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.