August 2009 Archives

The Central Market Book Club had our monthly meeting last night, Monday, August 10, 2009. Connie led eleven of us in a discussion of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington starting out by explaining that she was aware that all of us understood how Georgie, the main character the author followed from childhood to young adulthood was raised as a spoiled child, that he was someone who many of the characters in the book as well as the reader were greatly anticipating his "come-uppance" as the author described it. So Connie's question was not whether we were sympathetic with the main character but her question was "who did we think did the most damage, his mother, Isabel or his Aunt Fanny Minafer"?. And "damage" here was referring to what caused Georgie's selfish, narcisistic, narrow minded and pompous behaviour in separating his widowed mother from her true love, Eugene Morgan, someone whom she had almost married when she was young but because of a silly incident in the front yard of the Amberson mansion, had decided on a less flamboyant candidate (and that is an understatement) in the form of Wilbur Minafer, a less sparkling but persistent young man whom she married but never really loved.

The opening question in our discussions is the most important part of being the moderator. We rotate moderators according to who suggested the book for our ballot (and of course the book has to get a bunch of votes for us to even have a discussion.) This opening question was exceptional in my opinion because it generated a lot of energy in the followup commentary by everyone present. I was surprised to find out that my opinion was not agreed to by everyone (LOL). I thought the mother definitely did the most damage by providing Georgie with an environment where he never received criticism and was viewed always as an "angel" no matter what he did and because of his maternal grandfather's wealth had considerable money to flaunt and use to gain undeserved power among friends, such as in the "literary club", a social group for card-playing where he literally bought his way to the presidency. The story describes many many obnoxious things he did being rude, insensitive and spoiled. But others thought the Aunt had done the most damage being a petty, mean gossip who manipulated Georgie's behaviour by feeding him information about his mother and Eugene in a manner to incite his biggest concern, that "people were talking about his mother" in an unfavorable way.

It wasn't that I disagreed that Aunt Fanny was petty and mean and had definitely created an unfortunate effect in young George. My main point was that if it hadn't been Aunt Fanny, it would have been something or someone else because Georgie from the very beginning of his introduction to Eugene Morgan had disliked him and when learning he and his mother had a prior relationship before he was born, he intensely hated the man. If Aunt Fannie hadn't got Georgie stirred up, something else would have been a "tipping point" because as a result of his intense feelings, there was no way he was going to allow his widowed mother to marry Eugene Morgan.

Later, when he asks, "why didn't you stop me", his Aunt commented that "you were too strong" and that "she loved you too well". Both of these comments were the crux of the story, i.e. what damage a child (even though Georgie was about twenty two I think) could do when given no feedback as to his own infallibilty coupled with having tremendous personal strength of will along with being involved in an oedipal relationship with his mother. He could aptly be described as a surrogate spouse and one for whom his mother was willing to sacrifice all her happiness.

As I've said before, one of the great things about our discussions is that there is no insistance that we all agree. I don't think I convinced others who disagreed with me about "who did the most damage" and they didn't convince me but we still had a great discussion and I believe we all learned or understood better our own opinions because of the requirement that we articulate them to a group and if the group is as highly charged as it was on this issue, the need to articulate clearly becomes an even stricter requirement. Not a bad thing, IMO.

I brought up that youth also was a source of Georgie's damage. Many of us who now have gray hair of course remember how youth can be very arrogant. Though Georgie was an extreme case of youthful arrogance "gone awry", his behaviour was not totally outside the realm of normalcy. Also, we are given a clue via the character of Lucy Morgan, Eugene Morgan's beautiful daughter who Georgie fell in love with and wanted to marry. She kept commenting to Georgie (and to the reader of course) that he was "too young". Georgie was the namesake of Uncle George, Isabel's brother who seemed more sane than any of the other characters except for his penchant to dabble in bad financial risks. Uncle George makes quite a few comments about youth especially his own when he says to Georgie "When I was your age I was like you in many ways, especially in not being very cool-headed ... Youth can't be trusted for much, except asserting itself and fighting and making love." I believe that as far as who does the most damage asked in Connie's leading question, the author is basically telling us through Uncle George that youth plays a big part in the fiasco that results when young George decides to take matters into his own hands.

One of the major themes besides the spoiled nature of young George was the changes in the neighborhood as time passes from young George's childhood until Major Amberson, his maternal grandfather dies and leaves him and his aunt basically penniless. Many in our group thought that the story depicted very well the changing technology as represented by the "horseless carriage" and which was the business of Eugene Morgan, and the changing architecture and growth of the city of Midland as represented by a type of "urban sprawl". As a result, those in the old neighborhood of Amberson Boulevard were left to live in an area that was no longer the best neighborhood of the city. The social changes were such that no longer was the Amberson family talked about, something young George greatly feared, because the population had increased so much and the Amberson family was no longer the wealthiest family. The author seems to have done a great job of showing the changes both in a gradual way and also in a rapid way depending on what perspective you chose.

The story was very dense with themes and characters. Some which we discussed but which I have not written about here include:

• The character of the grandfather, Major Amberson as a self-made man and how the changing time affected his quality of life
• How the female characters of Isabel, the mother and Lucy Morgan, the lover were idealized and seemed to be hollow characters and whether this was a sign of the times or an inadequacy of the author
• The character of Aunt Fanny who I thought was the best character of all - the spinster Aunt who was left out of so much because she had not married when marriage was the ultimate status for a woman during the time of the novel which we believed to be around 1900
• How the author refers to the tragedy of Hamlet and how Hamlet might (or might not) relate to the tragedy of George, his mother and Eugene
• What was there about young George for Lucy Morgan to fall so madly in love about? Was their relationship credible?
• What was the significance of young George not wanting to have a profession, that he wanted to "be" rather than to "do"?
• What path did George take in traveling from his own prideful ignorance to the point he understood what he had done to his mother?
• Was Fanny evil? or just petty? and what were her other traits and what was her relationship with George like? and how did it change?
• Why didn't the author have George killed by the automobile instead of providing us with a contrived ending?
• Why did the author provide the scene near the end between Eugene and the psychic? (some thought this a big cheesy)
• Was the story a Horatio Alger story in reverse, instead of rags to riches, it was riches to rags? (or not)?
• What was the significance of the Indian/tribal story told by Lucy in Chapter 34 with references to "excitement" and "boredom"?
• Is the modern audience too cynical for such a romance as this? Some attendees thought the story was melodramatic and reminded them of GONE WITH THE WIND.

In the end, as we went around the circle for input on who liked or didn't like the book (and anything else they wanted to add and hadn't had a chance to), most liked the book. Though almost all felt the ending was too contrived. For my part, there was a fair amount I didn't like about the book. It seemed more in line with the tradition of storytelling rather than literary novels but I loved the character of young George. I loved the fact the author took such a risk in giving us a leading character so arrogant, pompous and snobbish that we didn't like him and also that the author did such a great job in developing the character into someone the average reader hated. I don't remember disliking a main character to this extent in the fifteen years I've been reading in groups affiliated with Great Books. As a result, I heartily recommend this book for its originality.

Looking forward to our next discussion on Monday, September 13th when we will discuss CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller. Check out our website at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/ for more details.

There were twelve members of the Montrose Great Books book club around the table at Houston-Freed Montrose Library last night, August 6, 2009 discussing MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis. Susan who was a bit nervous led the discussion. It turned out exactly as I thought. The book had so many great complex characters and also so many pages (it was 450 pages for the edition I bought) that we all very rapidly started discussing without much need for prompting from the moderator.

As a result, Susan's job of leading the discussion was almost too easy and left her wishing we had more time for her to ask all of the questions she had prepared. This is one of the difficulties that can arise when we discuss one of the longer Great Book classics. The two hours of our discussion isn't really adequate to do it total justice but I think we made a good try and I left feeling satisfied that we had covered most of the main themes.

Susan started by asking who in the group had grown up in a small town. Four raised their hands with someone else indicating they had lived for a short time in a small town and found it to be very much like the town depicted in MAIN STREET. One of the four reported later as we went around the circle as we always do at the end of the meeting that she liked growing up in the small town. Someone else commented that she guessed the person who liked growing up in a small town much have been in the inner group of the town. Someone else indicated that her family must have had some money. Lots of generalizations and stereotypes going on about small towns. Do they deserve the criticism? Most felt they did

Susan began by asking about the preface to the book and the response by everyone who answered indicated it was thought the preface referred to the smugness of the town which was called Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. In the preface, the author uses the phrase "betray himself an alien cynic" and this seemed to be well received by one of the more vocal participants, with the comment that the book was overall very cynical. This same participant brought up the "cynical" adjective numerous times throughout the discussion and no one disagreed (that I heard).

Initially we focused on the main character, Carol Kennicott. The story begins with her attending college and following her to her first job in a library after graduation, and then with her disillusionment that she wasn't going to make her mark on the world as she had hoped. Then came her decision to marry Will Kennicott, a man older by fifteen or so years and also one who was from Gopher Prairie, a small town which appeared to be pretty from the photographs that Will showed Carol but which culturally was completely different from St Paul, Minnesota which is where Carol went to school and even more different from New England where Carol spent part of her childhood.

Our first comments focused on her isolation from family, her mother died when she was young and her father died while she was still in St Paul. Her character wasn't someone who had known much about how communities function. She didn't understand things like the fact that it takes a very long time to be accepted by a community in a small town. She had the advantage of being married to a popular doctor in the town (though there were other doctors) therefore most in the community were very polite to her, almost too polite. They were condescending in their thinking that she would eventually settle down and behave more like those in the Gopher Prairie community rather than what they perceived was behavior probably common to pretentious people from the big city of St. Paul.

One in the group described her as a "twit" but that same person clarified that even though she was a "twit", that didn't mean that her opinions about the population of Gopher Prairie were incorrect. Some of us defended Carol, the main character and reminded the rest of the group that she was young, about 22 at the beginning of her marriage. Also, the author spent a fair number of paragraphs showing Carol as honestly trying to fit in with thoughts such as "they're just trying to be nice" and "they aren't so bad", etc. But her critical, analytical side always returned with the opinion that the citizens of Gopher prairie had no taste, or intelligence or appreciation for art and beauty. This included her husband as well. Initially, the book focuses on the horror she feels when she first sees how ugly the buildings on Main Street actually are, nothing like what she remembered from the photographs her then fiancee showed her when she was still in St. Paul. We discussed her decision to marry and several thought she took the easy way out and as a consequence of her bad choice, she had to endure major suffering later. Why didn't she make a better choice? Lots of fodder for discussion on this point.

Though the author is not always kind to Carol's husband, Will, it is clear that he had had an unrealistic understanding of how she would fit in. We spent quite a bit of time talking about what is required to "fit in". An interesting description was posed by one of the attendees regarding "boxes". That small towns did not have very many "boxes" that a new comer could aspire to fit in. That the advantage of larger towns was that they had more "boxes" for their citizens to "try on" and thus provided better options for people who might have otherwise been lonely and isolated in a small town because there was no where for them to fit in. This precisely describes Carol and the predicament in which she found herself even regarding her relationship with her husband's relatives such as Aunt Bessie as well as with someone whom she thought was her friend, Mrs. Westlake who turned out to be a terrible gossip revealing everything Carol told her in private to anyone and everyone.

Susan asked about what part religion played in the story. We all felt it wasn't significant, that neither Carol nor Will attended church regularly. That one of the main references to religion applied to Mrs. Bogart, the vicious, hypocritical character who had a delinquent son but would not admit it and who always found someone else to blame for her own son's shortcomings. This was illustrated especially well in the event of the new young school teacher named Fern who was accused of getting Mrs. Bogart's son drunk and as a result was asked for her resignation in a way that would destroy her career. Carol tried her best to defend Fern. And this was somewhat of a turning point for Carol because she went to each school board member's house asking that they not see Fern as the guilty person. We all thought this was somewhat of a change for Carol, that her timidity reflected in her initial actions when she first arrived seemed to be reduced to some extent for the first time when she confronted townspeople on an issue that wasn't very popular.

We discussed whether Carol's behavior was "heroic" or not. Some of us were more forgiving than others, believing that her youth prevented her from standing up to the town regarding the issues concerning discrimination of and poor treatment of the Scandinavian immigrants. It was brought up how she didn't eat in the kitchen with her maid whom she liked very much, even when her husband wasn't home. In one scene, she was talking through the kitchen door to her maid, Bea and her maid's visitor, Miles while they were eating. It was described as very awkward and snobbish of Carol by the author. This behavior changed dramatically later when she became nurse to Bea who became wife to Miles, a talented, resourceful Scandinavian immigrant who was intellectually independent and very critical of the townspeople of Gopher Prairie and someone whom Carol found kinship with. It was commented that Miles might have been a character meant to represent the author's views.

Later in the book after Carol has appeared to reach the point where she can no longer tolerate Gopher Prairie and that includes her husband as well, she takes an extended trip to Washington D.C. with her child Hugh. She is lonely in Washington but there are definitely things she likes about the big city. One interesting note is how friendly she was to the Haydecks when she accidentally ran into them in Washington. She couldn't have been more delighted. Her delight causes the reader to wonder that maybe there were some good things about Gopher Prairie after all. And this led us to discuss the "community spirit" that can be nurturing in a small time and something you don't find in a larger one. Though there were definite cynics in our group who commented that the "community spirit" was only nurturing if you were in the "in group".

I won't spoil the ending with my report here but want to comment that there were several women in the group who were not happy with the ending.

There is much that I have not mentioned here that we discussed such as:

1. the satirical aspect of the novel
2. situations with other characters such as Vida, Eric, Guy Pollard and Sam Clark to name a few
3. the exploitation of the farmers by the parasitical town as described by the author
4. the dysfunctional marital relationship between Carol and Will
5. the point at which Carol seems to find herself and have a sane strategy for proceding with the rest of her life

One of my own conclusions about the novel came into my head after the discussion. This often happens because the discussions are always thought provoking and fodder enough for me to keep thinking about the book long after the discussion. What I thought of later was the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". That children raised in small towns are actually raised by the whole town because everyone knows everyone else. This is not always a bad thing. I wonder if it isn't largely responsible for that "country boy" personality type (or "country girl") that we are all familiar with - someone who is very polite when those of us raised in big cities are more likely to rage in the same situation.

But on the negative side, as one participant mentioned, most of the school tragedies that have occurred with young students killing other students have occurred in small towns (according to what she had heard). It seems one might draw a conclusion that for those children who do not fit into "a box" provided by the small town as an option, they become misfits and if one follows this logic, ultimately because of their own inability to find another pathway to "a box" that might be more compatible with their eccentricities, they choose to be destructive instead.

Well, since I am more inclined to be eccentric (at least my husband tells me I am), I am grateful that I wasn't raised in a small town like Gopher Prairie though my home town wasn't as big as I would have liked it to be.

Looking forward to our next discussion of UBIK by Philip Dick. More details about our group or our readings available at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/.