Sinclair Lewis - part 1

Ernie on Babbit:

Sinclair Lewis takes us through George F. Babbit’s life and the world of Zenith.  More interesting, he shows us a time that is little known and little studied.  Babbit takes place in the very early 1920’s, just after World War I, at the height of Prohibition and before the Great Depression.  Women are voting for the first time.  Social and economic change, often violent, is looming.  Sacco and Vanzetti had just been arrested and bombs were going off everywhere.  The Red Scare was rampant, making the 1950’s Red Hunt seem tame.  Babbit’s setting in the Midwest may seem quiet and tame, but all around the world, things were shaking up.  So if George F. Babbit was afraid, maybe America was afraid.  I’m not sure if George F. Babbit is an everyman but I see some of Babbit in most everyone.  I see him in me, in my neighbor down the street and even in Newt Gingrich (not in a good way, either.)

 Babbit is a middle class, middle aged businessman living in the Midwest.  He worries about work, his family, his neighbors, his town and his country.  But mostly he worries about himself and how he fits in with everyone and everything.

Babbit is set in the fictional town of Zenith where folks take pride in themselves and their family.  But not too much pride like those show-offs and blow-hards who make the society pages, those that Babbit envies.  Babbit was too afraid to get out of marrying after he accidently got engaged.  His wife, bland and servile, is somehow able to boss him around.  His marriage somehow derailed his plans for law school and then changing the world.  His daughter takes up with a young “liberal” and spends long evenings discussing the new world that is coming.  His son doesn’t want to go to college and has vague ideas of travelling the world.

On the professional side, Babbit does fairly well, selling and managing real estate and is able to make a big score every once and a while by pushing shady deals with the local traction company (1920’s public transportation.)  At some point, Babbit’s gift for oratory is discovered and overnight, he becomes the pride of his social and economic set.  He works in politics, promotes religion and is elected vice- president of the boosters club.

Throughout the novel, Babbit discusses the evils of environmentalists, big chain stores, unions and public service agencies.  Babbit, along with his friends, fellow members of the Booster Club, Athletic Club and church, seems to want progress without any form of change.  When faced with a disagreeable or confusing argument, Babbit is likely to label the premise as Socialism and then move on.

But as much as Babbit loves his life in Zenith, he wants to escape it.  He tries to come up with a complex scheme so that he and his best friend Paul can escape their wives and spend a week in Maine fishing, playing cards and cursing.  While he and Paul ultimately achieve the manly week alone, it does nothing to ease the problems at home for either man.  Paul shoots his haranguing wife and goes to prison.  Babbit decides to rebel.  At first, he just wants to run away--  to Chicago, back to Maine…to anywhere.

He starts to question the values that have driven him so far.  He steps out with a rowdy crowd, falls in love with a young, understanding woman, sides with liberal lawyers and publicly defends striking union workers.  His friends don’t know what to make of Babbit and he is slowly ostracized from all he knew and held dear.  What’s worse is that Babbit doesn’t find any real escape.  This new life has as many rules as his old life.  He still doesn’t fit in.  There are no simple answers.  His life slowly crumbles on all fronts and he is afraid again.

Ironically, Babbit starts to show some real courage when the easiest, perhaps the best thing to do would be to give up and go back to what he knows best.  But he is through being told what to do.  His pride can now do more damage than his wicked side-trips into the dark side of Zenith.

Sinclair Lewis writes Babbit in a smooth, flowing pattern.  His characters seem authentic to whatever position in life they are supposed to inhabit.  The dialogue is never forced and the narration is rarely distracting.  My biggest complaints are that Lewis can’t keep a smug superiority out of his descriptions of certain places or people and his ham-fisted attempts at irony.  At a few points in the novel I found myself saying “Okay, okay, I get it already!”

(A quick side note.  I did not read Babbit.  I listened to it while travelling on trips to Michigan and North Carolina.  I recommend you do the same on whatever trips you take.  I listened to Recorded Books Contemporary Classics read by George Guidall.  It was by far the best audio book I have heard.  Mr. Guidall’s portrayal of George F. Babbit and the citizens of Zenith made for an extremely enjoyable experience.)

Sandra and I have discussed why some of the books we have read made the list.  We talk about the idea of universal themes such as love, loyalty, mortality, etc. and how some books address these themes.  Babbit seems to address many themes but the one I keyed into was relationships.  How we form them, how we nurture them or even how we abandon them.

I recommend that you read Babbit (or at least listen to it.)  It is a great book.

Next week:   Sinclair Lewis, part 2 – Sandra on Main Street