100. Magnificent Amberson’s Chap. 20 – 35 (the end of the book)

What I like best about reading a good book is when something unexpected happens during the story. I often find with books that sometimes I can figure out what’s going to happen to the characters before it happens, either through the foreshadowing within the book or simply because it’s the only logical possible outcome. So when I read a book where this is not the case I find that my love and respect for the book and author grows.

This is the case with the “Magnificent Amberson’s”. I don’t want to give any story details away so it’s a tricky thing to write about. In the previous post I wrote that George Minafer’s attitude was going to lead to his downfall, this is still the case, sort of. He lives his life reacting to situations, rather than acting and the results are blunders that he truly believes are for the best of all involved. Yet they leave most of the characters including him unhappy. Then, it gets worse.

At the start of the book a number of characters wait with bated breath and gleeful smiles for George’s “come-upance”, I doubt though that these characters would be pleased with the way that it comes about. It’s quite sad actually, and I feel for the guy right up to the end.

He amazes me with his behaviour, his attitude shifts from the self centred privileged ‘dandy’ at the beginning of the book to a mature young man who carries life’s burdens with dignity, which, when the come-upance occurs it is all the more painful.

I enjoyed this book. I don’t think it will end up on my shelf as a book I read over and over, but I certainly didn’t find it to be a waste of my time by any means. Booth Tarkington has written other books, which I am interested in reading. I feel like I’m heading towards a ‘star rating’ 3 out of 5 or something like that. I don’t think I want to do that though, and I’m not sure why. I just don’t want to rate the book, or any of the books I read that way.

Would I recommend it? Yes, I think it is defiantly worth reading. It is a well written story, insightful and interesting. The characters are subtle; as is the writing and I greatly enjoy that. Yes, read it. Then tell me what you think?

Next up: The Ginger Man, by J.P Donleavy

100. The Magnificent Amberson’s Chapters 6 - 20

When George Amberson Minafer, our protagonist, was first introduced I didn’t think I was going to like him. Like the other characters in the book, I have been holding my breath for him to get his "come-upance”[sic], as they say. (chapter 2, pg. 37). He is arrogant, with very high expectations of what the world owes to him, simply because he is who he is. His family, the Amberson’s founded the town, referred to as Midland. The result of his grandfather ‘having made his fortune when others were losing fortunes’ (chap. 1 pg. 3) has given George an air of entitlement. But now, the further along I get, the more I just feel sorry for him. His attitude about life is taking him to his downfall.

He believes he needs no profession, because he is a gentleman, as his father and grandfather were. The family money will see him through, though this is eroding away and he’s not seeing it happen. Granted the characters that do seem to know this are reluctant to tell him and he’s just got no clue what’s going on.

What is going on? The turn of the century is going on; Progress, Automobile factories and the common man, “riffraff” to George, are improving their lot in life. All the while the world that George knows – an old world aristocracy type living– is crumbling.

I am greatly enjoying the writing. Tarkington has a way of making all of this very clear to the reader with subtle comments from the characters and explanations of the changes happening in George’s home town, and yet George, who is by no means an idiot, remains blissfully unaware. I think it will destroy him in the end.

I don’t understand why all the characters continue to pussyfoot around George though. I suppose to make the story longer and interesting, but it is starting to drag on a bit. I’m just slightly more than half way through and I’m ready for George to find out the old money he plans to live on for the rest of his life is gone (or going quickly) and that the love of his life doesn’t want to marry a man who doesn’t ‘do anything’ (At least that’s what I think she the reason for her reluctance). It’s starting to get frustrating, but I will finish, not just to find out what happens but also to read the humorous dialogue and the gems of writing that flash throughout this book.

Such as the following:

Quick sum up – Eugene Morgan is one of the inventors of Automobiles and friends of the Amberson/Minafer family. He built a factory in the town where this novel takes place. Now, in a span of just a few years automobiles are fast out numberings horses on the roads.

At a dinner party one evening, George, who’s in a foul mood says, “Automobiles are a useless nuisance, They’ll never amount to anything but a nuisance. They had no business being invented” (Chap. 21 pg. 274)

Remember this book was written in 1918, cars were a novelty and for people who were used to quiet horse and buggies, cars were loud, smoke belching monsters. Many people then believed them to be a passing fad. If only they had been.

[Eugene Morgan responds to the comment,] “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 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 immense outward changes that they will cause without some inward one’s, and it may be that George is right, and that the spiritual alteration will be bad for us.” (chap 21 pg. 275)

Spooky huh? How would Tarkington feel were he alive today and saw where the automobile has taken us? This isn't a modern writer reflecting on something that happened in the past. This is a writer, writing about his present time, with a very accurate premonition about the future. The BP rig in the Gulf is still gushing and more off shore rigs are planned around the world for our thirst to keep this ‘fad’ going. In less than a hundred years our lives as individuals and lives as a collective society have become almost completely dependent on the automobile.

It’s frightening and oh, how I wish George Minafer had been right. They should not have been invented.

I said in the previous post that I have be struck by the parallels between the world of the early 20th century and the world of the early 21st. George, it would appear, is stuck in the 19th, unwilling and unable to cope with the drastic changes occurring in his world. I find myself more understanding of his resistance as I often feel it too, with the rapid and thoughtless change happening in my world. We’re moving so fast and it’s so rare that anyone stops and just thinks, is this change good for us?

I watch George struggle against the ever increasing speed of world changing in front of him and I am sad to realize that – that’s when is started. “The Magnificent Amberson’s” chronicles the beginning of this ‘progressive’ madness that has yet to slow down a hundred years later. Aside from George’s sense of entitlement, we’re not so different, him and me. We’re both frightened by it and feel totally out of control.


The one difference is I know it George doesn't, but when he does it's going to be one hellva a "come-upance"

Unicorn School, by Linda Chapman

My son is six (almost 7 MOM!) and learning how to read. His reading is pretty good for his age and I like to think that it’s in part because we read to him every night and there’s always books lying around the house.

Generally his book choices have been greatly influenced by me and all the books from my childhood that I unpacked into his room about 30 seconds after I found out I was having a baby, but lately, he’s been choosing his own books.

He’s moving away from picture books towards easy chapter books. Right now, The Magic Tree House series are his favourite books. At a recent school book fair I gave him free reign on picking out a new book or two. I was genuinely surprised by his choices.

First he came back to me with an adapted and simplified early reader of Alice in Wonderland. Very cool, I thought, we own a copy of the original, but haven’t read it, yet.

His second choice was Unicorn School, by Linda Chapman. This book has a bright pink cover and pastel coloured unicorns on the cover. It’s about as “girlie” a book you could find and my son wanted it.

He loves unicorns; he thinks they’re the most awesome of mythical creatures. I don’t know where this love has come from and I’ve never placed judgment on his choices of things he liked. I will admit to discouraging him from taking his unicorn to school for Show n’ Tell, simply because I didn’t want to have him heartbroken if the other boys teased him. But this book posed a dilemma, did I say to him the first thing that came into my mouth, “that’s a girl’s book” or keep my mouth shut and let him get a book that could be ‘girlie’?

It bothered me that I thought both those things for a number of reasons. 1. I’m a firm believer in people’s freedom of choice and that includes the books they read. Denying my son the opportunity to read a book he thinks is interesting is censorship and I have some pretty strong feelings about banning books and all that hoopla, so why was I doing that to my kid?

2. It looked like a girlie book. I hate that I thought that, hate that I “judged a book by its cover” (sorry) I saw the cover, the picture and the pastel unicorns and assumed that it was going to be inane girlie writing, like the Sweet Valley High and The Babysitter’s Club books from my childhood. Not that those books are bad books (okay, Sweet Valley High was very bad) but they are Girl books. The main characters are girls dealing with girl subjects, not in the Are you There God it’s me Margaret* vein, but there’s a girl-ness to them that might not resonate with my boy.

3. Those thoughts themselves bothered me. I’ve never done the ‘gender stereo-typing’ before, so why suddenly did I want to do it now? Why should I care if he reads a book about girls, in fact shouldn’t I be encouraging it, so he could possibly better understand girls when he gets older?

I suppose my justification could be that I don’t want him to be disappointed. He was so excited about the book and what if it turned out to be whiny gossipy ponies prancing around worrying about their manes and whether the Stallions noticed them?

Clearly the problem lies with me and my opinions, and rather harsh judgment, on ‘girl fiction’. I need to deal with that.

We bought the book. We came home from school and we read it. I now owe Linda Chapman a huge big ass apology.(And she needs to get someone else to do her marketing!)

"Linda, if you read is, I am sorry that I judged your book. My son really enjoyed it, and so did I. We're looking forward to reading the next in the series."

This book was great. The main characters are a mix of Girl and Boy unicorns that are going off to school to learn how to use magic and fly.

Linda is a writer in England and the story is very much of the English boarding school style with a little bit of Harry potter favour popped in. The main character is named Willow and she makes her first friend, Storm (A BOY!), when she stands up for him during some first day of school confusion.

It was not ‘girlie’ in the way that I judged it. In fact it was not stereo-typed at all. Any number of little boys that are friends with my son would enjoy this story.

However, I take issue with the cover. It’s pink; bright, shiny, bubble gum pink, but it’s not a story ‘just for girls’. Slap a blue, green or yellow cover on it and you’ve opened up your target audience 50%.

 Most of my son’s friends won’t even consider reading it because of the cover, which is unfortunate both for the boys who will miss out on a good story and the writer who will lose readers all because of a pink cover on a book.

I almost fell for it, which bugs me.

It says a lot about our society- that it’s pretty lame.

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Footnote*: "Are you there God it's me Margaret" is an AMAZING book and I think every young girl and boy should read it. Around 12 or 13 years old, I think anyway.

Footnote: In case you had noticed this book is not on the 100 books list. I noticed too. That's okay. We can all deal, can't we? Reading is a huge thing in my family and this is part of our reading journey.

Footnote 2: I am actually going to write a letter to Linda Chapman. She's got a snail mail address on the website, so It'll take awhile, but write one I will. If anything comes of it, you can be sure I will talk about it here.

100. The Magnificent Amberson’s Chapters 1 - 6

I’ve read six chapters of this book so far and I love it. I didn’t know anything about it before I started, just that it won the Pulitzer in 1919, so it was really old. I knew it was about a family in America at the turn of the century and them dealing with the changes that occurred in the world between the 1880’s and the 1920’s.

Think about that for a moment. In the 1880’s no one had electric lights in their homes or cars. Very few people would have had running water. By the 1920’s most homes in towns and cities had electric lights, cars were common place. People had flown and then fought a World War where airplanes played an integral role.

Here we are at the turn of the next century and where were we in 1980? No one, or very few had home computers, the internet? What’s that? Cell phones, smart phones etc... You know what I’m getting at.

There’s from pretty deep sociological parallels between the world of the book and the world of now. I think that’s pretty amazing.

Tarkington has an awesome gift for words. It’s truly wonderful to read his writing. I’m reminded of an English teacher in high-school that was constantly telling us to be “pithy” in our writing. Pithy, no one uses that word these days. It means brief, forceful and meaningful in expression. In other words, not a whole lot of words to get the point across, something may modern writers fail at (something I’ll try not to fail at) While I wouldn’t use ‘forceful’ in my description of Tarkington’s writing, the rest applies. It’s great.

I was not expecting to laugh out loud while reading this book either. But even in the first few chapters I was laughing so hard I had to put the books down and wipe my eyes. I made my husband sit down and listen to some of his great lines. This one is my favourites:

“In the early ‘eighties, while bangs and bustles were having their way with women, that variation of dandy known as the “dude” was invented: he worn trousers as tight as stockings, dagger pointed shoes, a spoon “Derby,” a single-breasted coat called a “Chesterfield,” with short flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar, laundered to a polish and three inches high, while his other neckgear might be a heavy, puffy cravat or a tiny bow fit for a doll’s braids...( he describes evening wear then to end the paragraph writes) ... but after a season or two he lengthened his overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of tight trousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently he was seen no more; thought the word that had been coined for him remained in the vocabularies of the impertinent.” (The Magnificent Ambersons, Chapter 1, page 5)

Change a couple of the words, leave out the neck collars and bustles and we have the changing styles of our 80’s. The 1980’s right down to the word Dude. I’m pretty sure Mr. Tarkington would be doing a “facepalm” if he saw how fashion has yet again repeated itself.

In the previous post I wrote about reading Historical Fiction, little did I know that I was starting this book journey with a novel that fits into that same category. While written during the time period it narrates, it does so with the same reflection and thoughtfulness today’s historical fiction often tries to emulate. It’s truly a fantastic piece of writing and all my friends had better take note: I’m going to make you read this book!

For a book I’d never even heard of until I (literally) Stumbled on this list, by an author I’d also never heard of, I’m pleasantly and enjoyable surprised by the book so far. I can’t wait to get back to reading it and that’s the sign of a great book!

Footnote: Orson Wells directed a movie based on the book in 1942. This brings up the question of watching movies based on books. I tend to avoid this until I've read the book anyway. Which is what I will continue to do for these books. Just so you know.

In Search of my Center

At the center of my being there is a flower waiting to bloom. At the center of my being is a sun about to rise. In the dark night before the morning I wait. I know the dawn will come. I know the flower will bloom. The waiting is not impatient; it is the quiet gathering, the deepest rest before life bursts forth in wonder and splendour unbound.

and so I wait... for what is to come will be amazing.

100 Books to Read before you die

So I found this list of books here it's a pretty awesome list of reading. I've read a fair number of these books already. "Animal Farm", "Grapes of Wrath" I've read before. I read "Sophie's Choice" before too, and wow - if you've read it, you know what I mean. I don't really want to read it again.

I've decided to give this list of books a go and write a blog about because isn't that what we all want to do now that we've seen or read Julie & Julia? (went straight to the source on that one - the original blog!)

Well, seriously, I love to read and I'll admit I've fallen into a rut with my books of late. I've focused mainly on Historical Fiction and Michener's dead now, so there's no more like him, except Edward Rutherfurd, he's a pretty close second in my mind.

I think I want to take on this list because I could use some different reading material in my life. If it hasn't been historical fiction, it's been non-fiction for school (Bachelors of Divinity) which is some dry, dry reading. I'm finished school for the summer and looking for some good books.

I'm beginning with 100 on the list - save Ulysses for the end - the Best for Last? Will I even get there? I have to get through Hemmingway first. We read "Farewell to Arms" in high school and I HATED it. Maybe, just maybe it was because we were forced to read it, and I may feel differently reading it by choice. Who know's?

We all will! Cuz I'll be sure to tell you, here. yippee.

I haven't given myself a time limit on this - I figure: I read fast so at minimum a year? Maybe two? Who knows what distractions will come in the meantime...

Please take a wander over to the site that inspired it all... I want to give credit were credit is due.

Up first is "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington. It won the Pulitzer in 1919. My copy, borrowed from my local Library is 516 pages in a rather large font. that might bother me...

So here we go...

Thanks for joining me,
A.
~~~~~

Footnote: I'm very torn with adding links attached to books. I am not a book seller, I don't intend to buy these books rather I will borrow them from the library or friends, if I don't already own them. So where possible I will link to author websites, if the exist, a site relevant to the book or author, or a place where you can access the book for free. I'm not against buying books, I love books, I own 100's of them. If, as a reader here you know of other sites related to the authors or books, please post them in the comments. Most of these links are the result of a random google search and necessarily personal preference in any way.