Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/alice-adams-by-booth-tarkington-perfect.html 10 out of 10

 Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/alice-adams-by-booth-tarkington-perfect.html

10 out of 10

 

 

Alice Adams has won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (during some years the name was for Novel) and Booth Tarkington is only one of four writers to have won the award twice – the other win was in 1919 for The Magnificent Ambersons, a chef d’oeuvre that I have read, but somehow find that I have failed to make a note on, which is unheard of in the case of someone who puts down words, for no good reason, or any at all  - this magnificent author has another opus on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, Penrod http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/02/penrod-by-booth-tarkington-10-out-of-10.html

 

There is a line somewhere which says ‘what we remember is an indication of who we are’ something to that effect, presumably the events, words that stay with us may be the ones that are more important, we attach more value to them, but this is just my speculation…anyhow, it was interesting for this reader to see what Alice Adams meant in the first place, and how she has changed in the meantime, or better said, how the same masterpiece has a different appeal (if true) to the same individual…

The King of Literature, Marcel Proust, has observed that we are a different person http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/le-cote-de-guermantes-by-marcel-proust.html has time goes by, and he wonders, through his main character of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu (which is a version of himself) how he could have done, felt one thing or another, and the explanation for this dramatic change (he feels nothing for the one he once adored, Gilberte, for instance) is that he is somebody else now

 

Thus, I read in a note from the time of the first read that I was exhilarated, enthused by what I saw as a divine magnum opus, and while I still rejoice in the second encounter, there are more complex feelings this time – on the first take, there was so much enthusiasm, euphoria related to the marvelous humor – the scenes where Alice has to pretend at the dance that she does have a partner, when she misses one, especially the special dinner given for Arthur Russell, the man who could ask her to marry, when everything falls apart, from the hired help to the horrible news that they get that night…

Alice Adams has a major handicap (I hope it is permitted to use this word, I have read in The Economist, a Johnson article, that what is politically correct has changed and we are in a flux, we should use Deaf, with a capital letter, change the word for homeless, though I already forgot what the new term is) she is not as rich as the other girls in the high society she aspires to be in, and after an initial phenomenal success, at about sixteen, she is now shunned by young men, because her father is just a clerk in a business and hence the family is rejected, hence forcing the heroine to put on a different image, presenting herself to Arthur Russell as the daughter of a quite wealthy man, a disingenuous portrait that will hurt her, when the young man hears at table about the business that her father tries to open, and some of the truth regarding her true status in society, which changes the whole Glasperlenspiel

 

I thought again of Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/positive-psychology-on-youtube-by.html whose lectures on positive psychology have become the most popular in the history of the Ivy League institution, who says that we have to be honest in our relationships, there is a tendency to try and present the best possible image when we meet someone new, and that is taken to the extreme where we do not introduce ourselves, but somebody else, this has no chance of working, for, if the man, woman or other falls for that false portrait, then they are infatuated with someone else, and then maybe they would prefer us, if they reject this stranger we have made every effort to endear to them…this is what happens with Alice Adams, for she does not allow Arthur to see who she is.

It is difficult to say what would have happened, had she said from the start that her family is not wealthy, opting for that creative web of lies ‘they do not invite me, because we have bad relationships’, the truth was a difference in class, at a time when there were unsurmountable obstacles, except maybe the young man may have infatuated with the ‘real Alice’, but as it was, she introduced him to someone else, a fake Alice, one with a rich father, of the same class as the ‘nobility’ of the town…

 

This farce reaches some climax on the night I have mentioned, when they spend more than they can afford, hire a Black woman (I understand from the aforementioned article that the African American term is to be replaced by Black, but we will see how this evolves) that acts in a hilarious way (albeit it has to be said that the words used in the chef d’oeuvre cannot be used today, and there is a reflection of the pervasive, omnipresent in fact racism of the time, evident in every aspect, the hiring of the jalopy, the fact that brother Walter is conferring with Black people is seen as appalling, and bringing the reputation of the family a major blow) when she falls over a bucket, she acts with adversity, then Mr. Adams does not know her name

She is supposed to be their employee, not a hired help, and as such, he must know her name, only it is evident from the interactions that this is again a pretense, and it comes after the guest had just learned about shenanigans, misdemeanors, the fact that the father stands accused of having been useless for years, then stayed home sick, on the pay of his boss, to just run away with a company secret, to open a glue factory – this in fact he has done prompted by his spouse, and considering the level of adversity Alice has to face, with the prospect of staying an old maid, enduring vicissitudes and privations.

 

When somebody knock s at the door, the hired woman is asked to open it and she protests ‘you want me to do that’, as if all she has to do is serve at the table, which might be the right attitude, considering the age and everything else, only I thought this jesting wondrous a few years back…on the second engagement with Alice Adams I was more touched by the sadness than the mirth, the failure of her attempt to marry Russell, the decline in the financial fortunes, but overall, this is a fantastic magnum opus, a glorious protagonist, on the level of the august Becky Sharp http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/11/vanity-fair-by-william-makepeace.html

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