The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington was the 1919 Winner of The Pulitzer Prize, it is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, also on The Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list, if it is only 1191st on the Greatest Books of All Time, then it is one of my Top 400 Favorites; you find thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html and YouTube channel

 

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington was the 1919 Winner of The Pulitzer Prize, it is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, also on The Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels list, if it is only 1191st on the Greatest Books of All Time, then it is one of my Top 400 Favorites; you find thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html and YouTube channel

 

9 out of 10

 

I was exhilarated https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/alice-adams-by-booth-tarkington.html by Alice Adams, and found The Magnificent Ambersons, if perhaps not Magnificent, well, then still excellent, and furthermore, this was on the second reading, I don’t know what I did with my first note on it though

 

George Amberson Minafer is the hero, or anti hero of the narrative, I may decide before the end of this review if he is the good guy, or the villain, most likely he is a complex personage, and will stay somewhere in between, there are abominable aspects – and that should disqualify him I guess – but also endearing ones

Plus, he was spoiled, and thus it is not all his fault, if he was made to believe the world spins around him, and he is the center of everything, then he becomes a sort of Orange Nincompoop just like this Confidence Man https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/confidence-man-making-of-donald-trump.html

 

George is perhaps the last of The Magnificent Ambersons, once a celebrated, famous family, their wealth may be diminishing, maybe a spoiler alert should be inserted here, I always feel this is superfluous, because people do not really read this, only I had some surprises from MAGA, infuriated by my disdain of their pathetic idol

The protagonist has clashes with boys his age, or older, very proud of his ‘blue blood’, then he is infatuated – I am cautious with the word love, ever since I have read Thomas Mann https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/09/buddenbrooks-by-thomas-mann-is-one-of.html and his vision on the subject

 

Which was you find love only in fiction, in reality, when people boast about this, it is not real, when feelings are tested, it proves to be something else, attraction, appreciation, so in the case of George Amberson, I am not sure how to define what he shows for Lucy Morgan, he is clearly affected by her presence, persona

Notwithstanding that, the way he acts may indicate something else: his mother, Isabel, had had a relationship with Eugene Morgan, Lucy’s father, before she married George’s father, and when the latter dies, there is some gossip, speculation in town that they will marry, and this drives George crazy, to the stage where he destroys everything

 

He reminds me of the third chef d’oeuvre  https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/enrod-by-booth-tarkington-10-out-of-10.html by Booth Tarkington, Penrod…George Amberson closes the door in front of Eugene Morgan, just as he was about to ask Isabel to marry him, and this is perhaps the climax, the moment when all is decided

Comentarii

Trimiteți un comentariu

Postări populare de pe acest blog

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish

Imagine
  Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice written by Larry Tucker and Paul Mazursky, directed by the latter is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list, and Variety has published recently its Top 100 Comedies – or else, I have learned about this lately – where this feature has a top spot, as far as I remember it is higher that the 50 th spot – speaking of these pages, you have access to my own more than five thousand notes on films from these and other compilations, together with another five thousand reviews on magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and You Tube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may even subscribe, if you wish     9 out of 10   First a correction: I wrote above that this comedy is within the first fifty of Variety’s Top 100, I just saw that it is in fact ranked 90 th , I could have edited the above, but maybe this way I will re...
Citiți mai multe

In The Fade aka Auf Dem Nichts, written by Hark Bohm and Fatih Akin

  In The Fade aka Auf Dem Nichts, written by Hark Bohm and Fatih Akin In The Fade has won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, although in this cinephile's opinion, Una Mujer Fantastica- which has won the Oscar in the same category- Nelyubov or The Square would have been better choices. Having said that, Auf Dem Nichts is a very good, significant, remarkable feature, that attracts attention to violence against minorities, in this case the Kurdish community in Germany. It is therefore not one sided, we do not have only Muslim lunatics killing innocent "infidels", but also some extreme Europeans murdering the other side. The problem is that, unacceptable, horrifying and vile as these acts are, it appears that the overwhelming majority of atrocities are committed by zealots acting in the name of Islam- radical and unrepresentative as they are for this supposedly peaceful faith, although there are passages in its holy book that seem to insist on a violent jihad and ultimat...
Citiți mai multe