All The Possibilities

I’ll just start by saying that I loved this book. I enjoyed it much more than Alice Adams for which Tarkington also one the Pulitzer in 1922.

I did not know when I started the book that it is actually part of a trilogy Tarkington wrote about the Amberson family, it is the second book. I will most definitely want to read the other two. My interest is arroused, I want to spend more time with the characters and ideas of this book.

The story centers around the Amberson family, but most especially George Amberson Minafer the only grandson of Major Amberson, the family patriarch. George, or “Georgie” grows up arrogant and believing himself superior. He is totally unaware of and uninterested in, the lives of others, including his family. Everyone seems to exist only as their lives touch or influence his. The Amberson family is the most influential and powerful family in their Midwestern town, and because of this he becomes full of his own importance.

I did not like Georgie much, and was looking forward to the time when he would get his “payback” To be honest, I really did not enjoy most of the Ambersons much at the beginning of the book. Mostly because of Georgie, how they all seemed to contribute to his arrogance. All of them, except his mother Isabel, seemed aware of it and yet didn’t seem to do much to mitigate it. And because Isabel was the largest contributor to his distorted view of things I disliked her a great deal.

But all of that was at the beginning of the book. As the story unfolded the well written characters showed their many layers, motivations and prejudices. I came to enjoy them and understand them.

I especially liked Eugene Morgan, an old friend of the Ambersons. His quiet sense of self-worth, derived from the actions he takes and grounded in principles of good character provide just the right contrast to Georgie’s empty pride.

I really believed that by the time things “went bad” for Georgie I would enjoy his downfall, but that was not the case. The story is well written, and like all good fiction it caused me to examine the parts of myself reflected there. I liked that I was reminded of my own short comings.

Georgie suffers from some severe disappointments at the end of the book. The loss of his family’s fortune was beyond his control, but because of the things that happen leading up to it he seems to take it in stride and accept it with equanimity. The losses and disappointments he suffers prior to that were of his own making, caused by his hubris. These include a falling out with the girl with which he is in love (Lucy Morgan, Eugene’s daughter) and causing his mother great pain by manipulating her relationship with Eugene Morgan to end as well. His mother dies without being able to see Eugene, whom she dearly loves, again. This causes her son enormous guilt and begins his process of self-examination.

The whole story is one of coming to terms with your own shortcoming and human fallibility. Beautifully crafted and touching told. Again, I loved it.