Booth Tarkington. The Magnificent Ambersons. 1918; Project Gutenberg, 16 Sep 2016. E-Book.
In what seems like a never-ending quest to find things related to The Great Gatsby, I decided to read The Magnificent Ambersons. Fitzgerald apparently was influenced by Tarkington, another Midwestern Princetonian who had made a splash in the literary world. Indeed, the title of The Great Gatsby echoes The Magnificent Ambersons, although the title was suggested by an editor, not by Fitzgerald. Tarkington won a Pulitzer in 1919 for this book.
Years ago I read Tarkington’s Seventeen, which was quite funny. Ambersons is not so funny, unless you find all irony funny. The decline of a prominent family parallels the rise of an American city. That is the theme in a nutshell, but, of course, the human story gets our attention.
There is a pattern that we often see in the Bible. I recall years ago listening to a tape entitled The Tragedy of the Third Generation Religion by Paris Reidhead. Frequently the first generation that is touched by God is quite strong and loyal. The second generation is usually reliably faithful because they witnessed or heard directly what God did. The third generation often falls away. To them it’s ancient history.
In our last review we mentioned how Er, the son of Judah was “wicked,” but he was two generations after Jacob. Similarly, David left Solomon a godly legacy, but Solomon’s son was a rebel and broke up the Kingdom.
A friend recently told me of a study saying something similar happens with families that become successful in business. The first two generations tend to handle the wealth responsibly, but the third generation takes it for granted and often squanders it or worse.
That sums up The Magnificent Ambersons. Civil War veteran Major Amberson founded the family fortune. There is a mansion and two hundred acres known as the Amberson Addition. The family owns a hotel in town. The Major’s son serves as a Congressman. His daughter marries Wilbur Minafer, a “steady young businessman and church-goer.” (228) The story focuses on the only member of the third generation of Ambersons, George Amberson Minafer, terribly spoiled and terribly proud.
His uncle the Congressman is also named George, and occasionally this causes some confusion to the reader, though often young George is Georgie. Georgie is wrapped up in himself. And his mother is likewise wrapped up in her only child. This does make him independent: He is not a follower, but he also has little understanding of other people. The main conflict in the novel involves a love triangle formed by three people Georgie is close to, but he is clueless about it until quite late in the story. The reader can laugh at Georgie or merely shake his head.
People in town suggest that someday Georgie will get his “comeuppance.” He does. It is not clear that he learns anything, but by the end his family has had to sell off nearly all their property, and Georgie has to find an actual job. But The Magnificent Ambersons is set in America, and we traditionally have been skeptical of aristocracy. And unlike a decadent aristocrat out of Chekhov or Wilde, Georgie does go to work.
There is also a sense that things have passed the Ambersons by. Georgie convinces himself that automobiles are merely a fad and will never replace the horse. But things never quite stay the same.
Much of the story has to do with Georgie’s love life—I use the term somewhat loosely. He does have sort of a girl friend, but she is reluctant to commit. They are comfortable with each other and appear together socially for about five years, but when Georgie tells her that he does not want to have a job but merely serve on clubs, committees, and charities, we understand her reluctance to stick with him.
The ending seems a bit tacked on, that the author had to figure out a way to wrap things up. It does wrap things up so that there is a sense of hope at the end. It is not a tragedy like Gatsby. Still, I am not sure the purpose is achieved. Thomas Mann uses a similar device toward the end of The Magic Mountain, but there it is effective and even, dare I say, prophetic. With The Magnificent Ambersons, it merely comes across as a device, even a trick.
Still, it is an entertaining story. It is hard to sympathize with any of the characters much, but we can take the author’s persona and enjoy what he says about America, about the rich, and about human pride.