Image of Josephine

by Booth Tarkington

The Image of Josephine by Booth Tarkington in Hardcover.

Genres: Fiction, Classics

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction/Novel more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike and Colson Whitehead. Although he is little read now, in the 1910s and 1920s he was considered America's greatest living author.

Reviews

[James Hold · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was up at Gutenberg Canada and I decided to check it out. My own Out of Texas series features a girl named Josephine so there was a sort of morbid curiosity at work.

I can't say precisely what it is but there's something about Tarkington that doesn't do anything for me. I've read and reviewed several of his works, all with the same result. Josephine of the title is a 'precocious' young girl--which more accurately translates as annoying and obnoxious. I don't know what it is about such characters that makes them appealing to authors, or to their readers. I imagine it's that they think such characters are cute, altho I don't believe in reality anybody would want to spend as much as 5 minutes around them. Because of this I skimmed thru many parts. Also the book is overly sappy in spots which doesn't help things. Tarkington has many fans, but I am not one of them.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Tarkington was a good writer-- I can't wait to read more of his work.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I loved Image of Josephine by Booth Tarkington and that I'm surprised not to see more written about it online. It's one of the last two novels by a Pulitzer Prize winning author (The Magnificent Ambersons, 1918 and Alice Adams, 1921).

Who is Josephine? The most intimate portrait we get of her comes in the four chapters (34 pages) when she's an a typical American teenage girl, though one of means who is probably oblivious of the Great Depression. We learn that she will be taking over as director of her grandfather's fledgling art museum and for reasons never given she is the best choice for the job.

The remainder of the book we never get as close to her again. She's now in her late twenties and the director of the museum. She is revered, feared and loathed by her staff and yet she's fiercely loyal to her grandfather's original vision and continues to live in his home which shares a hallway with the museum.

Instead of seeing the museum through Josephine's eyes, we see it and her through a soldier and distant cousin, Bailey Fount. He has been sent to work in the museum on medical leave after a horrific event on the front line where Bailey was the only survivor. Through his shell shocked eyes we rediscover Josephine Oaklin.

Josephine may be the title character but Bailey is the driving force of the book. I've read a number of novels written during WWII but Bailey is the first character I've come across who comes across as a realistic and broken individual. He's not just a prop for Uncle Sam.

If you can find a copy of this book, read it. It's one of the best I've read this year.

[bubbafuyu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually did like Josephine’s character but I wished it was less surface-level. Throughout the book there was severallll scenes showing that she knows how to get what she wants and is unafraid to be blunt. But we didn’t go any deeper than that.

Yea we had some scenes where Bailey got to know her more and saw how she puts up this act with everyone and is actually pretty sweet—but there’s nothing else that really fleshes out her character.

We have a story of a girl trying to preserve her grandfathers legacy properly and the story of a WWII soldier struggling physically and mentally after a severe injury sends him back home. And somehow the former is almost completely lost throughout the book until the end where she makes up with her “rival” but even that felt unfulfilling.

Is this just a story of a girl needing to be humbled after years of having an inflated ego? If I had known maybe I shouldn’t have picked up this book.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the last of Booth Tarkington's books published during his lifetime. It struck me that it had a sort of "greatest hits" quality about it, with the title character sort of a female George Amberson Minifer and the hero reminiscent of the lead character in THE TURMOIL. There were too many lengthy discussions of art to suit me (I might have felt different if I was up on this sort of thing) and I found the ending to be very contrived, but it IS Tarkington and, though it might not rank among his best, it is certainly entertaining.

[Bet LaPointe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though the title says Josephine, the story is more about her "cousin" Bailey Fount. I enjoyed the story arch and character depth that is written for Bailey. But the book description says we're supposed to learn to see Josephine the way she really is not just the facade she shows to the world, and sadly we don't. I'd like to think that this is just another modern take on the Taming of the Shrew, but Tarkington doesn't want us to think that and even has Bailey scorn that idea near the end. If that's not the point of the story, then I'd rather just read about the struggles of Bailey going from wounded WWII soldier to a confident art museum worker who recovers and goes back again to the front lines. I like Bailey. I like the other characters at the art museum. I even love the descriptions of the artwork and discussion of what makes quality art & music. But I don't really like Josephine. She's pushy, unpleasant, loud, unkind, and has bad taste in art. And that was the only image I was able to see. Tarkington should have tried a little harder if he wanted us to see more.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Could just as easily be titled Bailey Fount, the name of the male protagonist. It is just as much, if not more, his story.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had Booth Tarkington's name on a list of authors to try, probably from a list of Pulitzer Prize winners. While in a used book store, I didn't find his prize winning books, but I found a wonderfully solid, small, musty hardcover of Image of Josephine. Although Josephine annoyed the heck out of me for most of the book, it was still a fun read; a comedy-of-manners set on the home front during WWII. Bailey is the true protagonist, and his war experiences were revealed with skilled writing,bit by bit, throughout the novel. The other characters were likable and kept me reading. A few times I looked up some of the artwork about which they disagreed, to see with whom I agreed.

I also enjoyed the writing style, which seemed very 1940's to me, in a great way. I will continue my search for Alice Adams - this wasn't the greatest book but it definitely didn't scare me away from trying to find better novels by Tarkington.

[Ashley Bostrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets a blurb because it’s a diamond in the rough. Booth Tarkington is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and yet this book is never talked about. Tarktington paints a vivid description of Bailey Fount, a WWII survivor who was affected both physically and mentally during his tour. During his medical leave, he works in a museum run by his cousin, and it is through his shell-shocked eyes that we rediscover Josephine Oaklin – a character who had been a mystery since her childhood description.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not unlike Magnificent Ambersons, but shorter and less complex, this is a somewhat soapy drama, with lots of psychology that seems a bit dated and implausible. But I love popular fiction from the 1920s-1950s, stuff that reads like the author hoped a movie would be made from it. I wasn't sure if this was potentially a Katherine Hepburn movie or not -- they'd have to really tone down Josephine's toxic personality, I suppose. Not great literature, but the plot kept me wanting to know how it all turned out.

[Kristen]

So, Booth Tarkington is not a fictional character invented by Kurt Vonnegut?!?!?
I guess I should have know that already, since I've owned this book since last October.

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The psychology was so far from what we know of human nature that it was unbelievable for me. And Josephine herself was a very unappealing person. So not much fun to read.