Customer Reviews

His Own People

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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.

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.