1.02.2006
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington - 1919 Pulizer Winner
The opening pages of The Magnificent Ambersons are witty and specific and a really fantastic start for this Pulitzer project. Tarkington starts his novel with a description of the social customs of the town in which Major Amberson lived when he "made a fortune" in 1873, making it easy and interesting to see how his fortune and the way he spent it was different, and yes, ostentatiously, magnificently so. I wonder if this way of being so specific about the custom of a time and place, and yet by doing so, delineating American society in much larger scope is something that will be common to all the novels in this project. Whether or not it is, I like the formal approach Tarkington takes to the task (I also love the name Booth Tarkington).
With the time and place and type of people set - the frame of reference firmly nailed in place - the novel moves in even closer, to focus on Georgie Minifer, grandson of Major Amberson of the aforementioned fortune and a real spoiled fucking brat. His first notable action at age 11, is to tell a Reverend who chastises him for fighting to "go to hell!" As Georgie gets older, he loses none of his amazing, oh yeah, magnificent arrogance and sense of priviledge. Just now, he's met a girl - Lucy Morgan - who is probably more intelligent than he is and definitely has a less clouded view of the world and her place in it. But as much as I hate Georgie, I have to admit I envy him. Telling Lucy of his studies at college, he calls it all useless. When she asks why he doesn't study something that would prove useful in a career - business or law, he answers he does not expect to have any profession. "Lawyers, bankers, politicians! What do they get out of life, I'd like to know! What do they ever know about real things? Where do they ever get?" Lucy, impressed with his passion, feels like he must have some grand, noble calling in mind instead and asks what he would like to be instead. He answers promptly "A yachtsman."
And here I sit, typing away from the confines of my "profession", always quietly raging, so quiet that it turns into mere complaint, that I don't have enough time or freedom to go out and think my real thoughts, to really get myself somewhere. Georgie is randomly priviledged enough to eschew work and rich enough not to give a shit what people say about it. What a magnificently ignorant ass. And I am jealous.
With the time and place and type of people set - the frame of reference firmly nailed in place - the novel moves in even closer, to focus on Georgie Minifer, grandson of Major Amberson of the aforementioned fortune and a real spoiled fucking brat. His first notable action at age 11, is to tell a Reverend who chastises him for fighting to "go to hell!" As Georgie gets older, he loses none of his amazing, oh yeah, magnificent arrogance and sense of priviledge. Just now, he's met a girl - Lucy Morgan - who is probably more intelligent than he is and definitely has a less clouded view of the world and her place in it. But as much as I hate Georgie, I have to admit I envy him. Telling Lucy of his studies at college, he calls it all useless. When she asks why he doesn't study something that would prove useful in a career - business or law, he answers he does not expect to have any profession. "Lawyers, bankers, politicians! What do they get out of life, I'd like to know! What do they ever know about real things? Where do they ever get?" Lucy, impressed with his passion, feels like he must have some grand, noble calling in mind instead and asks what he would like to be instead. He answers promptly "A yachtsman."
And here I sit, typing away from the confines of my "profession", always quietly raging, so quiet that it turns into mere complaint, that I don't have enough time or freedom to go out and think my real thoughts, to really get myself somewhere. Georgie is randomly priviledged enough to eschew work and rich enough not to give a shit what people say about it. What a magnificently ignorant ass. And I am jealous.
