Customer Reviews

Show Boat

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Although she is somewhat neglected today, for more than three decades Edna Ferber was considered one of America's premiere authors. While her work included short stories and theatre, she was most famous for her novels, most of which focused on strong women coping with errant men in panoramic settings. SHOW BOAT was one of her first great successes. Today the story is better known through its musical theatre incarnation and the film versions the stage show generated, including the 1936 version directed by James Whale and starring Irene Dunne and the 1951 version directed by George Sidney and starring Katherine Grayson. But while the stage and screen versions have their charms, none really captures the epic nature of Ferber's novel, which is as much about America as it is about the story of post-Civil War show folk who ply their trade on "The Cotton Blossom"--a floating theatre that travels the nation's waterways, most particularly the mighty Mississippi.

The story concerns three generations of women: Parthenia Hawks, a ram-rod upright New Englander who heartily disapproves of her husband's decision to purchase a show boat and involve the family with actors, God forbid; her daughter Magnolia, whose fresh beauty eventually propells her fame as one of the most popular actresses on the river; and her granddaughter Kim, who becomes a Broadway star. But the backbone of the story concerns Magnolia's ill-fated love for ne'er-do-well gambler Gaylord Ravenal, a love that tests her strength to the last degree. Just as Magnolia has to change to meet her constantly shifting circumstances, so is the nation changing around her, gradually shifting from a rather innocent, rural society to a much more hardened and sophistocated urban world. And Magnolia's adventures will take her from the savage natural beauty of the mighty Mississippi to the gambling dens and brothels of 'Gilded Age' Chicago to the jumpiness of the 1920's 'Great White Way' of New York.

Ferber was more of a popular than a literary writer, and her style here is very much of the 1910s and 1920s--but her prose is strong and clean, her imagery is magnificent, and as she tells her episodic story of a life and a nation in transition she weaves a number of interesting threads into the tapestry: the poverty of the beaten South, racial oppression, social caste, hypocrisy, and changing tastes in fashion and art. And always, always there is the great river: indifferent to the humanity that clings to its banks and travels its back, by turns placid and savage, graceful and dangerous. Ultimately the river becomes a metaphor for both the rapid changes in America and for the often dangerous power of love, and unlike the stage and film versions there will be few happy endings for the characters as they are swept through life's torrent very much as the Cotton Blossom is swept along the currents. It is a memorable package, and while Ferber would go on to write a great many other novels (including the famous GIANT), SHOW BOAT is perhaps her single best work. Recommended.

The popularity of the Kern-Hammerstein musical, academia's refusal to include the work in the "canon" of regularly-taught American novels, the popular assumptions about the novel's datedness, sentimentality and racial stereotypes--these are some of the factors that have contributed to the comparative neglect of one of the most original, engaging narratives by an American novelist.

The so-called "modernist" tradition is one that casts suspicion upon any narrative that might be termed "melodramatic" in its plotting, tone and style. It's true that Ferber plays out the emotions of her characters, but she's equally adept at keeping those emotions in play. Her voice is so vital and strong, her narrative so multilayered in its social-psychological-cultural-archetypal meanings, that an open-minded reader cannot fail to become swept up in the force of her storytelling. Moreover, in her characterization of Magnolia, who defends her unstable marriage against her daughter's staid one and who prefers the tenderloin districts to the churches and parks of Chicago, Ferber reveals the subversiveness of a true artist, making the reader question common assumptions about the dual gods of "success" and "progress."

The river and the theater are not only Ferber's favorite settings but her metaphors for exploring the life of consciousness and explaining the forces that shape personality. Even when Gaylord and Magnolia abandon the river and take up residence in Chicago, the river lives in them, exposing by its constantly-felt presence what is alive and dead, what is enduring and transitory. Magnolia's daughter and her husband, the "new" American theater of New York, the "reformed" Chicago--all these are condemned less in the surface narrative than in the energy Ferber brings to the subjects that are closer to her heart: characters and places whose life traces its wellsprings to the river.

This is melodrama ("music drama') in the best sense of the word--Ferber's prose evoking the musical elements that invest the narrative with fullness and necessity. The African-American spirituals and folk songs that provide Magnolia's education in turn inform the reader of her values and understandings through the course of her life's journey. Moreover, the narrative's movement matches the river's: it creates unexpected channels, moving forward in time, then backward, a device that enables the narrative to provide a perspective on the past as something familiar, as a place we already know and treasure, a "spot of time" we've been missing and to which we wish to return.

But the melodrama also works here because Ferber constantly blurs the line between theater and life, letting us in on the "backstage" action that goes into playing a role and preparing a face. Magnolia blossoms only when she is on the stage, and Gaylord is never closer to authenticity than when he becomes an actor long enough to woo and marry Magnolia. Because Ferber presents her characters as deliberately assuming melodramatic parts, we don't see them as stereotypes as much as fellow beings taking on the roles required of us all to deal with life's changes as symbolized by the river.

The musical version has a happy ending, with no deaths, no permanent damage. The sentiments in Ferber's original, on the other hand, are at once higher and deeper--equal parts elegy, stoicism, endurance, resolve. Ferber's last sentence describing Magnolia is a replication of an earlier sentence describing her mother: "The river, the show boat, the straight silent figure were lost to view." By this time Ferber's words have become such an integral part of the reader's consciousness that there's little chance any of these three images will be lost to view.

This is a rich and wonderful family saga set in the world of Missisippi show boats, turn of the century Chicago, and the Broadway theater scene of the 1920's.

It is the source of the famous stage and movie musical and anyone who has enjoyed those versions will love this book.

However, the novel, is much richer in scope and ultimately more moving than the musical. The ending has hung with me for days since I finished reading it. In 1927 Oscar Hammerstein II felt the public would not accept a musical in which many of the main charachters died before the end (as they do in the novel). And for the times, perhaps he was right. But it is a shame because the musical could have had even more impact if he had been able to stay closer to his source.

I highly recommend this book.

Really good book; fast reading, engrossing. Blend of historical fact about show boats and Chicago, and fictional romance novel. Particularly detailed about Chicago. Grabbed me in the first few pages. Ferber's characters are very expertly and fully drawn, even if they were somewhat caricatured. Strong, strong women; mostly weak, but charming men. For those times, she shows great sympathy for the negro race. Ferber could flat-out write an an engaging tale.

Ferber's timeless story of love, ambition and family dynamics remains as compelling today as when it first appeared in 1926. Providing an imperious yet insidious backdrop for the three main female characters, the mighty Mississippi River exerts its curiously compelling influence in the lives of Mother and Daughter, while the granddaughter remains indifferent to its fluid appeal. Yet the role of the theatre and the lure of the stage entice three generations of women related to Captain Andy.

Andy Hawks, past amateur actor and avid riverboatman,

braves his wife's horror and flounts her Puritannical authority by purchasing the Cotton Blossom--a floating theatre which plays to a variety of audiences in river towns all along the Mississippi and its tributaries. With childish delight he refurbishes the boat and assembles both a crew to run her and a troupe of actors to perform on the fluid, yellow trail. Prim and stern Parthy, his New England school-marmish wife, is scandalized but gradually succumbs to the charm of ruling the galley and becoming housekeeper-not to mention keeper of the Morals for the ungrateful members of the troupe. Reluctantly over the decades, she grows to revel in her new role as successful businesswoman. Despite lack of deep love for her dead husband, she maintains his dream, as does his only daughter, Magnolia.

The story opens with the birth of tiny Kim Ravenal, named for her proximity to three states, but successive chapters are entirely devoted to flashbacks which serve as detailed exposition. Ferber's use of time (both backward and forward) is as fluid as the milieu in which ten-year old Magnolia revels. Never so comfortable as on her father's floating home and theatre, Magnolia proves "truly splendid" when she enjoys a long-delayed Homecoming.

Each mother has trouble with her daughter, since two generations can trace certain traits and talents from unyielding Parthenia Ann Hawks, who even resisted the advance of Death-- the Conqueror. Presenting a kaleidoscope of family relations SHOWBOAT depicts Magnolia and her father's childlike conspiracy for joy; Magnolia's ultimate defiance of her mother; Kim's acting in loco parentis for her own mother, both as a young girl and later as a successful actress. Three marriages are paraded before readers, who are left to choose which one reveals the most tenderness and love.

Magnolia Hawks Ravenal grows to maturity after she leaves the

safe environment of the Cotton Blossom, as she proves a steadfast and loving wife and mother. She comes of age when she realizes that home is truly where her heart has always belonged.

A captivating read for everyone 16 and up.

My mother said I'd love this book when I was a youngster. She was right. I am horrified that most libraries in this area do not have at least one copy of Edna Ferber's masterpiece. I had to come online to order this story which I shall pass on to my child.

Show Boat tells an fresh, inviting story of life here and there -- from the rivertown touring life to the life of a gambler's wife living in Chicago. This is the type of book that draws you into it; you'll not want to put it down until the last page, and then you'll want it to go on, and tell more and more of the saga of the Hawk family... and the immortal Cotton Blossom.

Andy Hawkes has spent his whole adult life working on Mississippi boats. When he marries New England spinster Parthenia Ann, he could hardly be choosing a less likely partner; and when he decides to stop operating a passenger steamboat in favor of a floating theater, he could hardly encounter greater opposition. Yet once the practical "Parthy" realizes what an excellent business a show boat can be, she invests herself in the Cotton Blossom just as fully as does Cap'n Andy. They raise their only child, Magnolia, on board among the show boat's colorful players and crew members. Eventually a grown-up Magnolia steps in to replace a departed cast member, and dashing gambler Gaylord Ravenal - down on his luck and fascinated by the lovely young woman whom he glimpses just before hearing Cap'n Andy's job offer - plays opposite her. They marry, much against Parthy's wishes, and become the parents of a daughter born on the river where three states border. So they name her Kim: Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri.

Those are the bare bones of this book's first half. They do not begin to describe the vividly portrayed characters, or the rich sense of time and place that Ferber's writing conveys. The book's second half, which deals with Magnolia and Gaylord and their daughter after they leave the Cotton Blossom, is just as rich; but it is a bittersweet richness. An era is passing into history, and Ferber tells that story with immediacy that makes it fresh reading although this book was first published in 1926. A classic for good reason!

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of the "High Places" series from Write Words

I first read this book back in the dark ages (high school) and never forgot it. What I did forget was the scope and depth of the story, the fascinating subject of river boats, the commentary on society, marriage, deception, bravery - Oh I could go on and on, but suffice to say I enjoyed SHOW BOAT 100 times more now that I'm such an old phart with so many memories. The movies based on this book were swell, but the book is magnificent.

I think there's a little of everyone's childhood in this book. The magic part at any rate. I've never lived on a showboat and have no real connection to rivers in general and the Mississippi in particular. There's really very little in the main character with which I personally relate my own history. But the nectar-sweet nostalgia of this story still pulled me in, with its portrayal of a charmed childhood and the inevitable progression into the often harsh bubble-burstings of adulthood. As a novel, the story offers reasonably entertaining and insightful characters and a marvelous setting. Like all of Ferber's works, this one isn't a plot-driven story, and it flags in its second half, due in large part to what feels like a personality transplant for the main character. But, all in all, an enjoyable, if purple, classic.