The Magnificent Ambersons

A Pulitzer Prize winner from almost a century ago, Tarkington's story of the decline of an aristocratic American family amid the rise of industrialization and the advent of "new money" still resonates and has many parallels in today's world. Geoffrey Blaisdell gives proper blue-blood intonation to the Amberson clan and their contemporaries. He also gives appropriate tones to the servants and the townspeople. The protagonist's oath-taking will have lost its effect for today's listeners, and the casual use of racist terms may startle some. However, the story holds its own, regardless of its taking a bizarre penultimate turn, and provides the narrator with characters (even if caricatured) that bloom or wither in this very American novel. S.M.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine