pickSo, Alice Adams. It is, yes, dated and offensive -- and yet I sort of enjoyed it? Viewed as a time capsule, a little tragedy of manners, it is fascinating. I don't think that Tarkington understands his main character at all, and yet his eye for her quirks and eccentricities is sharp. I can't recommend it, exactly, but if you think of it as a window into a very specific time and place, it might be worth your time; it was for me.
I've read before that if you really want to know how people thought and spoke in the past, the best way is to read fiction that was written in that era -- and I do think that is true of Alice Adams, which feels so alien to the way that we think and speak in 2022 it might as well be set on Mars.
#192025
In which Alice Adams (the book, but probably also the character) is racist & classist but also weirdly contemporary:
“You paid a cook double what you had paid one a few years before; & the cook knew half as much of cookery, & had no gratitude. The more you gave these people, it seemed, the worse they behaved—a condition not to be remedied by simply giving them less, because you couldn‘t even get the worst unless you paid her what she demanded.“
She had seen in several magazines pictures of ladies with canes, and on that account she had bought this one, never questioning that fashion is recognized, even in the provinces, as soon as beheld. On the contrary, these staring women obviously failed to realize that what they were being shown was not an eccentric outburst, but the bright harbinger of an illustrious mode.
-- Booth Tarkington, _Alice Adams_
#SundaySentence #192025
Added some new books to Serial Reader while the wife plays Stardew Valley 💙🐮
Men were just like sheep, and nothing was easier than for women to set up as shepherds and pen them up in a field.
so-so#192019 #1921 #pulitzer I can't believe this book won the Pulitzer! But I do know why it has been virtually forgotten. It's racist and offensive. Alice and her mother are desperately trying to climb the social ladder and Alice dreams of a wealthy husband. But Mr Adams is a department head--not a business owner--and they simply do not have the funds to play the required games. In the end, they realize their proper place. Ta-da. Not a deep read.
Gotta love getting a well-worn old copy of a nearly forgotten book. This is up next for me! #192019 #1921 #pulitzerwinner
Alice Adams | 
