Booth Tarkington
The Magnificent Ambersons
1918
The Magnificent Ambersons will take through a nostalgic
journey to Midwestern America in the later part of the 19th century.
Written with certainty and fluidity, it recreates an epoch vividly, almost
making you wish you were part of it, strolling along with them, with their false sense of glory but without the sunshade. If the story, centred on the social changes a family must confront in a growing
town, is small and seems, at first,
uninteresting, Tarkington’s astute style of storytelling will make you care effortlessly.
It’s a book that is enjoyable to read, clever, honest and often illuminating.
As you close the last page, you leave the early 20th century with a feeling of not having read enough (for it is a small read), of wanting to know more, all the while knowing that some things are best left unsaid. You’re free to let your imagination wander now, and, surprisingly, you do. While you weren’t watching, you let yourself get attached to the seemingly distant and arrogant characters and you honestly wish them the best.
The only flaw in The Magnificent Ambersons, however, is a significant one: if never hurtful or unkind, Tarkington’s whole attitude towards Blacks still makes it very difficult for a 21st-century reader to fully go past it. Of course, he probably didn’t mean for a black person to read it but the fact is we do, and for a book on society’s changes it is ironic that its author wasn’t able to envision such change in his readership. While providing some social and linguistic credibility to the story, his terminology (‘darkie’) and characterization of black characters (or lack thereof) lack the decency and effort he put in his white characters. In a book that otherwise excels as a comedy of manners and characters, Blacks are one-dimensional: either proud, lively or slavish, they seem cheerful all the time, so busy they are with humour, women, food and gin. As impersonal and unfeeling images stuck in time, they don’t seem to take part in the industrial world changes going around them, but remain immutable, a ready-made repertoire providing a good-natured background against which other characters move as they please.
That’s a real shame for this holds back your feelings uncomfortably, keeps you on ‘liking’ terms with the book when you could have loved it.
As you close the last page, you leave the early 20th century with a feeling of not having read enough (for it is a small read), of wanting to know more, all the while knowing that some things are best left unsaid. You’re free to let your imagination wander now, and, surprisingly, you do. While you weren’t watching, you let yourself get attached to the seemingly distant and arrogant characters and you honestly wish them the best.
The only flaw in The Magnificent Ambersons, however, is a significant one: if never hurtful or unkind, Tarkington’s whole attitude towards Blacks still makes it very difficult for a 21st-century reader to fully go past it. Of course, he probably didn’t mean for a black person to read it but the fact is we do, and for a book on society’s changes it is ironic that its author wasn’t able to envision such change in his readership. While providing some social and linguistic credibility to the story, his terminology (‘darkie’) and characterization of black characters (or lack thereof) lack the decency and effort he put in his white characters. In a book that otherwise excels as a comedy of manners and characters, Blacks are one-dimensional: either proud, lively or slavish, they seem cheerful all the time, so busy they are with humour, women, food and gin. As impersonal and unfeeling images stuck in time, they don’t seem to take part in the industrial world changes going around them, but remain immutable, a ready-made repertoire providing a good-natured background against which other characters move as they please.
That’s a real shame for this holds back your feelings uncomfortably, keeps you on ‘liking’ terms with the book when you could have loved it.
Tags: rapid growth and industrialization, sympathetic comedy of manners, late 19th century-early 20th century, centred on one family in one town with several dramas, the idea of getting your comeuppance really explored here, money vs. land, doing. vs.being, when George confuses filial overprotectiveness with filial ‘overpossessiveness’,
social changes in the busy US, courtship dance, yes, no, ye…maybe, but…no, well…,
lack of proper characterization of black characters, town and characters across the years, the know-it-all young white man or when George teaches us all what it is to 'be', still shaping America
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