His Own People [Hardcover]

Booth Tarkington (Author), 1stWorld Library (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2006

The glass-domed "palm-room" of the Grand Conti-nental Hotel Magnifique in Rome is of vasty heights and distances, filled with a mellow green light which filters down languidly through the upper foliage of tall palms, so that the two hundred people who may be refreshing or displaying themselves there at the tea-hour have something the look of under-water creatures playing upon the sea-bed. They appear, however, to be unaware of their condition; even the ladies, most like anemones of that gay assembly, do not seem to know it; and when the Hungarian band (crustacean-like in costume, and therefore well within the picture) has sheathed its flying tentacles and withdrawn by dim processes, the tea-drinkers all float out through the doors, instead of bubbling up and away through the filmy roof. In truth, some such exit as that was imagined for them by a young man who remained in the aquarium after they had all gone, late one afternoon of last winter. They had been marvelous enough, and to him could have seemed little more so had they made such a departure. He could almost have gone that way himself, so charged was he with the uplift of his belief that, in spite of the brilliant strangeness of the hour just past, he had been no fish out of water.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 108 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (February 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421803089
• ISBN-13: 978-1421803081
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful short book., August 17, 2010

By 

Lily Mezzo - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: His Own People (Kindle Edition)

A young man traveling abroad discovers a great deal about himself, his prejudices, and his flaws while meeting a variety of colorful people. Very enjoyable reading.

2.0 out of 5 stars Shallow And Obvious, February 9, 2009

By 

Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: His Own People (Hardcover)

After numerous stories which take place in the U.S., and the Midwest for the most part, Tarkington at last returns to Europe for the setting of his novella "His Own People". Unfortunately, this one doesn't recapture the fun of "Monsieur Beaucaire". The story is light easy reading, but at the same time there is little of substance included. The book was originally published in October of 1907, and is the fourth of his novella length works, and his eighth book overall.

The hero is Robert Russ Mellin, a young American who takes everything he has to Europe to look for culture. In doing so, he pretends to be a man of more means than he actually has, and captures the attention of a beautiful French woman, (Héléne) Comtesse de Vaurigard. He gets pulled into her circle of friends, along with another young American, Mr. Cooley, who is everything that Mellin is pretending to be. As he travels around Europe, he does his best to conveniently be where the Comtesse de Vaurigard is, which brings him to Rome, where he meets another of their friends, Lady Mount-Rhyswicke. It is also there that he meets up again with Mr. Cooley.

It is one of those stories where Tarkington tries to tip off the reader to what is coming, and in that he is much too successful, leaving the reader waiting for the story to catch up for the majority of the book. It also suffers from Tarkington's attempt to convey the accents of various characters by mutilating the words in the spoken dialogue. It does have a nice, though rather unbelievable ending, but there is little else that one can say for it.