A Few Changes and a Review

I've been thinking about how I can make this blog a bit more exciting and decided that what people are really interested in reading are the reviews so I've decided I'm going to focus on posting reviews. As I read each book I'll post my thoughts and feelings on the book as I read. I will be posting more often during the week (I'll always post on Monday) and then if you would like to read along with me you can. Now, I have a confession to make, I'm not actually reading the book that won the award in 1919, I read that several weeks ago. I actually just finished the book that won in 1924, so the next few books I will post my review and also some additional thoughts on the book. Each week it will be a different review until we get to the book from 1924. Does that make sense? I hope so. So this week the book that I will review is the "Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington.

I think I really enjoy reading books that are written about people and their lives. I must be a nosy person at heart! I enjoy reading the gossip that happens to them and who they fall in love with and who doesn't like them and so on. This is a perfect example of that kind of book. It is much like an American version of a Jane Austen novel. It is written about a family, the Ambersons, who build a town and are the most prominent figures in the town. Although the daughter of the family patriarch, "the Major" is beautiful and admired by everyone, she marries and has a son that everyone in the town hates and can't wait until he gets his "comeuppance". He's snotty, proud, and rude to everyone in the town. The book follows him (his name is Georgie and is actually called that throughout the novel because he has an uncle named George - it helps keep them separate) throughout his life. My feelings for Georgie were kind of like a rollercoaster. At the beginning, I would say until he goes to college, I didn't like him at all. He was a brat. Once he begins college and he falls in love, I started to think he wasn't so bad and then all heck breaks loose and he drops down to the bad side, but in the end he redeems himself.

In the middle of the book Georgie hears that the town is talking about his mother and the father of the girl he is in love with (got that?). Georgie's father dies and these two begin seeing each other regularly. Georgie's only concern is for the good name of his family and not so much for his mother. This is actually why the book dropped from 5 to 4 yarn balls for me. I think he is overly dramatic about the talk that is happening. He confronts the town gossip and then goes ballistic with his Aunt Fanny and his mother. In many ways he overreacts and I kind of found myself rolling my eyes at times and thinking he needed to chill out. I think I felt the same as his uncle who tells him that the talk would die down and not to listen to it. I think the real reason Georgie freaks out is something that the book really doesn't address. Georgie wants to marry Lucy and it's her father that is courting Georgie's mother. Well, Lucy's father doesn't think Georgie is very useful to society because Georgie wants to be a gentleman and have no profession and he won't give Lucy his blessing. I think that Georgie doesn't want his mother to be with Lucy's father because Lucy's father won't let Georgie be with Lucy. Does that make sense?

All in all, the book is enjoyable and ends very well. It talks a lot about the growth and development of a city. At the beginning of the story Lucy's father is trying to invent the automobile and by the end they are more common than the horse and buggy. The town grows so much and so fast that it becomes unrecognizable to those who helped build it. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone who does enjoy books about society.