It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of It Can't Happen Here
Book Review: A Surprisingly Accessible Book
Summary: 3 Stars
This novel seems better plotted than other Lewis books, including Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, and Arrowsmith. Also, in comparison to these other novels, Lewis spends more time developing characters other than the protagonist (in this novel the protagonist being Doremus Jessup, a newpaper editor). Buzz Windrip, the fascist Senator who wins the 1936 presidential election; Windrip's Secretary of State Lee Sarason; and Shad Ledue, Doremus Jessup's handyman, all seem more fully fleshed out than characters of similar status in Lewis's earlier novels.Readers interested in twentieth-century American politics will find this novel very entertaining. Buzz Windrip's political platform, which promises to establish limits on personal wealth (particularly that of African-Americans), to enact governmental control of "big money," and to limit the power of labor unions, appeals to the public in the same contradictory way as Bill Clinton's 1992 platform, which called for both tax cuts and increased government spending. (And in the same fashion as a conservative Republican platform that calls for less government influence over private lives but, at the same time, more laws to protect and uphold "middle-class family values.")
As a fan of Lewis's more light-hearted satire, as seen in Babbitt, I found the darkness of this novel difficult to take. The only parts that made me smile were the quotations from Buzz Windrip's campaign autobiography, Zero Hour, that appeared at the beginning of several chapters. But how can you make funny the takeover of America by humorless, bloodthirsty fascists, who hope to annihilate all opposition to Buzz Windrip and his plans to control every cent that is spent, every idea that is thought, and every word that is spoken?
On the whole, this novel isn't Lewis at his best. However, it isn't a disappointing novel, and anyone who likes to watch political talk shows or read about politics and politicians should find it worth their time.
Book Review: A frightening analysis of something that could happen.
Summary: 5 Stars
I found this book to be quite unnerving
because a lot of the problems it talks about
can be found in America today. No, we aren't
through an economic depression, but I have
observed that a lot of people would like the
government to control more about their lives,
which has the potential to lead to a fascist
dictatorship. I know, people might say "It
can't happen here", just like in the book, but I
think that Sinclair Lewis was right in the
idea that it could happen.Book Review: Book "It can't happen here"
Summary: 4 Stars
As promised. Book in great shape. GAve it to a friend, she loved it.
Will do business with this seller aain. Thanks
Book Review: Don't worry, this isn't happening here
Summary: 5 Stars
"It Can't Happen Here" is Sinclair Lewis' precient tale of an oafish, charismatic leader taking over the United States and instituting a facist mode of government. Grim as the subject of this book may be, you can rest assured that democracy in this counrty is not being replaced by a religeo-facist mode of government. You can rest assured that we have fair elections in which the governors of Florida and New Mexico do not illegally disenfranchise Black and Hispanic voters. You can rest assured that the owner of a voting machine company in Ohio does not contribute money to the ruling party and vow to deliver his state's electoral votes to the ruling party's candidate. And you can rest assured that his company's voting machines are not closed systems with no method of verification.
You can rest assured that the ruling party does not send paid operatives into a contested state during an election to intimidate vote counters. You can rest assured that a terrorist mastermind whose family has decades of business relationships with the ruling party leader's family will not somehow find a way to lead a cataclysmic attack on New York and you can definitely rest assured that the ruling party won't succeed in lying and covering up their own failure and complicity in this event.
You can rest assured that the ruling party won't use terrorism as a pretext to erode our civil liberties and give itself absolute power. You can rest assured that the ruling party will not officially sanction torture in places like Guantanamo, Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the numerous countries to which it sends its political prisoners for interrogation.
Most importantly you can rest assured that the ruling party is sane and objective. You can rest assured that it listens to the world's scientists who overwhelmingly agree that we are on the brink of an irreversible environmental cataclysm. You can rest assured that it listens to its generals when they state that more troops are required to successfully govern an occupied country. You can rest assured that they listen to their economists and security experts when they request urgent attention to an issue of grave importance even if it does not conform to the ruling party's ideology.
You can rest assured that we are not living in a nation where the President's top political adviser would expose a patriotic member of the intelligence community to get revenge against her husband, and we do not live in a country where this person would get away with such a crime through continuous lies and obfuscations.
We do not live in a nation where the unelected, illegally installed fascist regime would destroy the middle class, and wage war on the poor in order to further bloat the already porcine class of billionaires with yet more tax cuts. We do not live in a religious theocracy in which the highest courts are run by fundamentalists who want to interpret every law according to their personal faith. And we do not live in a nation in which the mass media and government are owned by corporations that bombard us with lies and brainwashing on a minute-by-minute basis.
So when you read "It Can't Happen Here", remember that this is just a fictional "what if" book written in the thirties and is in no way suggestive of our present reality.
Book Review: Exciting and thought-provoking, but not entirely plausible
Summary: 4 Stars
Sinclair Lewis is a great author, whose more celebrated novels (Elmer Gantry, Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbit) all portray middle-American life in the early 20th Century (the good and bad). Lewis is unafraid to satirize and lampoon the most disgraceful features of our culture."It Can't Happen Here" was written after his career had peaked and is not quite of the standard of the above works. Lewis was very concerned about the rise of fascism in the 1930's and the indifferent (or even sympathetic) reactions many Americans had to it. His point was that totalitarianism could happen here, particuarly in such a mood of indifference and denial.
The book is a fascinating portrayal of the ascension of Senator Buzz Windrip, who upsets FDR for the Presidency in 1936, on a 15 point, fascisitic platform (state control of all banks, huge buildup of the military, persecution of Jews and unbelievers, subjection of blacks, etc.). Within six months, Windrip manages to abolish state governments, consolidate all universities, mussle the press (including the books main character, Doremus Jessup), etc. Riots and revolts break out, but they're repeatedly crushed by Windrip's private army, the Minute Men.
In time, Windrip sets up concentration camps for all dissenters, while likewise employing a successful state propaganda organ to convince the world that life in America is much better. But a massive resistence movement develops, joining socialists, liberals, even mainstream conservatives (it's lead by Windrip's Republican opponent in the '36 election), and staged from Canada.
The book centers around the life of Doremus Jessup, small-town Vermont newspaperman, and his family, in their active resistence to the "Corpo" regime. Though his life is destroyed by the end, Jessup continues to work for the revolutionary movememnt (which succeeds in invading much of the midwest afterwhich Windrip is overthrown in a coup by his cheif aide).
The book is a fun read, and evokes much sympathy for the Jessups and their co-conspiriters. At the same time, it lacks the careful realism of Lewis' other works. The time-span is less than three years, which is fairly implausible. Lewis fails to address the fact that the U.S. (like Great Britain and Canada) is fundamentally different in background than Germany, Italy or Russia. America's strong democratic tradition and passion for individual liberty would make establishing and maintaining a successful dictatorship would be very difficult here (though perhaps not impossible, particularly in the depths of the Depression). Certainly, it'd take more than a few years and would involve much more bloodshed than depicted in this book.
However, Lewis' book is quite thought-provoking. One of the byproducts of our successful democracy is that Americans often take their most basic rights (such as free speech and association) for granted. This book forces one to reflect on how lucky we are to live where we do and when we do, and always be vigilant in defense of our rights. In this era, with Bush and Ashcroft trying to curtail some of those rights in the name of "homeland security", such reflection is needed.
I reccomend "It Can't Happen Here", but not to those unfamiliar with Sinclair Lewis. Read at least one of his better works (listed above) first.