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The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons
Pulitzer Prize winner - 1919.
Book Excerpt
ay food for the winter, or goods to trade for food, and they often feared they had not stored enough--they left traces of that fear in their sons and grandsons. In the minds of most of these, indeed, their thrift was next to their religion: to save, even for the sake of saving, was their earliest lesson and discipline. No matter how prosperous they were, they could not spend money either upon "art," or upon mere luxury and entertainment, without a sense of sin.
Against so homespun a background the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major Amberson bought two hundred acres of land at the end of National Avenue; and through this tract he built broad streets and cross-streets; paved them with cedar block, and curbed them with stone. He set up fountains, here and there, where the streets intersected, and at symmetrical intervals placed cast-iron statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon the pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Empero
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Fantastic read. Love, wealth, jealousy, destitution......great stuff.
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George Amberson Minafer is a small town aristocrat. He comes from a prominent well respected family in a growing mid-west city and he is very proud of his family. In fact, he is very fond of telling everybody just how proud he is, and his mother loves him very much.
He is a man of conviction, who never questions his judgment, because he’s right, because he is an Amberson. He knows a man is measured by who he is and not by what he does. He knows architecture and he knows cars can’t replace horses. He knows his town will always admire and respect its great traditions, and he knows what’s best for his mom.
Only, he’s really always wrong, and he never listens to anyone, and he is always clinging to the past, and he never accepts blame, even if it kills his mom, who he loves very much.
Great story about a guy named George…kind of ironic too
He is a man of conviction, who never questions his judgment, because he’s right, because he is an Amberson. He knows a man is measured by who he is and not by what he does. He knows architecture and he knows cars can’t replace horses. He knows his town will always admire and respect its great traditions, and he knows what’s best for his mom.
Only, he’s really always wrong, and he never listens to anyone, and he is always clinging to the past, and he never accepts blame, even if it kills his mom, who he loves very much.
Great story about a guy named George…kind of ironic too
06/12/2009
1918 Pulitizer-Prize winner
09/30/2004
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