawl and decay become metaphors for the end of an era. Tarkington's plotting was subtle, strong and effective in his description of declining fortunes, decaying neighborhoods, loneliness and alienation, industrial waste and pollution of the environment.

“I'm not sure he's wrong about automobiles," he said. "With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization -- that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls.”

There’s a romance between George Amberson Minifer and Eugene Morgan’s daughter, Lucy, and a re-kindled romance between Eugene Morgan and George’s mother, Isabel. Both romances end tragically when, after his father’s death, malicious gossip and George’s misguided sense of family honor compels him to break relations with the Morgans. George is the novel’s not so likeable protagonist: his uncle defines him perfectly:
“I believe I'll say that I've always been fond of you, Georgie, but I can't say that I always liked you. Sometimes I've felt you were distinctly not an acquired taste. Until lately, one had to be fond of you just naturally—this isn't very 'tactful,' of course—for if he didn't, well, he wouldn't!”

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1918, “The Magnificent Ambersons” remains one of the finest American novels of the period.

[Duane Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

1919 Pulitzer Prize winner.

I gave this 4.5 stars but rounded up to 5 because it was that good. This writer and this novel have slipped into obscurity which is a shame, because this is one of the best American novels that I have read from the early 20th century. Tarkington is one of only 3 writers who have won more than 1 Pulitzer, Faulkner and Updike being the others. I was surprised at how good the writing was, how well developed the characters were, and the excellence of a story line that rivals his contemporaries, Cather and Wharton.

The setting was a fictional Midwestern American town, appropriately named Midland, but it is surely Tarkington's home town of Indianapolis Indiana. The story chronicles three generations of the wealthy Amberson family, and their decline to obscurity by the close of the novel. The protagonist is George Amberson Minafer, the youngest and the last of the great family. George is one of the most contemptible characters you will find outside of a Dickens's novel. His arrogance, his sense of entitlement, and his inability to see the significance of the industrial boom the new century was bringing, are a few of the factors that brought an end to the Ambersons.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not so many people read Booth Tarkington these days. Too bad. He's got a lot to say about the way people are. It may seem a little dated on the surface, but so much of the human nature that he observes so well is timeless. I liked what this one said about character and comeuppances. (Maybe my word choices are a little dated, too. Comeuppances?)

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This multigenerational saga of the decline and fall of an elite Midwest family certainly has its moments. It won Tarkington his first Pulitzer Prize and the affection of fellow artists, including Orson Welles whose film adaptation was produced just one year after Citizen Kane. Certainly it has its merits. The writing is often outstanding - particularly descriptions of high society opulence or the effects of industrialization on rural towns - and the story itself is quite compelling.

Reading from a 21st century perspective, I must admit to some occasional annoyance with the mawkishness sprinkled throughout. There is plenty of talk of angelic natures (mainly women) and demonic actions (mostly men). Everyone in the Amberson Mansion is quite astute when it comes to understanding the subtleties of family interactions yet they collectively fail to recognize the much more obvious changes taking place in the people and businesses around them. The dialogue can be gripping yet also waxes corny when high drama is called for. And young George is virtually a sociopath until he’s quite suddenly not.

Despite these reservations, I did enjoy the book. It’s a dated work but contains some surprising psychological insights that definitely still apply today. It is immersive in places and I was frequently transported to “the room where it happens”, not something many more contemporary offerings have been able to do lately. For that I give this

4.5 stars

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this book and I have to say that I actually choked down some emotion at the end of it, which surprised me. I think what got me the most is the regret felt by some characters and also the humanity shown by others. It is set in an important time in American history. A time of change and growth and development. We see a small "pretty" little midland town around the turn of the last century and the known family that pretty much rules everything. During the course of the book we see how the new "horseless carriage" (a crazy invention some thought)begins to change the course of both the family and the town. This small town starts to grow into the big, dirty city and the once aristocratic family falls into obscurity with the rise of so many other important people. And through it all is one particular character that is pretty easy to hate and yet by the end you actually begin to like or at least begin to respect, even a little.
I think what I liked most about this book is the perspective it has given me about so many things that are taken for granted these days. I can't even imagine what it was like to see the growth that happened in those days. To be around and see the invention of the automobile and how it would change the way people lived. One thing I never considered before was that it would be a negative for some. It also made me realize how some things never change and that there will always be people opposed to change and wishing for the good old days, no matter what century we live in!
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about an important time in this country's history. It is a fictional novel but I can see how it could have been any family experiencing this change.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading The Magnificent Ambersons, I couldn’t help but compare Tarkington’s work to that of his fellow Hoosier, Kurt Vonnegut. I know, completely unfair, as they are of different generations. But I think they share a certain desire to demonstrate the necessity for kindness in an industrial world.

Interestingly, the other writer that I kept thinking of was Robertson Davies. Seeing the world from the view point of George Amberson Minifer was a little like looking at Canada through the eyes of Boy Staunton of Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. I could just envision Boy Staunton, as the rich young ruler in Deptford (as seen through the eyes of Dunstan Ramsey) and he blurred with Georgie from time to time. Especially since both Boy Staunton and Georgie Minafer were very concerned with appearances, etiquette, and properness. The convolutedness of the family relationships also reminded me strongly of Davies (Francis Cornish’s relationship to his aunt in What’s Bred in the Bone, for example).

But enough comparing Booth Tarkington to other authors! I did appreciate his clear-sightedness with regards to human behaviour and our remarkable capacity to misunderstand what is motivating other people. How strong is our tendency to attribute our own reasons to the actions of another! And how completely inaccurate that can be—it’s a wonder that there aren’t more serious differences among family and friends than already occur. Ah, family relationships—the refusal to talk about money is a deadly sin, laid out here in dissection.

Recommended for those who are overly concerned about the opinions of others.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fine example of turn-of-the-last century soap opera. Clear language, often painfully direct and uncomplicated, it reads like a grand, traditional family soap opera, complete with rich beginnings and ending with a slow, complete decline.

I had a distinct impression that I was reading a take on the American gentry, meant to aggrandize and admire wealth at all costs. There are a few interesting takes, but the one thing that was driven home was how insufferable and unlikable George was in most of the grand sweep of his life.

It's just a mark of how good a writer Tarkington is that we eventually get SOME redemption from him, but honestly? The final failure of the family seems quite justified. It doesn't matter if it's moral or common sense failings, intelligence or the heart. He was commonplace, spoiled, and idiotic.

The rest was all a pretty enjoyable soap opera, honestly. I'd place it up there with Downton Abbey for lively characters and feel.

As for why such a novel that OUGHT to have stood the test of time... I think there's plenty of reasons why it slipped of the pedestal. The casual racism is bad enough, but it's the commonplace plots and thin characters, however well-written, that made it fall. It IS good, even sharp, but frankly, everyone and their little fat dogs have repeated this success endlessly since then.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until recently, Booth Tarkington’s name was familiar to me primarily as the author of Penrod, which my Dad (born in 1921) said was his favorite book when he was a boy. I didn’t know that Tarkington had won two of the first four Pulitzer Prizes for the Novel and was considered by many of his contemporaries to be the best novelist of the 1910s and 1920s. After reading The Magnificent Ambersons, for which he received the first of his two Pulitzers, I understand why he was held in such high regard. (Although I’m not sure I agree that he was the “best” of his time, given some of the competition.)

The Magnificent Ambersons is the story of George Amberson Minafer, often called “Georgie,” the scion of the Amberson family, which is the most prominent family in an unnamed midwestern town. “At sight of them the grandeur of the Amberson family was instantly conspicuous as a permanent thing: it was impossible to doubt that the Ambersons were entrenched, in their nobility and riches, behind polished and glittering barriers which were as solid as they were brilliant, and would last.”

Georgie certainly assumes that the family’s prominence will last, just as he assumes that automobiles will never replace horses. He has grown up enveloped, or more accurately, smothered, by the love of his well-meaning mother, Isabel, and coddled by his grandfather and his uncles. As a result of his upbringing, Georgie has become an entitled and arrogant young man. He disdains the “riffraff” who must earn their living through a profession or a trade, and he aspires only to be a “gentleman,” maybe a yachtsman. Meanwhile, numerous observers secretly hope that one day, Georgie will receive his “come-upance.”

Georgie is in love with Lucy Morgan, whose father, Eugene Morgan, is an inventor and entrepreneur. Lucy has feelings for Georgie too, but when she contrasts his attitude towards work with her father’s ambition and success, she can’t bring herself to commit to a relationship with Georgie. The matter is complicated by the fact that Eugene was one of Isabel’s suitors before her marriage to Georgie’s father, and they have remained close. As a “gentleman,” Georgie is offended by their closeness, which he views as an affront to the family name and his mother’s honor. And he becomes determined to defend her honor, no matter the repercussions.

Tarkington is both a wonderful writer and an insightful social critic. The book is enlivened by great dialogue as well as numerous small witticisms and clever turns of phrase. To cite a few examples I liked: In commenting about changes in fashion, he observes that “[s]hifting fashions of shape replaced aristocracy of texture: dressmakers, shoemakers, hatmakers, and tailors, increasing in cunning and in power, found means to make new clothes old.” Commenting on the middle-aged Eugene’s dancing ability, he says Eugene “had been a real dancer in his day, it appeared; and evidently his day was not yet over.” And observing that the holidays are the happiest times, he notes that “nothing is like a mother who has a son home from college, except another mother with a son home from college.”

Tarkington is a keen observer of the social and technological changes wrought by the passage of time. Georgie’s dismissal of automobiles is shown to be increasingly misguided as Eugene perfects his automobile inventions and builds a successful factory. Changes are evident even in less momentous contexts: “New faces appeared at the dances of the winter; new faces had been appearing everywhere, for that matter, and familiar ones were disappearing, merged in the increasing crowd, or gone forever and missed a little and not long ….” Time marches on. Responding to a friend’s comment about the “old times,” Eugene says, “There aren’t any old times. When times are gone they’re not old, they’re dead! There aren’t any times but new times!”

I don’t think it’s an accident that Tarkington named Georgie’s family the Ambersons. Ultimately, they come to represent a bygone way of life, a relic of the past, a fossil “preserved in amber.”

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe even 4.5* While I knew most of the plot from watching the excellent film adaptation (1942 directed by Orson Wells and starring Joseph Cotten), it was worthwhile reading the original novel. Tarkington is one of a small handful of authors who have won the Pulitzer Prize more than once and reading this novel, I could understand why.

Wells focused on the family drama in the film (and ended a few chapters short of the book!) but the book shows that Tarkington is more interested in the wider social commentary. Even with this wider focus, his portrayal of a pompous narcissist bully in Georgie Minafer is excellent and the book is worth reading for that alone. Georgie is not a caricature and I liked the fact that Tarkington showed him as human which allowed me to sympathize with him even when he was at his most annoying. Being a sentimentalist at heart, I liked the fact that the book allowed Georgie (now George) to be reprieved and possibly (hopefully) get back together with Lucy Morgan.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booth Tarkington won two Pulitzers for his novels, and he was awarded his first for "The Magnificent Ambersons." This is truly an American classic.

Set in "Amberson Addition," a fictionalized version of the neighborhood of Woodruff Place, Indianapolis, the novel follows the encroachment of the city into the former picturesque and sparsely populated suburban town. The Ambersons are an influential family grown wealthy during the industrial boom following the Civil War, but as the 20th Century approached, new titans of industry and technology began to grow in power. Soon, the Amberson dynasty will be usurped, swallowed, assimilated. The author does not necessarily side with the old elites, but he does portray their decline with sensitivity and empathy. In addition, it was clear that Tarkington was no fan of the changes wrought by modern technology.

"...the city came to be like the body of a great dirty man, skinned, to show his busy works, yet wearing a few barbaric ornaments; and such a figure carved, coloured, and discoloured, and set up in the market-place, would have done well enough as the god of the new people."

Tarkington accurately foresaw the wonderful advantages new industry and metropolitan growth could bring, as well as the price such growth demanded. The fast pace of a ever more connected life. The destruction of the pastoral lands for dusty, smokey tenements, factories, and low-income housing. Overcrowding. Crime. Traffic. Progress and growth promises greater freedom while clandestinely making us all serfs.

Indeed, the real Woodruff Place suffered the same fate as Amberson Addition. Once an idyllic park dotted with sprawling turreted mansions, dandies in dovetails, and laced maidens headed to the evening game of whist, the neighborhood fell into decay as the once great estates of the families that built Indianapolis were divided into low income housing apartments. Perhaps unforseen by Tarkington, however, is that Woodruff Place has enjoyed a "regentrification," and is once again a coveted historic neighborhood where wealthy couples with no children can entertain their friends from Carmel in overpriced downtown real estate, pretenders to the life of the early tycoons.

But the cycle of prosperity and decline still continues. "Life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. And when they're gone we can't tell where—or what the devil we did with 'em!"

The book has a stunning ensemble of complex and engaging personages. Lucy Morgan is a wonderfully sympathetic character, good-humored, strong-willed, and unfortunately in love with the Devil, Georgie Amberson. Georgie is not outright evil, and in fact, he has his own kind of ethical code. But he is terribly misguided, narcissistic, and impetuous. One can almost sympathize with his wish to preserve some of the old ways of life, such as his fear of how the automobile would impact society, a fear that Tarkington himself harbored. But he has two fatal flaws. First, he assumes that everything not only should but will remain exactly as they are--his family will always be wealthy and he will forever reap the benefits of such wealth with no effort of his own. Meaningful work, actually "doing something," is for the "riffraff." Secondly, he really never thinks about the big picture or society at all--in fact he thinks of no one but himself. He rationalizes that his attempts to sabotage his widowed mother's potential remarriage is to protect his mother from potential scandal, but in reality he is only thinking of his own needs and not his mother's happiness. His mother is also a great personality, being both a strong gracious woman yet childlike, and when it comes to her son, all of her intelligence goes out the window. She has some insight into their codependent relationship as being the cause of George's spoiled and entitled manners, but she can't seem to face his disapproval or disappointment should she set appropriate boundaries. In this way, she is a devoted mother to her detriment, and though her enablement of George is frustrating to the reader, she is one of the most realistic and believable of the cast.

But most impressive of all is how the novel encapsulates the whole history of modern America, a process of societal evolution involving rapid growth and decay with physical and psychological implications felt and seen to this day, with little to no exposition. So much is said and implied organically through this captivating melodrama, this one snapshot of the country in a point in time. It remains a moving, tragic, humorous, and timeless tale.

"The Magnificent Ambersons" is one of the shining examples from the Golden Age of Indiana literature and should be read by everyone at least once. Receives my highest recommendation.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where I got the book: ARC from publisher. Some spoilers in the review.

One of the most delightful aspects of the e-book revolution is the opportunity to rediscover once-loved novels that are no longer household names. Although they're usually available for free, I'm all in favor of publishers like Legacy Romance charging a low price for well-formatted digital versions. I can see that this trend will grow and competition will become fiercer, which is all good for the reader.

I had heard of the 1942 film version of The Magnificent Ambersons but had never seen it nor read the book, so I came to this novel with fresh eyes. And what a charming discovery it's been.

This is the cautionary tale of George Amberson Minafer, an offshoot of the wealthy Amberson family who dominate their small "Midland" (Midwestern?) town. George, his parents' only child, is completely spoiled by his mother and, naturally, grows up tyrannical and selfish. I couldn't help liking George right from the beginning, though; he has a strong sense of honor, a deep loyalty to the few people and principles he does respect, and is undeniably brave. He is born into a time and society of spacious houses set on expansive property, magnificence born of the thrift of Yankee ancestors who worked hard for their prosperity, and he has completely absorbed those values.

A new order is introduced in the persons of Eugene Morgan and his daughter Lucy. Eugene, a manufacturer of "horseless carriages," is an old flame of George's mother; now widowed, he has returned to set up shop in the town and at this point George, a representative of the old-style upper class founded on the slow accumulation of wealth, can laugh at him both for his lower social position and for the absurdity of believing that a machine can replace a horse. And yet he's strongly attracted to Lucy...

As the years go by, we see the fortunes of the two families reverse themselves. Morgan typifies the new aristocracy of wealth created by the rapid growth of manufacturing; we see the once-mocked horseless carriage become the coveted automobile while the Amberson district goes downhill, the sources of their prosperity are eroded, the once vast properties are gradually subdivided and their small town becomes a large city. Their downfall is exacerbated by their notion that they are gentlefolk who would demean themselves by entering into the manufacturing activities that are making the fortunes of the new men. George embodies all of these conservative attitudes: he staunchly insists that horses are better than automobiles and does not even countenance the idea of working for a living.

In the meantime, George's father, almost invisible in Amberson society, dies and it becomes clear that the flame between his mother and Eugene Morgan is still alive. Naturally, George's selfishness will not allow him to put his mother's happiness before his.

I won't spoil the story by revealing the ending, but suffice it to say that it follows quite naturally from the character arcs the author has put in place. George is redeemed to a certain extent by the good qualities his spoiled childhood did not manage to destroy (or possibly even fostered) but the ending is a sad one with just a glimmer of hope.

It's a great story, told in a sharply ironic and yet loving tone, and I enjoyed it immensely. As for the edition, it's not bad: the ARC I received still had some conversion errors to be cleaned up, but was well formatted with a table of contents, introduction, glossary, and a somewhat eclectic collection of images at the end (they would have been better spread out through the text - Water For Elephants is a Kindle edition that comes to mind as doing this well). Consistent quality will be the key to success in this niche, and I think Legacy Romance has made a good start.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the time that I started writing this review, The Magnificent Ambersons had been rated by 6748 GoodReads members. In comparison, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby had 2,316,268 ratings. The disproportion is absurd. The Magnificent Ambersons which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize is by far the better book. Anyone who likes American literature should thoroughly enjoy this novel.
The Magnificent Ambersons is in its essence a retelling of the Aesop Fable of the Horse and the Ass which demonstrates that pride goes before a fall. It this case the proud stallion headed for a humiliation is an arrogant young preppy growing up in the Mid-West just before WWI who is terribly self-satisfied about the wealth acquired by his grandfather. What he does not realize is that the second generation is in the process of squandering the family fortune and so that he will be a pauper when he enters adult hood. This is the quintessential America where fortunes are made and lost quickly.
The strength of the novel is the detail of the era. First the family thinks that the automobile is a fad that will quickly die. They predict a quick bankruptcy for a young entrepreneur who has opened a factory in town to manufacturer them. Ten years later they bet the last portion of their shrinking family fortune on a company that will manufacture headlights and lose. Everyone of course knows that there was a time when automobiles were new. You have to lived through the era however to be aware of the fact that that headlights were a feature that added later.
The historical authenticity can be felt everywhere. The descriptions of the streets, the clothing, the diet, social interactions and the leisure time activities all demonstrate a remarkable fidelity to the era in which the events take place. The Magnificent Ambersons presents an outstanding portrait of the way America once was. The great pleasure in reading it comes in reflecting upon what if anything has changed since.

[El · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) is actually a part of a trilogy. The fact that I was not made aware of this until I had finished reading it makes me angry. (That's one of the problems with reading the Introduction after reading the book.) Additionally it seems silly to me to include the second book in a trilogy on the Modern Library's Top 100 List. The other two must really suck.

This is the story of the Amberson family and their fortune. We watch young George Amberson grow from a spoiled child into a spoiled adult into a wretched part of the working class. Normally these sorts of stories are enjoyable, full of character-driven plot, character development, etc. I love me some good characters.

But the entire time I read it I kept thinking I had read this before. At one point it hit me like a ton of bricks - The Forsyte Saga. Sure, Galsworthy wrote about the different generations in a British family, and the Ambersons were quite American. But the idea is the same, and that irritated me. Especially because The Forsyte Saga was, in its first form, published in 1906, a whole 12 years earlier. Sort of suspicious to me.

In any case, it's another book off the Modern Library List. The very last of the list too, I might add. Did it just barely make the cut? Maybe the judges were trying to decide between Galsworthy or Tarkington. Personally I would have voted for the former, but then again I'm not on the panel. I'll bet it was Gore Vidal's fault.

[Rosemarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book would have been better if the characters had been more rounded and developed. The character who received the most attention from the author, Georgie, was also the most annoying. The book was entertaining but lacking in substance.

[Steve]

I would have titled this work The Fading of the Once Magnificent Ambersons Experienced Through the Life of the Trust Fund Grandson George Amberson Minafer, Except There Was No Trust. Now you know why I’m not employed in the publishing industry. I did pause to think about why American novels from the late 19th and early 20th century so successfully focused on wealth; in addition to this work, Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence come to mind. Maybe escapism is afoot – if we dwell on something other than what directly confronts our lives, we’ll be better off? I thought Mr. Tarkington’s treatment of the relationship between technological and social change was interesting – particularly the transformation from horse and buggy to automobile – something we experience today with ever noticeable effects. It’s no coincidence that the automobile has the final say in this drama.