Saturday, October 22, 2005

Newton Booth Tarkington

The next book chosen was during the October gathering at Katy's home. It is The Manificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. We will discuss this during the December meeting at Lisa's home. Here is a biography of that author.

Newton Booth Tarkington, an enormously prolific novelist, playwright, and short story writer who chronicled urban middle-class life in the American Midwest during the early twentieth century, was born in Indianapolis on July 29, 1869. He was the son of John Stevenson Tarkington, a lawyer, and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington. His uncle and namesake, Newton Booth, was a governor of California and later a United States senator.

In the essay 'As I Seem to Me,' published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1941, Tarkington recalled dictating a story to his sister when he was only six. By the age of sixteen he had written a fourteen-act melodrama about Jesse James. Tarkington was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Purdue University, and Princeton, where his burlesque musical The Honorable Julius Caesar was staged by the Triangle Club.

Upon leaving Princeton in 1893 he returned to Indiana determined to pursue a career as a writer.After a five-year apprenticeship marked by publishers' rejection slips, Tarkington enjoyed a huge commercial success with The Gentleman from Indiana (1899), a novel credited with capturing the essence of the American heartland. He consolidated his fame with Monsieur Beaucaire (1900), a historical romance later adapted into a movie starring Rudolph Valentino. 'Monsieur Beaucaire is ever green,' remarked Damon Runyon. 'It is a little literary cameo, and we read it over at least once a year.'

The political knowledge Tarkington acquired while serving one term in the Indiana house of representatives informed In the Arena (1905), a collection of short stories that drew praise from President Theodore Roosevelt for its realism.

In collaboration with dramatist Harry Leon Wilson, Tarkington wrote The Man from Home (1907), the first of many successful Broadway plays. His comedy Clarence (1919), which Alexander Woollcott praised for being 'as American as Huckleberry Finn or pumpkin pie,' helped launch Alfred Lunt on a distinguished career and provided Helen Hayes with an early successful role.

Following a decade in Europe, Tarkington returned to Indianapolis and won a new readership with the publication of The Flirt (1913). The first of his novels to be serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, the book contained authentic characters and themes that paved the way for Penrod (1914), a group of tales drawn from the author's boyhood memories of growing up in Indiana. The adventures of Penrod Schofield, which Tarkington also chronicled in the sequels Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jashber (1929), seized the imagination of young adult readers and invited comparison with Tom Sawyer.

Equally successful was Seventeen (1916), a nostalgic comedy of adolescence that subsequently inspired a play, two Broadway musicals, and a pair of film adaptations as well as Tarkington's sequel novel Gentle Julia (1922).

Tarkington broke new artistic ground with The Turmoil (1915), the first novel in his so-called Growth trilogy documenting the changes in urban life during the era of America's industrial expansion. William Dean Howells, the father of American realism, praised Tarkington's vivid depiction of the human misery generated by one man's worship of bigness and materialism.

The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), the second work in the series, earned Tarkington the Pulitzer Prize. 'The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel,' judged Van Wyck Brooks. '[It is] a typical story of an American family and town--the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city.' The Midlander (1924) concludes the trilogy with the story of a real estate developer who is both a creator and a victim of the country's new wealth.

Tarkington won his second Pulitzer Prize for Alice Adams (1921), a novel often seen as an extension of the Growth trilogy. The unforgettable portrayal of a small-town social climber whose outlandish attempts to snare a rich husband are both poignant and hilarious, Alice Adams was later made into a film starring Katharine Hepburn.

Tarkington's other memorable books of the period include Women (1925), a cycle of amusing stories about the flourishing social life of suburban housewives, and The Plutocrat (1927), a satire of an American millionaire abroad. In addition he turned out The World Does Move (1928), a volume of autobiographical essays, and Mirthful Haven (1930), a serious novel of manners inspired by his many summers in Kennebunkport, Maine.

In the late 1920s, Tarkington commenced a prolonged battle with failing eyesight and near blindness. After undergoing more than a dozen eye operations he regained partial vision, but he was forced to dictate his work to a secretary. His joy at being able once more to see colors maintained a lifelong passion for collecting art.

The entertaining stories Tarkington wrote for the Saturday Evening Post about the art business were published as Rumbin Galleries (1937). In addition he completed Some Old Portraits (1939), a book of essays about his collection, which included works by Titian, Velázquez, and Goya.During the final years of his life Tarkington again focused on Indiana. In The Heritage of Hatcher Ide (1941) he updated the family sagas of the Growth trilogy, while in Kate Fennigate (1943) he offered another social comedy in the spirit of Alice Adams.

In 1945 Tarkington was awarded the prestigious Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Booth Tarkington died at his home in Indianapolis following a short illness on May 19, 1946. The Show Piece (1947), his unfinished last novel, profiles a young egoist reminiscent of the George Minafer of The Magnificent Ambersons.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Book Concierge

Fellow bookies: I think many of us are also concierges!
My Role as a Book Concierge to My Friends

You would think after recommending books to the 1.1 million readers in our Network each month I would find suggesting books to friends to be a snap. But, oh no, this is pressure. In the past months I have found myself sweating my role of what I call, "Book Concierge."
As you can imagine, our house has quite a library in it. There are sets of bookshelves all around the house. I try to keep them categorized, but I confess I could use a few rainy weekends to get my system back under control. My sons want me to get book cataloguing software, which would be a great idea, but would kill the charm of wondering where a book is like an absent-minded librarian. I usually have a pretty good memory about how I sort the shelves, but there are moments when I can work myself into a frenzy when I KNOW we have a book and I cannot find it. As an example, I even have a four-high double deep stacked shelves of advance reading copies in one of the upstairs hallways. The other day I KNEW I had a copy of THE HISTORIAN there and sure it was...on the last shelf I looked at!
For me, the shelves at the house look like the shelves at the office --- jam packed with books. Thus when friends are heading off on trips, they stop by to visit and to meet with the "Book Concierge." While picking is pressure, hearing the feedback when you pick the right book is fun. Glenn, who is the father of one of my little one's best friends stopped by last week and told me how much he loved SHADOW DIVERS that I had given him for his trip to Greece. That sent me to the shelves looking for THE LAST DIVE since I thought he would enjoy that as a followup. On this same Greek trip Glenn's wife, Alita, wanted light beach reading. I cannot remember the six books I gave her, but she said she loved them all.
My friend Dez came by a few weeks ago before she took a trip to Bali with her significant other. She wanted just TWO books. Imagine THAT pressure. I could not just do two. She left with NIGHT FALL, THE KITE RUNNER, SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN and another book I cannot remember. She wrote a postcard from Bali and said --- "Leo loved THE KITE RUNNER." Now I KNOW this is a great book, but making sure that it was a book that Leo would enjoy was the challenge.
Yesterday I brought a copy of SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN to the nurse at my doctor's office. She had finished reading THE KITE RUNNER with her book club and was looking for something that was a story of friendship in an exotic location. And yes, for those of you noting that I mentioned this book twice, I DO like SNOWFLOWER. (And yes, that's three times.)
At the Y where I swim I have talked books in the locker room over the noise of the water in the showers. I have left lists of book ideas at the Y front desk for people I have met there. I have listened to people tell me about their personal book reading habits. One morning I watched another swimmer sit in the parking lot for a while after she stopped her car. When she entered the locker room I asked, "What were you listening to?" She laughed because I was right. She was hooked on an audiobook.
I learn a lot about people by what they tell me they are reading.
I have written lists of book recommendations for the moms of the boys on my son's baseball team. In between watching the action, I try to get a handle on what their sons like and from there make lists.
My friend, Jimmy, who lives in North Carolina has gotten so many of my favorite books from me over the years that if I saw his bookshelves, I might see a synopsis of my last eight years of reading. I remember last year his son was watching LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL at school and he remembered I had sent him the screenplay. He was trying to find it. I said, I think I sent it when you lived in Texas, so maybe it never got unpacked!
With friends and family borrowing books I have but one rule. They must return! I am not as anal as I was as a child where I had a stamp system like at the library. Instead now, I remember. When I looked for SHADOW DIVERS for Leo, I remembered Glenn had it!
I am sure that many of you play this same role with your friends. Have a story to share about you as Book Concierge? Then drop me a note at Carol@bookreporter.com.