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Title: Alice Adams (Library of Indiana Classics) by Booth Tarkington, Arthur William Brown, Donald Gray ISBN: 0-253-21593-5 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: No Heroes
Comment: In this story by Booth Tarkington, there are no particularly likeable characters. Whether it is Alice's meddling mother, Alice's malleable father, or the manipulative Alice, each character brought with it a disagreeability that wasn't even benefited by a dose of reality.
Compared to Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams falls short. The story is interesting enough to keep one reading it, but the characters beg for a more complete picture, a better portrait so that we can actually have an opinion on what we would like to see happen to them.
The best part of Alice Adams is of course Tarkington's writing. While the story and characters are not addictive, the author's words still find a way to evoke emotion (if not empathy). The following is my favorite excerpt, perhaps alone reason enough to read the book.
________________________
She was silent again, and he said nothing, but looked at her, seeming to be intent with looking. Her attitude was one only a graceful person should assume, but she was graceful; and, in the wan light, which made a prettily shaped mist of her, she had beauty. Perhaps it was beauty of the hour, of the love scene almost made into form by what they had both just said, but she had it; and though beauty of the hour passes, he who sees it will long remember it and the hour when it came.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked.
She leaned back in her chair and did not answer at once. Then she said:
"I don't know. I doubt if I was thinking of anything. It seems to me I wasn't. I think I was just sort of sadly happy just then."
"Were you? Was it 'sadly,' too?"
"Don't you know?" she said. "It seems to me that only little children can be just happily happy. I think when we get older our happiest moments are like the one I had just then: it's as if we heard strains of minor music running through them - oh, so sweet, but oh, so sad!"
Rating: 5
Summary: ALICE ADAMS
Comment: Booth Tarkington is one of my favorite authors. Noone captures the spirit of the person better than he does. The way he makes Alice Adams come alive makes me want to be there and meet this wonderful young lady. If an author can make me want to do that, he is excellent in my book.
The movie ending is the opposite of the book ending, which disappointed me, because I wanted it to be true to the book. Nevertheless, I also wanted Alice to have her dreams come true. If you really absorb yourself in the book, however, you will see that her dream DOES come true, just not necessarily the way you want it to.
There is also the beautiful way he paints the whole family into the book. I won't give it away, but you will see the intricacies woven in.
I found myself totally absorbed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.
Please read this book! You will love it!
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent Tarkington Novel
Comment: One of the better Tarkington tales I've read. An upbeat and at times humorous story about a middle class family and their two early 20-year-old children ( one boy and one girl ). The girl, Alice Adams, is the focus of the story, as she struggles to be liked by the town's society folks. She doesn't have the social prestige nor the money to attract many beaus.
This leads to turmoil, and Mrs. Adams tells her husband to leave the mediocre paying job he's had all his life to start his own company so they can be rich and pay their children "advantages". He does this, after many trepidations, but the basis of his newfound business is a stolen glue formula from his previous employer. This ultimately leads to his demise.
There is a bit more to this story, but all in all, it is a story of class envy, snobbery, and greed. Tarkington's main point, however, seems to be that every dark tunnel of life ultimately has some other exit that inevatibly lead to light -- as even in the Adams's darkest hour their was hope yet.
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Title: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington ISBN: 0375752501 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 14 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: His Family by Ernest Poole ISBN: 089968100X Publisher: Lightyear Pr Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $38.95 |
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Title: One of Ours (Vintage Classics) by Willa Cather ISBN: 0679737448 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 05 November, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady by Louis Bromfield ISBN: 1888683317 Publisher: Wooster Book Co. Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Louis Auchincloss ISBN: 0375753206 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 02 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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