Wordless Wednesday: Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis' Boyhood Home in Sauk Centre, Minnesota

More Wordless Wednesday here.
Photo by moi.

Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith

by Sinclair Lewis

★★★

Martin Arrowsmith is a medical student at the beginning of the 20th century. The Pulitzer-prize-winning novel follows his journal through school, two engagements, marriage, a job as a small town doctor and his pursuit to research cures for different strains of bacteria. Lewis has a distinct skill for writing about the inner workings of a small town life and the inherent pressures that go hand-in-hand with it. He was from a small Midwestern town and so he understood how they worked.

The frustration that many students feel when they take a job straight out of school is the same now as it was 100 years ago. They are idealistic and believe they will change the world, and then they are confronted with the unavoidable mundane aspects of the “real world.” They must deal with people they dislike and they have to face the prospect of doing the same thing every single day. Everyone reacts differently to this prospect, but most people have a hard time letting a few of their dreams go in order to make a difference on a smaller scale.

There is a lot of humor in the book. The scenes with Pickerbaugh, a local doctor who Martin works with, are particularly hilarious. He has a huge family and is obsessed with spreading information about personal health care. Martin quickly realizes he can’t stand him and he’s terrified he’ll become like him if he stays in that job.

As Martin vacillates between the pull of a steady job and income and the desire to pursue his research dream he is tempted by many things. A young woman named Orchid catches his eye, and then the possibility of a higher rank and power at his institution attracts him. Lewis did a great job laying out many of life’s temptations and chronicling Arrowsmith’s battle against them.

The book is truly about one man’s journey to find himself and his purpose in the world of medical research, but the heart of the book is Leora. She keeps him grounded, she gives him purpose. I do think she’s a man’s version of a perfect woman rather than a realized ad fleshed out character, but she is still interesting. Her relationship with Martin was the most interesting aspect of the book for me. There are moments when I just want to smack Martin for the way he treats her and takes her for granted. Her endless support is what keeps him going and yet he seldom acknowledges that. Martin’s other grounding force is his old professor, Max Gottlieb. He has always admired him and he aspires to become a researcher like him, but Martin puts Max on a pedestal and doesn’t try to connect with him as a real man.

The ending stumbled and faltered for me. It was almost as if Lewis was writing and writing and then realized at some point he would have to wrap things up and end the book. It didn’t mesh with the rest of the story and just felt contrived.

BOTTOM LINE: A long-winded look at one man’s struggle between his idealistic goals and the reality of being forced to conform to society’s standards. The plot loses its focused a couple times and that becomes tiresome. The main point is there, but at times it gets lost in the meandering observations of the writer.

“As he had never taught them to love him and follow him as a leader, they questioned, they argued long and easily on doorsteps, they cackled that he was drunk.”

Reading the States: Minnesota

State: MINNESOTA

Fiction:
- Peace Like a River* by Leif Enger
- Shiver* by Maggie Stiefvater
- Freedom* by Jonathan Franzen
- Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik          
- Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor
- Main Street* by Sinclair Lewis 

- In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
- On the Banks of Plum Creek* by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Weatherman by Steve Thayer
- Orphan Train* by Christina Baker Kline
- Betsy and Tacy* by Maud Hart Lovelace
- War for the Oaks by  Emma Bull
- Kitchens of the Great Midwest* by J. Ryan Stradal 

Nonfiction:

- Under a Flaming Sky* by Daniel James Brown

- Minnesota: A History by William E. Lass
- The Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang
- How to Talk Minnesotan by Howard Mohr
- Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich

- The Music of Failure by Bill Holm

Authors Known for Writing in or about the State:
- Garrison Keillor
- John Sandford (Prey series)
- Jon Hassler

Authors Who Lived Here:

- Sinclair Lewis 

- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Louise Erdrich
- Leif Enger
- Al Franken

Great Bookstores:

Birchbark Books
Common Good Books 

Mager’s & Quinn
Wild Rumpus
Sixth Chamber Used Books

*Books I've Read

Photo by moi.

Babbitt

Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis
★★★☆

George Babbitt is a middle-aged real-estate broker living in the fictional Midwestern town of Zenith in the 1920s. He has done everything “right” in life and lives with his kids and wife in a nice little town. He’s well respected in the community and is successful in business. He loves to think about his superiority over others and “subtly” brag about his material possessions.

When a crisis with his best friend sends him spiraling into a midlife crisis we learn just how unhappy Babbitt truly is. He’s built a perfect world, based on what he’s been told means success, yet he feels empty.

“Every Saturday afternoon he hustled out to his country club and hustled through nine holes of golf, as a rest after the week’s hustle.”

Babbitt reminded me quite a bit of The Corrections, except I hated that book and I didn’t hate this one. It has a similar concept, looking at the average American family and the dysfunction within it, but this one was published about 80 years earlier. I think Babbitt touched on issues that were completely new and hadn’t been discussed yet, like ambition and success vs. family values, the “American Dream” of bigger cars and bigger paychecks vs. happiness.

Even though I liked this book, I struggled to feel attached to it because I disliked the characters so much. There’s not a likeable one in the bunch. Babbitt is a self-important fool, his kids are spoiled brats, and even his wife is a bit of a simpleton. I was impressed with what Lewis said about American society in the early 20th century, before everyone else was saying it, but I didn’t love the book itself.

This was my first experience with Sinclair Lewis (who I have always confused with Upton Sinclair) and I’m looking forward to seeing if some of his other famous books, like Main Street, have the same tone.

“As all converts, whether to a religion, love or gardening, find as by magic that though hitherto these hobbies had not seemed to exist, now the whole world is filled with their fury.”