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Main Street Modern Library Sinclair Lewis 9780375753145 Books

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Main Street Modern Library Sinclair Lewis 9780375753145 Books

Main Street is an American classic that I somehow missed until now, despite growing up in Minnesota. (I'm now reading Babbit!) I know there was a lot of antagonism against Lewis for his portrayal of life in small town Minnesota, and maybe that's why I don't recall any discussion of him or his fiction in high school in the early 60's despite the fact that he was Minnesota's and the USA's first Nobel laureate for literature (Bob Dylan is the latest). Given this controversy, I was surprised to find that the novel is as much or more about the main protagonist, Carol Kennecott, as about the narrowness of small town life. Raised in the Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minn., college-trained daughter of a judge, she is very much a fish out of water when she marries a country doctor and moves with him to his home town of Gopher Prairie sometime around 1912. Most of the book is about her struggles to both fit into and to reform the social life and amenities of the town. Ultimately, after working with the women's movement in Washington, DC, she returns to Gopher Prairie and her husband, who is really a very decent man, having learned her limitations without conceding defeat.

One of the fascinating things about reading this book is seeing continuities between then and now. Small business men are still (mostly) anti-union Republicans; socialism is still seen as a menace by many, immigrants (Swedes then, Somalis now) are still derided or treated with suspicion by many in the area, and poverty is still seen by many as due solely to laziness. A hundred years later, things haven't really changed all that much.


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Main Street Modern Library Sinclair Lewis 9780375753145 Books Reviews

People took fiction more seriously back then, I think. Hard to think of a novel stirring so much outrage today. The specific preoccupations of small-town America have changed a bit, but I do not think the overall attitudes and the small mindedness have. There would definitely be the same inferiority complex as regards 'the East'. Today's equivalent book might be something like "Deerhunting with Jesus". Although not hugely exciting, I read this book through to the end, so it held my attention; that and the fact that it is a "classic" and tells something of social history, gets it the four stars. It is polemical, the plot is the setup or the synopsis as given in the description, the various plot twists do not make for an exciting story but rather are pieces that back up the intention. In a way we get to know the main protagonist, Carol, intimately. in another way she is a cipher to be cast aside once the point has been made, and this becomes particularly evident at the end, where the culminating events are dealt with briefly (she tries out independence by moving to Washington DC with her young son) in comparison to what has gone before, as if the author, once he had made his points, did not have to bother much more with his heroine. So in a way we feel we hardly know her although we have spent so many pages in her company.
I enjoyed this one. Well-written, capturing the mindset of a barely-town that doesn’t think much of them thar newfangled ideas from those hoity-toity Big City know-it-all folks. Carol is thwarted in each attempt to improve the fictional dump named Gopher Prairie - from the condescending gossipy church ladies, to the town’s “movers and shakers,” no one takes her suggestions well. The only sympathetic ear belongs to the a local handyman (a socialist! <gasp>) named Miles, known as the “Red Swede,” and he’s probably the most disliked man in town. A realistic novel, illustrating the small town hypocrisy that is everywhere puritanical, snoopy busybodies backstabbing their “friends,” and feeling morally superior while doing it. So really, Gopher Prairie is much like countless other American burgs. Published in 1920, not much has changed as far as the small town mentality seen in Main Street. Good book.
Rereading this classic after many years has shown me how relevant this story still is though the narrow minded and fearful small town people live in all kinds of places now, but even after all these years Lewis" description of the kind of thinking that leads to extreme fear and conservatism is totally relevant. Worth reading if you have come up against small minded and bigoted people. Lewis description of their mental processes is very insightful. In addition it is just a good story and a well written classic novel. Be sure to get an unabridged edition. I noticed the ones on had different numbers of pages....from over 200 pages to over 400 pages. I got the longest version thinking it would be the most accurate to the original and though I have no basis for comparison, I believe it is the entire original version. Very interesting and entertaining classic with a strong intellect behind it. Lewis holds up well.
Trivial observation There are more intelligent, broad-minded, and artistic people in a large city than in a small town, and more dwarves and unicycle riders as well. Which is exactly what you would expect for any trait or interest found at low levels in the general population. There is a large unicycle club in Minneapolis, but not in Little Falls. If you are wringing your hands over having no unicycle brethren, you should move to Minneapolis and join the club, and not waste time preaching the gospel of unicycles in Little Falls.

Lewis spends much time belaboring that incandescently obvious observation, supporting it with a cast of cardboard characters. That said, he does give powerful descriptions of the land and weather, and the book is readable if you just ignore his incessant harping on the obvious.
Main Street is an American classic that I somehow missed until now, despite growing up in Minnesota. (I'm now reading Babbit!) I know there was a lot of antagonism against Lewis for his portrayal of life in small town Minnesota, and maybe that's why I don't recall any discussion of him or his fiction in high school in the early 60's despite the fact that he was Minnesota's and the USA's first Nobel laureate for literature (Bob Dylan is the latest). Given this controversy, I was surprised to find that the novel is as much or more about the main protagonist, Carol Kennecott, as about the narrowness of small town life. Raised in the Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minn., college-trained daughter of a judge, she is very much a fish out of water when she marries a country doctor and moves with him to his home town of Gopher Prairie sometime around 1912. Most of the book is about her struggles to both fit into and to reform the social life and amenities of the town. Ultimately, after working with the women's movement in Washington, DC, she returns to Gopher Prairie and her husband, who is really a very decent man, having learned her limitations without conceding defeat.

One of the fascinating things about reading this book is seeing continuities between then and now. Small business men are still (mostly) anti-union Republicans; socialism is still seen as a menace by many, immigrants (Swedes then, Somalis now) are still derided or treated with suspicion by many in the area, and poverty is still seen by many as due solely to laziness. A hundred years later, things haven't really changed all that much.