Page turner: 5/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars

After a rather prolonged hiatus, I am pleased to return with a full report of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Which I liked. I found it a bit unoriginal, but that may be the result of a century of hindsight. Still, I liked it.

The Magnificent Ambersons is the second book in Tarkington’s ‘growth’ trilogy. Try as I might I could not get my hands on a copy of the third and final book in the series, I couldn’t find it. Which is both a testament to me liking the second book, and perhaps a reflection on the second also being the ‘best’ of the three. Anyway, the ‘growth’ that the title refers to is the changing dynamic of the American mid west … and how settlements grew to towns and cities as the turn of the twentieth century saw the huge boom in urban populations.

The Ambersons were the relative nobility of the small Midwestern town as it was originally settled. They owned vast swathes of land, the great house, and had the most beautiful and elaborate items brought over from the East. Georgie Amberson is the protagonist of the novel, and is the grandson of the founding father who amassed the fortune. And Georgie is a spoiled brat of the most spoiled type. His really only redeeming feature as a child is that he uses the term ‘riff raff’ which always made me chuckle. The story (predictably, to modern eyes) progresses as the town grows, the Ambersons’ wealth diminishes and new money comes to take their place. It is the story of the transition of a town to a city, and the way that young Georgie is forced to reconcile with changing circumstances. Tarkington does a good job of succinctly and believably narrating both parallels in the story. I won’t say whether or not Georgie shows himself of being of strong moral fiber in the end.

The trouble is – I feel I have read it all before. Perhaps it was one of the first of its kind to talk about that boom in Midwestern America, but it is awfully reminiscent of stories of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of New Money vs. aristocracy in Europe as well as on the East Coast of the U.S. Published in 1918 was The Magnificent Amberson’s a trailblazer? Or a very good example of this ‘genre’ of story? I don’t think my literary history is good enough to know the answer, but I do wonder. This shortcoming, however, is what made it a three for me, and not a higher rating.

Still, Tarkington’s book is a slim read, and definitely fulfilling. It’s about growth – both physical and personal, and as such is quite rewarding to follow along with!