Other Fiction Tarkington, Booth: The Conquest of Canaan (Illustrated). v1, 13 March 2012

[GrannyGrump]

Tarkington takes us again to Hoosier country with this novel, set in Canaan, Indiana. However, instead of warmly celebrating middle America, as did “The Gentleman From Indiana”, this book takes a darker turn and examines another aspect of small-town life — the gossipy, intolerant, hypocritical village hive-mind. The theme is that of a man against an unfriendly world. The story forays into politics, a murder trial, mob violence, embezzlement — with critical commentary by a coterie of old men who gather daily for gossip and debate.

Eighteen-year-old Joe Louden is the town black sheep, disgraced for gambling and general non-conformity. His friend Ariel Tabor is socially snubbed because she is poor and shabby and a tomboy. Both leave Canaan — Joe running away (with seven dollars to his name); Ariel inheriting money and moving to Paris along with her artist grandfather. Both return to Canaan years later — but to very different receptions. Joe, a poor struggling young lawyer, drawing his clientele from the “lower elements,” is still despised by the “upper elements” of the town, particularly leading citizen Judge Pike (Joe still carries a hopeless undeclared love for his daughter Mamie Pike). Several years later, Ariel, now a wealthy chic beauty (and still in love with Joe), returns to a warm welcome, and tries to help Joe in his struggle to win the town’s respect.

Although a number of the characters are painted too much black or white, and conclusions of some of the story lines are too tidy, it is worth a look, if only for the wonderful, typically Tarkington, descriptive passages.


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Here are a couple of quotes -- just a taste to nibble:

Within the house above, a piano of evil life was being beaten to death for its sins and clamoring its last cries horribly.

It was a big, smooth-stone-faced house, product of the ’Seventies, frowning under an outrageously insistent mansard, capped by a cupola, and staring out of long windows overtopped with “ornamental” slabs.......It was a hideous house, important-looking, cold, yet harshly aggressive, a house whose exterior provoked a shuddering guess of the brass lambrequins and plush fringes within; a solid house, obviously — nay, blatantly — the residence of the principal citizen, whom it had grown to resemble, as is the impish habit of houses; and it sat in the middle of its flat acre of snowy lawn like a rich, fat man enraged and sitting straight up in bed to swear.

Eight full-page illustrations. Decorated capitals begin each chapter; I am uploading a second copy with plain caps for readers that don't support "float" images.

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