Main Street (Signet Classics)
by Sinclair Lewis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sinclair LewisIntroduction: George Killough
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-03
ISBN: 0451530985
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Signet Classics
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780451530981
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Main Street (Signet Classics)
Book Review: Excellent Study of American Society and Character
Summary: 5 Stars
Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, and, if one were to poll critics and general readers in the 1920s, he would have been ranked as the great novelist of the time -- ahead of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Dreiser. Yet, his books were not assigned when I was in high school and college in the 1970s. Dreiser has replaced him as the great exponent of the naturalist school of writing. Much as I love Dreiser, and he clearly influenced Lewis' writing, Lewis' fall from grace is unfortunate. He should be read, and Main Street is an excellent book.
I don't view the book as merely satirical of small town life, and I don't see the characters as paper thin or uninteresting. Carol Kennicott's search for "culture" and attempts to reform small town "Gopher Prairie" are on one level a comical bit of self-deceptive snobbery. But on a deeper level I see Carol as searching for some higher meaning in relentlessly commercial and materialistic America. What she seems to realize in the end is that she needs to build her own independence and sense of self before she can put small town America in its proper place. Ironically enough, when she reforms and changes herself, it forces others to view her differently and, in a way, change themselves(to be sure, quite marginally).
Carol is an attractive character, though to my mind not as compelling as Dreiser's own Sister Carrie. Lewis' strength is his ability to portray the narrow commercialism of small town America (and America generally) and the suffocating power and hypocrisy of "respectability" and middle class morality. It's not simply satire. Lewis is able to paint the nobility and even heroism of Carol's husband, the small town doctor with the determination, professionalism, and imagination to make a difference in the day-to-day lives of his patients. He's a creature of the maddening narrowness of America, and struggles with Carol's frustrations and is not quite respectable in all his dealings, but he's a well-rounded character. In him, Lewis captures some of the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the American character.
I was underwhelmed by the ending. In some ways, it is satisfying that Carol cultivates her own garden and finds the truth that sometimes others will change a bit when we change ourselves as opposed to attempting to change others. But Lewis seems to draw back from the power of his own story -- as if he were afraid to write an American tragedy or to be perceived as too harsh a critic of American life. It's all a bit too pat and uninspired.
On the whole, this is a very good book about the American character and Lewis should be read alongside his peers in this golden age of American literature.
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