"Time does really fly, or perhaps it's more like the sky-and smoke--"

"I mean the things that we have and that we think are solid - they're like smoke, and time is like the sky the smoke disappears into. You know how a wreath of smoke goes up from a chimney, and seems all think and black and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such important things and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner - and then, in such a little while, it isn't there at all; nothing is left but the sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever..."

Some thoughtful words from Isabel Amberson. Isabel is the "other woman" in The Magnificent Ambersons.  Isabel, Georgie's mother, is a woman of her time: she is meek, never argues with the men in her life, and gives her son anything he could ask for and more. While the rest of the town views George as spoiled and disdains him, Isabel describes her only son as angelic.

Isabel's monologue not only reminds us that there are many surprises in our lives, she also sets the mood for a coming series of events.  It is becoming evident that the Ambersons' lives as they know it are about to change.  The town that was built by Major Amberson, George's grandfather, is becoming a dreary, crowded, soot-covered city.  Times of elaborate dances and exquisite dress are coming to an end. These busy, seemingly important times will cease to exist.  George, though, seems unaware of the changes surrounding him: his friends no longer worship him and his family structure, along with the architecture they built up around them, is collapsing. Soon, before George realizes it, these things will get thinner and thinner, and then in such a little while, there will be nothing.

Book #100: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

I pulled out my old library card and visited the new library at Salem State College.  It took me several minutes to communicate to the young, texting college student working the front desk exactly what I was looking for, but I was finally directed to head to the basement level of the brand new building (strangely it was just one floor down but I could only access it by a giant elevator).   I found a copy of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Amerbsons stowed away on a shelf way in the back.

I love this book.

 This 1918 novel takes place in the late 1800s and is a delight. I am about half way through and am realizing that the hero is not going to be the affluent, spoiled-rotten George Amberson as we are led to believe, but the sweet, modest, seemingly-sneaky Lucy Morgan.  Lucy is a stunning beauty who is quietly intelligent and has no problem smiling behind her lover-gifted bouquet while mocking the extreme waste of money and other resources of the times.  Lucy and her father (an inventor who turns a sewing machine into an automobile, and is told "Git a hos! Git a hos!" when he drives it around town) become a refreshing duo in a town of people who dote on the Amberson family.  Between dances at balls and chilly sleigh rides it seems that George and Lucy may fall in love and perhaps she will knock some sense into him.

Book-It

So I decided to do it. I have decided to read all 100 books on the Modern Library's list of great contemporary novels:  Check it out!

Reading has always been one of my favorite things.  From the "Babysitters Club" in elementary school to "The Diary of Anne Frank" in high school and currently anything from Dickens, to Poe, to Sedaris and Rowling - I often wish I could read my days away...  I dream about the characters as if they were old friends and talk about them with my friends as if they were people in our actual lives.

I encourage you to read my thoughts and opinions in this blog and I encourage you to pick up one of these fascinating masterpieces.  Come on, let's read.