Showing results by author "Sinclair Lewis"

Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.

A greedy, philandering Baptist minister, Elmer Gantry turns to evangelism and becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Often exposed as a fraud, he is never fully discredited. Elmer Gantry is considered a landmark American novel and one of the most penetrating studies of hypocrisy in modern literature. It portrays the evangelistic activity that was common in 1920s America as well as attitudes toward it.

Carol Milford, a college-educated, progressive, ambitious young woman, is self-sufficient working as a librarian in St. Paul, when she meets a country doctor, Will Kennicott, who convinces her to marry him and move to the rural Minnesota town of Gopher Prairie. She arrives with dreams of beautifying the town, of establishing art and culture, of improving lives and promoting child welfare, but whose spirit is gradually and inexorably crushed by small-town attitudes, ignorance and bigotry.

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American novelist and playwright who, in 1930, became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The Job is one of his earliest novels. Concerning the exploits of a 1920s career woman, it is one of the first novels about feminism and is considered one of the stepping stones towards Lewis' success.

"This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's 'Note-books.'"

This epic of the booming 20s captures the relentless culture of American business. A classic novel about conformity in small town America - celebrated for its comic tone, statire, and vivid dialogue. L.A. Theatre Works, then a fledgling radio theatre company, completed Babbitt in 1989. This production was so well received that L.A. Theatre Works has since become the world's premiere radio theatre company.

In this sardonic portrait of the up-and-coming middle class during the prosperous 1920s, Sinclair Lewis perfectly captures the sound, the feel, and the attitudes of the generation that created the cult of consumerism. With a sharp eye for detail and keen powers of observation, Lewis tracks successful realtor George Babbitt's daily struggles to rise to the top of his profession while maintaining his reputation as an upstanding family man.

Martin Arrowsmith is fascinated by science and medicine. As a boy, he immerses himself in Gray’s Anatomy. In medical school, he soaks up knowledge from his mentor, a renowned bacteriologist. But soon he is urged to focus on politics and promotions rather than his research. Even as Martin progresses from doctor to public health official and noted pathologist, he still yearns to devote his time to pure science.

On the surface, everything is all right with Babbitt’s world of the solid, successful businessman. But in reality, George F. Babbitt is a lonely, middle-aged man. He doesn’t understand his family, has an unsuccessful attempt at an affair, and is almost financially ruined when he dares to voice sympathy for some striking workers. Babbitt finds that his only safety lies deep in the fold of those who play it safe. He is a man who has added a new word to our language: a “Babbitt,” meaning someone who conforms unthinkingly, a sheep.

Widely hailed as a milestone in American literature, Sinclair Lewis' Main Street vividly describes a country on the verge of massive change, with traditional values being threatened by progress. The novel's heroine, Carol Milford, is a highly educated, ambitious woman who plans to join a newly enlightened society. But after marrying a small-town doctor, she finds herself trapped in the role of a dutiful wife. Carol's desires for social change conflict with the security of her comfortable married life, as she struggles to understand the cost of conformity...and rebellion. As relevant today as it was upon its 1920 publication, Main Street is both a masterful piece of writing and a fascinating microcosm of America's social evolution.

Meet Sam Dodsworth, an amiable 50-year-old millionaire and "American Captain of Industry, believing in the Republican Party, high tariffs, and, so long as they did not annoy him personally, in Prohibition and the Episcopal Church". Dodsworth runs an auto manufacturing firm, but his beautiful wife, Fran, obsessed with the notion that she is growing old, persuades him to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe.

This classic satirical novel portrays Babbitt as a materialistic, hypocritical, and self-important middle-aged realtor. His brief romantic encounter and an attempt at liberalism are curbed by fear of criticism, forcing him to conform to the wills of his fellow citizens and club members.

The lonely predicament of Carol Kennicott, caught between her desires for social reform and individual happiness, reflects the position in which America's turn-of-the-century "emancipated woman" found herself.

With his breathtaking social insight and his graceful sentences, Sinclair Lewis—a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner—stands out as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. At turns lyrically soul-searching and scathing in its honesty, Babbitt captures the essence of the 1920s while remaining a timeless piece of literature. Babbitt, the ultimate conformist and social climber, seeks power in his community and self-esteem from others. Outwardly, he is the ultimate “big booster,” and he toes the company line with “zip and zowie.”

Sinclair Lewis’ George F. Babbitt is a complicated and conflicted character. When you think you have his next move figured out, he surprises you. As you begin to like him, he does something to evoke the “what a rat” response. Male menopause wasn’t a pre-Great Depression term, but you could say George has all the symptoms....

Claire Boltwood and her father drive their Gomez-Dep roadster from Minnesota to Seattle, exposing themselves to all the perils of early motoring. They encounter the upper-crust Boltwoods who are at once more noble and more insignificant. Other class barriers exist between Claire and a mechanic named Milt, who, along with his cat, follows close behind.

Mr. Wrenn is part Walter Mitty and part Forrest Gump - decades before either came to be. A most well-meaning but completely unsophisticated 36-year-old clerk in a novelty and souvenir company, he dreams of great travels, adventure, and romance. He lives in a boarding house in New York City and travels by cattle boat to Europe when an unexpected windfall puts one thousand dollars in his hands. His good-hearted misunderstandings of the world around him amuse and entertain. He does realize his dreams. 

We travel with The Hawk, or Carl Ericson, son of Norwegian immigrants, born at the end of the 19th century, through the first three adventurous periods of the young man's life. We see him as an adventurous boy, running away with Gertie Cowels, the girl that lives in the big house in the better part of town, only to be rescued by Bone Stillman, a backwoods philosopher and influence on Carl. He leaves his childhood, Gertie and Joralemon behind, for a short attempt at higher education, then to pursue the hobo life, a Bowery bartender, an engineer in Panama, and an aviator.

Buzz Windrip, für seine Gegner ein "ungebildeter Lügner mit idiotischer Weltanschauung" und ein gefährlicher Populist, will Präsidentschaftskandidat werden. Er gibt vor, sich für die kleinen Leute einzusetzen, und verspricht, "aus Amerika wieder ein stolzes Land zu machen". Trotz völlig unglaubwürdiger Versprechen laufen ihm die Wähler zu, und er zieht ins Weiße Haus ein. Sogleich regiert er wie ein absolutistischer Herrscher, beschneidet die Freiheiten der Minderheiten, legt sich mit Mexiko an.

The Ghost Patrol portrays the dilemma men face when they are put out to pasture. Don Dorgan was such a man. He was a cop, and he loved his beat. When he returns to his old beat, he becomes the Ghost Patrol.