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"Alice Adams", Booth Tarkington (1922)

05 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in Book Review, Pulitzers

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Alice Adams is by Booth Tarkington, who also wrote The Magnificent Ambersons (1919), which I really didn’t like.  So, needless to say, I was a little miffed that he won twice in three years and I wasn’t looking forward to reading this.  But I tried to keep an open mind.  I still didn’t love it, but I think I liked it better than The Magnificent Ambersons.  Yes, “I think” I did.  I realize as a book reviewer I should be less ambiguous, but I really had mixed feelings about the book.  I think the edition of the book I was reading put me off a bit – the early Pulitzers have been really hard to find, so this one was a “digital reprint”.  You know, one of those crappy versions that look like someone printed it on their home inkjet printer. And the formatting is all wonky. Not fun to read.  As a bibliophile in the true sense of the word, this ugly book pained me.  But on to the substance of the book.

Alice Adams is, above all, a girl who knows how to put on a show.  As the book begins, you get the impression she comes from a family of means.  But that’s just Tarkington putting on the same kind of show that Alice does.  The Adams are not wealthy.  Early in his career Mr. Adams had a brief chance at making something of himself, and the family made contact with the edge of “Society”.  Since that time, Mrs. Adams and now Alice have been trying to pretend that they fit into Society.  Alice is a charming girl and her charm helped foster that illusion for a time.  But now things are falling apart.  The family doesn’t even have enough money for a taxi to take Alice to the opening party.  And things only get worse.

Alice is charming, but she’s not particularly likeable.  I found her somewhat annoying.  But Tarkington does a good job of showing us her vulnerabilities, and that redeems her.  At the opening party she goes through endless feints and charades to hide the fact that no one is talking to her or asking her to dance.  It’s painful to watch and it makes you feel for her.  From that point on, you may think she’s annoying but you can’t help but be on her side.  Unfortunately, Alice’s lies and her mother’s greed bring nothing but trouble, so being on her side is a sad place to be.

The characters are developed and yet I had a constant feeling that we were only skimming the surface.  The story never seemed to be personal enough and the characters never seemed quite multifaceted enough to be realistic.  The book was readable but I wouldn’t recommend it.

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"The Magnificent Ambersons", Booth Tarkington (1919)

22 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by in Book Review, Pulitzers

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Honestly, I didn’t think this book was that great.  I had a couple problems with it, but the biggest problem was that I pretty much hated the protagonist: Georgie Amberson Minafer.  You’re supposed to hate him – he’s an arrogant, self-centered, stuck-up little rich boy who grows into an intolerable young man.  I understand why the author needed us to hate him, and I have seen unsympathetic protagonists work, but I just didn’t think it was very successful here.  The plot is slow to develop, so you spend the first half of the book just reading about the annoying antics of this character that you loathe.  And there aren’t really any other good characters to take the sting out of it.  The rest of his family is just as bad in their own way.  And the only characters who seem like they might be likable become unlikable as soon as you meet them because they like Georgie.  You just want to scream – why do you people like this guy?!

The plot finally does start to pick up around half-way through and at least at that point I was interested to keep reading to see what happens.  But it’s just painful and no fun to read through.  Again, you spend a lot of time screaming at the characters – don’t let him do this to you!  But they do.  There is finally some satisfaction towards the end when Georgie finally gets his “come-uppance” in the form of the downfall of the old family (it’s pretty clear from the back of the book that this will happen, and very clearly foreshadowed early on, so this isn’t really a “spoiler”).  But by that point so many lives have been ruined that you don’t even really care anymore.

It is the downfall of the family that makes this book a social commentary, and I suppose why it was chosen for the Pulitzer.  The Ambersons were indeed magnificent, but by the end of the book they have fallen into ruin and new families have taken their place.  This “new money” society is built by men of industry who actually do things, like build cars.  Cars have a major role in the book – cars become more popular, their use spreads and the city grows just as the Ambersons, with their horse-drawn carriages and big lawns, decline.  The city becomes so big that no one cares about the Ambersons anymore.  By the time Georgie gets his “come-uppance” the people who were waiting for it don’t even remember that they were waiting anymore.