Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Babbitt (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) by Sinclair Lewis, James M. Hutchisson ISBN: 0-14-018902-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.98 (41 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Satire
Comment: If you have no respect for hollow persons hungry on power, money, image, in a word conformity, then have them read this. Surely you know a person as such. Simply have them read this. It utterly stultifies conformists and demands of one not to be one.Here, with Sinclair Lewis, there is impressive detail and perhaps more anger then I can say. The man is George F. Babbitt, 46-year old middle-class realtor, immature, greedy, mean, arrogant, silly, unable to think for himself. To put it simply, he has no meaning in his life, nothing to live for. He puts up appearances, exagerates the truth, eats too much, drinks, bullies, shows off. Conformist, hypocrite.
There is no real plot, rather a day-in-the-life-of situation, presenting I would argue a sold believable character. I felt I had met Babbitt hundreds of times before. He even appeared briefly in a dream or two of mine, so real was he in the book. Having read this book I came to resent Capitalism deeply. And yet this book is not merely about provincial politics, it has to do with the hollow living of many people who hold capricious beliefs. The style of the book is, I feel, original, since few authors have the audacity of Lewis to apply capitalism to nearly every paragraph ("It was a master-piece among bedrooms, right out of Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes.") Beware, however, this novel has enough detail to entail a longer than necessary read. If Babbit himself were to read it, he would not last through the opening chapter, and that, there, is the sad paradox of what Lewis was trying to express.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Nice Taste of the Roaring Twenties
Comment: Recently I read two good non-fiction books about 1920s America: The Uncertainty of Everyday Life (Harvey Green), and Only Yesterday (Frederick L. Allen). Both of these books mentioned Sinclair Lewis' novel Babbitt, so I thought I'd check it out.
After the introduction to this period I got from the above-mentioned histories, I found Babbitt to be a nice companion piece and a good continuation of my study of Roaring 20s America.
Written in 1922 and set in 1920, this novel gives what I think is a good picture of USA in that time. True, Lewis' own prejudices against the upper middle class businessman of his era shine through. But I think the cultural insights we see in the novel are quite accurate. We can take the Babbitt's and their friends as typical representatives of their time and social class --- we see their "typical" day, their "typical" vacations, pasttimes, and activities. Even the colloquialisms are interesting; I can see how they can become annoying after a while, but they do add a reality to the story.
I recommend Babbitt, the other two books I mentioned, and perhaps Edward Behr's book Prohibition as a package for the ambitious amateur historian who seeks to understand what life in our grand parents' and great grand parents' America was like. I think if you get through all four you'll have a pretty good idea of what things were like in that time period.
Rating: 4
Summary: a novel of conformity
Comment: Sinclair Lewis is best known for his novel Main Street. But Babbitt is a fine novel. H.G. Wells said of it: "I wish I could have written Babbitt." It's a novel about George F. Babbitt and the city he lives in, Zenith. Some of the greatest lines in the book are descriptions of Zenith, not the least of which is the opening lines. Lewis creates in Babbitt the total conformist and we follow him through his conformity and into thinking on his own. Babbitt is simply a man who wants to be liked by everyone. Babbitt gives expression to the glibness and irresponsibility of the professional social climber. Lewis gives us one of our modern classics.
 |
Title: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Mallon ISBN: 0451526821 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: The Jungle by Morris Dickstein, Upton Sinclair ISBN: 0553212451 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1981 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
 |
Title: Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis ISBN: 0451522516 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1978 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
 |
Title: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, E. L. Doctorow ISBN: 0451526910 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
 |
Title: The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002) by John Steinbeck ISBN: 0142000663 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
