The Magnificent Ambersons and the Eclipse of Booth Tarkington

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded every year since 1917.  In those 106 years, only four authors have claimed the Prize twice.  Compare this to the Booker Prize, which has been around in some form since 1969, and has also had four authors win twice.  Though not a total apples-to-apples comparison since the Pulitzer is only awarded to U.S. citizens while the Booker is open to any English language novel (since 2014), it does give a sense of how difficult it is to pull off multiple Pulitzer wins. 

The four authors who have won the Pulitzer for Fiction twice are William Faulkner, John Updike, Colson Whitehead, and Booth Tarkington.  The cult of Faulkner has somewhat waned since his death in 1963 and while books like Absalom! Absalom! and the Sound and the Fury are still being read, I am not sure how much they are being enjoyed.  On the other hand, the more accessible Faulkner novels, (ex: As I Lay Dying and Light in August) while not exactly a walk in the park, still offer a pleasurable experience.  Updike’s prose is considered to be top-notch even by his critics, although his legacy has taken a hit in recent years over claims of misogyny in his works.  Colson Whitehead is one of the most gifted voices of our generations and a third Pulitzer is a definite possibility for him.  This leads us to Booth Tarkington.  You would be forgiven for thinking at this point “Who the hell is Booth Tarkington?”

Booth Tarkington is perhaps the best example I can think of in literature of someone whose date of death and consignment to the ash-heap of history were, if not the same day, then very close chronologically.  To the best of my knowledge there is no reassessment of Tarkington’s legacy currently ongoing.  This is in opposition to someone like Hemingway who seems to weave into and back out of fashion every 20-30 years. It is hard to imagine but during the 1910s and 1920s, Booth Tarkington was considered the greatest living American author.  This is breathtaking when you consider that Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, and T.S. Elliott were, in fact, also alive at this time! In a remarkable one-upping of this puffery, the 1920s also saw the New York Times write that Tarkington was one of the ten best Americans. Not one of the best American authors, but one of the best Americans (let it sink in).

Tarkington was born into a solid family that hit upon hard times after the Panic of 1873.  As a young man, he counted amongst his friends President Benjamin Harrison (I will spare the obvious joke about a forgotten author and a forgotten president walking into a bar).   He served a term in the Indiana House of Representatives, and then turned full time to novel writing.  If Tarkington is remembered at all nowadays, it is for two of his novels, The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921).  These novels were so highly regarded that Orson Welles chose to direct a film version of The Magnificent Ambersons right on the heels of his directorial debut, Citizen Kane.  Though Welles famously battled the studio over the movie’s editing, it has been considered one of the greatest movies ever made. Alice Adams was equally made into a successful, highly regarded, motion picture staring Katherine Hepburn.  The film netted Hepburn an Oscar nomination and the critic Pauline Kael called Hepburn’s performance “one of her two or three finest performances.”

(l) 1942 poster for The Magnificent Ambersons, directed by a pre-obese, pre-Paul Mason wine pitchman, Orson Wells. (r) The 1935 poster for Alice Adams starring Katherine Hepburn.

For a long time, The Magnificent Ambersons was on my “to read” list.  After finding a beautiful 1926 edition of the novel, I decided to invest the time.  As far as plot goes, it is a straight-forward affair.  The novel opens telling us how Major Amberson made his fortune during and after the Panic of 1873 (in contrast to Tarkington’s real-life story).  Though the way the Major made his money is not specified, it is clear he is a big man in the town of Midland (a thinly veiled Indianapolis).  Streets and hotels bare the name “Amberson” and the Major’s son George and daughter Isabel are the apples of his eye. 

As the years pass, Isabel becomes one of the most sought-after young ladies in Midland.  She narrows her suitors down between two young men but when one of them drunkenly disrupts a nighttime serenade on the Amberson’s lawn she chooses the other fella.  A safe, but boring boy named Wilbur Minafer. Isabel gives birth to Georgie and over the years spoils him so much that the town comes to dislike Georgie and his smugness.  In fact, the town’s Greek chorus cant wait for Georgie to get his “comeuppance.”

Georgie comes home from college and attends a party at his mother’s house and becomes instantly smitten with Lucy Morgan.  Even though George is an annoying, blustering ass, Lucy seems to be equally smitten.  Later at the same party, Georgie pokes fun at one of the gentlemen in attedence, who turns out to be Lucy’s father, Eugene.  Since this book is a shade akin to a Victorian melodrama, Eugene is the boy who Isabel didn’t choose to marry.  He is also a keen inventor determined to popularize the automobile.  It should also be mentioned that Georgie hates automobiles, and everything associated with progress in the town.  He dislikes how the town is growing and that the people are less admiring of the rich Ambersons.

Georgie and Lucy’s courtship continues (quite unbelievably since he is such an ass), his father dies, and Eugene starts to rekindle the old flame with Isabel.  Georgie spends a lot of the novel worrying about his mother’s reputation and what the people will think of the Ambersons if Eugene paws his way into the family.  Lucy’s worries focus more on the fact that Georgie has no plans to work after school, preferring to just to live as a gentleman.

Throughout the remainder of the novel, Georgie makes his doormat of a mother chose between him and Eugene.  The consequences of this choice have a hand in bringing the downfall of the once magnificent Ambersons.  George and Lucy also part ways even though there is absolutely no reason for Lucy to have held out this long except that it was needed as a plot device by the author.

The town of Midland continues to grow, the Ambersons become forgotten and even the street that bore their name is changed to the sterile “tenth avenue.”  The ending of the book sees the dissolution of the Amberson fortune, Georgie getting his comeuppance, an inexplicable séance, and a saccharine dues ex machina to round things out.

To be clear, there isn’t anything terrible with the book.  The version I have was over 500 pages and was an easy read.  I have certainly read books worse books.  While the book kept me engaged, there were a few things it had working against it.  Foremast, the book has no humor.  I cannot remember laughing, chuckling, or even giggling one time when reading.  Furthermore, the lack of humor felt more like a character trait of the author, as if he just didn’t do humor .  While on the subject of humorless, the character of Georgie is not likeable and was not presented with enough depth to overcome the initial recoiling from his character.  Georgie is humorless, prim, and self-righteous.  He spends the first quarter of the novel trying to make people believe the horse is a better means of conveyance than an automobile (a thought shared by the author).  An even worse charge against Georgie is that he is boring.  An unlikeable character can be redeemed through wit and charisma.  Hamlet is not the most likeable of characters, but his intellect and disposition win us to his side (after all, I have never heard of anyone rooting for Claudius).  Georgie on the other hand is a spoiled rich kid who calls others “riffraff” and has done nothing to distinguish himself aside from having the middle name Amberson.   

As for Booth Tarkington, there could be numerous reasons he fell out of favor so quickly after dying.  A cursory analysis would show that the world Booth Tarkington died in was nothing like the one he was born in.  Tarkington was born just four years after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House and died almost one year to-the-day after the surrender of Nazi Germany.  By the mid-1940s, the horrors of two world wars and a looming cold war might have potentially hardened the reading public. Reading about happy endings for the wealthy and screeds against the automobile must have left many people feeling they had nothing in common with an author like Tarkington.

It is also interesting to look at the type of books the public was reading in the last years of Tarkington’s life. The mid-1940s saw the publication of The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren.  These, and many other novels, focused on the disillusionment of the current generation.  A certain innocence had been lost and people were searching for a deeper meaning in their lives rather than the superficial trappings of authors like Booth Tarkington.  In addition, the form of the novel was also being challenged. There is nothing challenging about The Magnificent Ambersons.  This does not mean the book doesn’t have its merits, but it is a conventional novel that only scratches the psychological depths of its characters.  Compare this to something like Ulysses (though no comparison) that when have finished, you have an in-depth knowledge of Leopold Bloom.  The same could not be said for any character in The Magnificent Ambersons.  While Joyce was a singular voice, there is nothing more than a superficial attempt by Tarkington to explain the motivations of his characters other than their desire to keep things the way they were.

As for a future re-evaluation of Tarkington, I am not sure it is forthcoming. His use of the term “darkie” to describe all black characters never loses it sting no matter how many times you read it (and you read it a lot). In addition, the black characters he does give voice to speak in a stereotypical dialog that would make Al Jolson blush through his blackface.  In one of the chapters about halfway through the novel, Lucy returns from a trip with her cousins and upon her return gives Georgie a bit of the cold shoulder when he comes to see her. When he rides back to the stable (remember no automobiles are welcome here!) he lets out a series of curses that are overheard by the stable hand. Tarkington must not have had a lot of time between raging against the automobile and fighting rural electricity since he names this stable hand “Old Darkey Tom.” In a sour sign-of-the-times, Tarkington was held up by his contemporaries as one of the most progressive voices in the treatment of black people. Progressive thoughts aside, Tarkington gives this dialogue to Old Tom:

“Hoopee!” said Old Tom. ”Mus’ been some white lady use Mist’ Jawge might bad! ‘No, suh, I ain’ go’n out riding ‘ith Mist’ Jawge no mo’!’ Mist Jawge drives in. ”Dam de dam worl’! Dam de dam hoss! Dam de damn n***ga’! Dam de dam dam!’ Hoopee!’

Imagine a middle-aged white man sitting in his study in Indianapolis writing this and thinking to himself “nailed it, Booth!” While this type of dialogue makes people wince, and spell-checkers self destruct, it is not disqualifying when it comes to being remembered by future generations.  William Faulkner, after all, is still widely read and his portrayal of black characters is typical of what you would expect of a man who lived his entire life in Jim Crow Mississippi. While there has been some reassessment of Faulkner’s legacy over the past few decades, he is still frequently mentioned as one of America’s finest authors. Faulkner does have an interesting commonality with Tarkington when it comes to writing about nostalgia. Almost all of Faulkner’s works are rooted in the Civil War or postbellum south. Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County was anchored to the past, but that past was not really gone. Tarkington’s past, with its dismissal of automobiles and bucolic sensibilities, seems like a world that has thoroughly been passed by.

When all is said and done, I think the true reason Tarkington will remain in the doldrums for the foreseeable future is because he is a snapshot of a time and place.  Great literature looks forward, and if it doesn’t, it should at least say something about the past. Tarkington however seemed resigned to look back without anger.  His prose, storytelling ability. lack of wit, and plain writing style just doesn’t stand out to modern audiences.  When looking at the question of why Tarkington’s reputation died with him, the simplest answer might be the correct one.  He was a man of his age, but not a man for the ages.