Sinclair Lewis Books

I have searched all over for a good book about Sinclair Lewis and his writing. This one is the best anyone could hope for. It has a useful and very easy-to-use format and unlike other similar books, it is LOADED with photographs-- a pic is worth a 1000 words. This book proves it. A little expensive, but worth it.

This book was a lifesaver. As a book collector, I cannot tell you how important a bibliography formatted like Pastore's can be. I wish he would write more. BRAVO to him for writing and to AMAZON.COM for carrying this book.

This book provides the most honest and concise bibliography of one of the foremost authors of our time and Mr. Pastore has essentially re-engineered how a bibliography should be written - that "thin" can be better than "fat".

All (ALL!!) bibliographies should be this clear and TO THE POINT. I hope this bibliographer works on some other authors. What value!!!

Intelligent and thoughtful analysis of a very difficult author. Quite nice, really and beautifully presented.

"Honestly, if Possible" may quite possibly be the most wonderful short story I've ever read. Like other newer Sinclair readers, I'm amazed with the currency of all his work, and even more amazed that he isn't more widely known. I'm doing my best to get the story out-I've got a lot of PEP!

I was surprised at how relevant the stories were to the current times. Despite being written between 1915 and the early 1920's, workers ( and employers ) were faced with problems of sexual harrasment, boredom, stealing employees, and office politics.

Definately, you can detect parts of Babbit in many of the characters in the book.

All of the stories were worth reading. Some are amusing, some sad, and a few happy. All of them, however are thought provoking.

Overall, a great book to get a hold of, especially if you are a Sinclair Lewis fan.

Lewis' early magazine pieces, printed here for the first time since their original publication in 1915-23, unmistakably contain the seeds of his later Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical novels and are irresistible in their own right.
The language is dated, and the modern reader may find some usage jarring (e.g., "love-making" for what we might call "flirting"), but it is remarkable in this postmodern age of Dilbert and e-mail that so little has changed in human nature, especially as expressed in office romances and politics. Look closely and you may see in some of Lewis' hucksters someone looking back at you; someone uncomfortably familiar.
(P) (The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

If you made a short list of notable literary efforts from America's first Nobel Prize in Literature winner, the inestimable Sinclair Lewis, titles such as "Main Street," "Babbitt," and "Elmer Gantry" would probably sit near the top. More discerning fans of the master satirist might throw in "Dodsworth," "It Can't Happen Here," and "Kingsblood Royal." What you wouldn't find anywhere on this speculative list are the short stories between the pages of "If I Were Boss: The Early Business Stories of Sinclair Lewis." Why? According to the intricate yet astoundingly informative introduction by Anthony Di Renzo, none of the fifteen stories contained in the anthology have been republished since their original appearance between the years 1915-1921 in magazines like "The Saturday Evening Post." If you stagger under the knowledge that works of a Nobel Prize winner have been out of print that long, you'll really have a fit once you read this collection. Every one of the tales in this book is wonderful. Everything you know about Lewis-his scathing wit, his boundless cynicism tempered with a secret hope for the triumph of humanity, his spot on ability to recreate the American vernacular-infuses every page of every story.

If I had to pick a specific story as my personal favorite, I would pick the four stories that make up what is the Lancelot Todd cycle. Lewis spent many years of his life working in advertising, loathed the profession, and promptly took his revenge with stories like "Snappy Display," "Slip It to 'Em," "Getting His Bit," and "Jazz." These four tales document the unsavory career of Lancelot Todd, America's premier advertising guru and an unbridled charlatan. Always on the lookout for the perfect con, Todd spends his days writing peppy newsletters for large business concerns and spewing out self-help books designed to teach the workingman how to get ahead. He devotes his free time to seeking a higher position in society and cultivating a cirrhotic liver. Lewis scathingly paints a picture of Todd's machinations only to bring him down in the end as his latest caper falls apart. The best example is "Slip It to 'Em," where Todd runs a car company into the ground only to find he must transport his latest wealthy conquest to an important meeting in one of the lemons his company foisted on the public. You haven't laughed until you have read a Lancelot Todd story. The only thing I could think of after these four stories was where I could get my hands on more of them.

All of the stories in the collection pertain to issues still relevant today. In "If I Were Boss," salesman Charley McClure strives to make a name for himself at his firm only to discover the same issues he excoriated his own boss for come back to haunt him years later when he runs the show. "Honestly-If Possible" explores the sometimes painful relationship between men and women in the office place. So does "A Story with a Happy Ending," but in a different way. Leonard Price eventually undergoes the humiliating experience of working for a woman he initially hired years before. The confusing experience of workplace conflicts finds expression in "Way I See It," where Lewis uses a shifting perspective to examine the contentious relationship between a rental agent and his boss. Even corporate takeovers and office backstabbing get a spotlight in "The Whisperer," an unnerving tale about a fast buck quack obliterating his internal opposition in his bid for the top spot at an unprofitable pharmaceutical company. Repeatedly, I was amazed at how the many issues Lewis raises in these stories continue to have importance in today's corporate world. It would seem we haven't advanced very far since the 1910s and 1920s, at least regarding gender roles and business ethics.

Don't think for a minute that Lewis completely despises his subjects. In "The Good Sport," the author brings one of those fly by night, wiseacre salesman who run from job to job down to earth in a particularly humbling yet ennobling way. "A Matter of Business" finds a businessman agonizing over whether to remain loyal to a local supplier or whether to buy trendy yet shoddy products from a national concern. The last story, "Number Seven to Sagapoose," is a truly beautiful heart wrencher about a traveling shoe salesman's ability to make a huge difference in the lives of certain individuals and, by extension, humanity as a whole. It is in these stories that we see Lewis's caustic barbs and deep cynicism stripped away to reveal a man who fervently hoped that mankind could overcome its ridiculous social constructions and petty trappings in order to achieve a higher, nobler purpose.

As I closed the cover to "If I Were Boss" for the final time, I felt a deep kinship with Sinclair Lewis, realizing that he and I share many of the same thought processes and beliefs. I couldn't help but think that I would have gotten along just fine with Lewis if I had personally known him. I think I understand him as a person, however misguided that assumption might be, and now realize how difficult his life must have been. When one sees humanity in the way Lewis sees it, when one recognizes the pettiness and banalities we surround ourselves with, one quickly understands how difficult it is to function in life. That's why I think Lewis relied so heavily on humor in his stories: if you cannot laugh at the utter ridiculousness of modern life, you will quickly find yourself screaming with rage. These insights on my part hint at the powerful qualities of the author's stories and his writing ability. If you're the eternal cynic who can still laugh, pick this book up right away.

While I have enjoyed Lewis's novels, I have also found them to be somewhat angry and bitter. These stories are a different matter. Several of them are uproariously funny, in many ways reminiscent of Ring Lardner's best, where the outrage is hidden behind a mask of humor.

The introduction provides an interesting background in terms of both America's history and the events of Lewis's own life.

Sinclair Lewis's FRESH AIR, published in 1919, is sheer, chuckling delight. It offers no great insights into psyches or interpersonal relations. Read it rather as a straightforward magazine serial pot boiler romance of frontier boy and car mechanic (Milt Daggett) pursuing a sentimental girl (Claire Boltwood) worth an impressive $5,000 around 1916. The girl, a high living Brooklynite, is driving her ailing workaholic father in a heavy Gomez-Dep roadster long day after weary day across northern plains and mountains towards a vacation with cousins in Seattle. She wonders whether she can ultimately avoid marrying Jeff Saxton, a notably older beau back in sophisticated New York.

Milt complicates things by falling in love with Claire after pulling her car out of a Minnesota mud hole created by a German hick to extort money from stranded motorists. Milt almost instantly decides to drive in his modest Teal "tin beetle" or "bug" with or near Claire and her father all the way to Seattle. And so it goes, with Claire wondering if she can (or should) civilize the manly Milt up to the level of suave and prosperous Jeff or whether that is too, too patronizing. Should she, alternatively, simply sweep off to Alaska with Milt -- heeding the call of the wild? Were Jane and Tarzan in the back of Sinclair Lewis's mind? For Edgar Rice Burroughs had created them only seven years earlier in 1912. No, the story takes another twist. Read the book and discover what this novel is said to be "prelude and curtain raiser" to.

FRESH AIR can also be read just for its sweaty heft as a part of midwestern and western America not long before the nation declared war on the Kaiser. On the drive through Minnesota, North Dakota, etc. to Washington state, roads are rarely paved. Gravel is luxury. Dust is daily. Mud is just around the bend. Tires are thin and frequently burst or are punctured. Steep slopes demand drivers with braking and gear shifting skills. And don't forget low spots covered by running water.

In every town where the Boltwoods overnight, they routinely drive their Gomez-Dep (a make apparently invented by Sinclair Lewis) into a sure-to-be-there full service garage for the night. These and other cross country garages often display a sign "Free Air," which must have been a reassuring come-on in the early days of cross-continental motoring.

The author, just one year before his first masterpiece, MAIN STREET, convincingly presents his personally experienced North American driving world from an expert mechanic's point of view: an automobile-crazed country with its starters, carburetors, rumble seats, dubiously effective head lamps, oil leaks, hitchhikers, fleabag hotels, country stores, a haunted house and country people who speak German and at first seem gruff but then are seen by sophisticated Easterner Claire Boltwood to have hearts of gold. As does her new suitor, Milt Daggett. It is an all-American world where even auto mechanics are romantic and knightly.

Boys and girls should read FRESH AIR a year or so before they tackle TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. One leads to the others.

-OOO-

I really enjoyed this book immensely and agree with the previous reviewer. It gives a descriptive account of the trials and tribulations of traveling westward in a car during the early 1900's.

Reads as a social/class commentary, a Zane Gray western, with some romance added.

Corny in some ways, however, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to other Sinclair Lewis fans.

One of my favorite books. I was lucky to get a copy (original edition) from the New York Public Library. Have read all his well-known books, but might like this best. His usual themes of Americana, social climbing, etc. But this is a "road" book and a very innocent love story - wonderful book by one of the best American writers. I'm surprised it's in print since it's such a minor title of his.

Apparently Lewis didn't become disillusioned and embittered until after 1919, when this absolutely delightful book was published. We have an original copy that my mom got from a library sale or something. She loved it, I loved it, which is no suprise because I am a sucker for sweet old novels, but the most ringing endorsement it that my impossible-to-please dad loved it. In fact, he was the one who made me read it.

There really isn't a lot of substance to this book - it's mostly fluff. (There's some social commentary in the later parts of the book, when they're in Seattle, but I try to ignore it.) But it's grade-A, high-quality fluff we're talking about here. Claire Boltwood's transformation from a Brooklyn snob to a real woman is highly believable, and Milt Daggett is one of the sweetest, most wholesome men ever created. Set against the well-painted backdrop of the American West, the story shifts from amusing to heartwarming to bittersweet and back again flawlessly.

Just a good, simple love-story, unique and well-written. I would recommend this book to anyone just looking for a good read.

A great read !!!!! Couldnt put the book down.It is as good if not better than the first Buffalo Gordon book. When is the movie coming out????

Bravo! I did not want this book to end!
I laughed out loud and at times was so deeply moved, I cried.

While I loved the romance between Nate and Cara, I found the descriptive encounters between Nate and the Plains Indians especially interesting and rousing - I felt as though I was sitting among them in the tipi. Rich in historical detail, this story is engaging and thought provoking.

The author has certainly left this reader anxiously awaiting the next installment of this powerful saga.
Cheers to J. P. Lewis!

Anyone who's resided in a small town or its modern incarnation, suburbia, will recognize the American Homeland in these pages, despite it taking place almost a hundred years ago. Gopher Prairie is a small town full of small minds, small ideas and small ambitions. Carol Blodget, a vivacious young woman who works in a St. Paul library for the love of books and dreams big dreams, falls in love and marries Dr. Will Kennicott, and follows him to his beloved home town.

Carol's is a familiar life story: woman leaves big city to follow man she loves to a place she is in no way suited to, and ends up feeling trapped among people she despises. She tries to change the town, she tries to change herself, and when all else fails she tries to have an affair. When none of these tactics produce the desired results, Carol finally leaves Gopher Prairie, small child in tow. Unlike most women--and only because Will Kennicott is an exceedingly kind, loving man who doesn't go ballistic over her leaving--Carol eventually returns, but not until she's learned more about the world and herself, enabling her to live in Gopher Prairie impervious to the tyranny of Main Street.

The picture Lewis portrays of Midwesterners isn't pretty--in fact, it's downright misanthropic. These are myopic people who walk through their lives half asleep, frightened of anything new, whether it's a triviality like a brightly colored dress, or "communism" in the form of a workers' union. The writing is rich and detailed: each character springs from the page to life, with personalities revealed by the tiniest of mannerisms. The way they talk to one another, the jokes they tell, the things they consider important (primarily money and appearances) come through in each sentence and paragraph. The style is smooth and natural, never calling attention to itself, never detracting from the story.

As you've probably figured out by now, Main Street is a genuine classic in the sense that its themes are eternal. Not only does it offer a historical perspective on America, but its concerns still resonate today. Though some of the issues may have changed, the people of Gopher Prairie are scarily familiar.

I don't know if Lewis meant to convey city living as far superior to small towns--he may have chosen the latter as a locale in order to illuminate America's most extreme conservatism--but that's definitely something I got out of Main Street, possibly because of my own experiences. By now I've spent more of my life in cities than in small towns, for which I am extraordinarily grateful. Every time I lived anywhere other than in a city I hungered to be back in one. Even now, in a city with pockets of suburban-ish streets, one of which I live on, I long for the gridlock of New York, the freedom of big-city anonymity, where ideas and culture swarm everywhere--on the bus and in the street.

Sinclair Lewis was the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1930, and Main Street was the book that first won him critical recognition. Long live the American novelist!

THE GOD-SEEKER (1949) is, in my opinion, the most under-rated of Sinclair Lewis's many novels. Contemporary critics treated this late work as if they were waiting for an aging Babe Ruth to break his own home run record once again in his final year at bat. Perhaps THE GOD-SEEKER lacks the wall-clearing oomph of ELMER GANTRY, but it is a solid inside the park home run by a master student of American evangelical religion. It is time for a publishing revival of THE GOD-SEEKER.

For the novel is vintage Sinclair Lewis. Hero Aaron Gadd falls in love with two women at once durng his career as a novice missionary among the Minnesota Sioux. He faces the recurring Sinclair Lewis "great decision:" to be single-minded (and probably celibate) in the pursuit of (in this instance "religious") greatness or instead to "play" with women and bloviate, hunt and fish with men friends and other distractions. There is no happy compromise with any man's call to any form of greatness.

The story moves quickly from one scene to another: with Aaron Gadd a youth in rocky New England, coming of age on the wild Minnesota frontier, maturing into a solid, sometimes avant garde citizen of Territorial Minnesota.

And then there is made-in-America religion throughout: churches and fads of the late 1840s: cultists, nudists, free thinkers, Calvinists and anti-Calvinists, theologians and American pulpit glory seekers. The book is worth reading for its serious, humorous and satirical portrayals of religion if for no other reason.

Astonishly good, satiric, often true, deeply tragic is chapter 41 in which "I, Black Wolf, son of Shining Wind, of the Wahpeton Council Fire, being a pure-blood Dakota and a member of the medicine lodge, but having attended a school of the white people [NOTE: OBERLIN COLLEGE], am herewith warning my people...." against the white invaders and their superstitions. To this patriotic Sioux, the Catholic Trinity is Father, Son and Mother Mary. "The Protestants have no trinity, but a four-god council consisting of Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Satan." White people's demigods include Santa Claus, witches, vampires and spirits of the dead. This is cross-cultural humor verging on the intoxicated (which Black Wolf sometimes was). But Jesus was a brave, poor, humble "beautiful young god" whom the Sioux can easily worship.

THE GOD-SEEKER is not on film, is not one of the 25 known movie or TV adaptations of a Lewis novel or short story. But it should be. It tells one person''s life from boyhood to a religious mission, to service to slaves and the poor, to mastery of a craft, to marriage and fatherhood. And it presents many snapshots of American religious leaders, real and fictional. The novel abounds with the religious texture of America, mainly northern but also southern in one or two cases.

At the close of Ch. 16, one of the youthful Aaron Gadd's Massachusetts pastoral mentors left this advice somewhere deep forever in Aaron's memory: "Our forebears ought to of loved the Baptists, but they drove 'em out. If you ever get to be a minister, Aary, you love wrong Christians just as much as you love right Christians. The shadow of the same cross falls on both of them."

THE GOD-SEEKER is studded with descriptions, aphorisms, debates and humor which thoroughly deserve new readers.

-OOO-

Reading Reginald Sinclair Lewis's recently published collection of essays entitled "Where I'm Writing From" reminds us of the undeniable humanity of every person incarcerated on death row in the United States. Held on Pennsylvania's death row since 1983 for a murder he has always denied having committed, Lewis is an award-winning African-American writer. He has won three P.E.N. American Center Writing Awards for prisoners, and his short play, "An Affinity for Angels," was selected for the 4th Annual Juneteenth Festival of new works at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville in 2000. Lewis has also authored two self-published collections of poems entitled "Leaving Death Row" and "Inside My Head."

"Where I'm Writing From" gives those in the free world a glimpse of the often spiteful shakedowns, seizure of property, and abuse perpetrated by corrections officials working on death row. But it also gives us the chance to meet some of the inmates - like Willie, who likes to feed the birds, and Freddie, the Hell's Angel with his tall tales about beautiful women. This community includes the now-famous Mumia Abu-Jamal and the recently exonerated Harold Wilson. Lewis also discusses the cases of a number of fellow inmates whose prior unsatisfactory legal representation begs new consideration for their cases, and he reserves a special compassion for his writings about the women on death row.

The racial and economic disparities that surface in this book may be stark, but the resentments they engender are complex. At times, for example, Lewis's pride in his own accomplishment spits wincingly in the face of the rural, uneducated white correctional officers resentful of the power this inmate can wield with his words. An example of such power surfaces in the sardonic humor of Lewis's fantasy piece about inmates granted the right to vote and forming the "Pen Voting Party." In his imagination, the prisoners' voices become a powerful force in the political arena, challenging the status quo at every turn. The momentum of this reverie builds to a vertiginous climax, until an inevitable set-up sends everything crashing down. Confidence in the inmates is undermined, and they are returned to "invisible" status, ultimately losing their right to vote. This daydream seems to parallel the disappointing surges of unfulfilled hope that those incarcerated on death row experience in the midst of their daily despair.

In addition to his more activist writings of protest, Lewis offers vivid vignettes about his youth in the streets of North Philly and shares frank and loving reflections about his family members. These autobiographical threads combine to give Reggie Lewis a meaningful context, and "Where I'm Writing From" alerts us to the fact that every human life has such a context, even the lives of those death-row inmates who have been forgotten and left to decay in the cold isolation of their prison cells.

This story is moderately good. Rather than weaving eloquent statements extolling the author, the plot, and the style as most reviewers do, I will simply state the pros and cons, perhaps in a tone that will be worthy of Hemingway himself.

First, I have two major criticisms. I found the plot to be interesting, but unoriginal. Countless novels have been written about guerilla forces fighting behind enemy lines, and a substantial percentage of those books revolved around blowing up a bridge. Fine, it makes for suspenseful (no pun intended) reading. However, I would have thought that he could have come up with a better approach to a war story. Secondly, I found that the sex scenes detracted substantially from the story. While the romance between Robert Jordan and Maria was an integral part of the plot, the sexual content was wholly unnecessary and was at an extreme juxtaposition with my Christian values. I felt that the story would not have lost anything by eliminating those elements.

I did, however, enjoy many things about this novel. Hemingway's style is always intriguing to me, and I love his clipped, terse tone. The Spanish words and phrases scattered liberally through the dialogue added a nice touch as well. More than that, though, I thoroughly enjoyed his social commentary on Spain, and the connections to the poem by John Dunne. Death is really the overriding theme of the book, and I found the philosophy of the interdependency of mankind even in death to be thought-provoking. Lastly, I always appreciate an author who is willing to write about overlooked periods or viewpoints in history. While I found his story to be fairly trite (guy goes with guerilla band to blow up bridge, falls in love with girl, and half of the people die), I loved the setting of the Spanish civil war. I've read very little about that era in history, and so I found it to be informative and inspired some interest in learning more about it.

The ur-text for today's wartime adventure novel, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" remains a standard bearer for pulse-pounding action fiction, and one of the true masterpieces by the most celebrated American author of his time.

Robert Jordan is a Spanish-language instructor from Montana who, now in Spain, has a job of another kind: blow up a critical bridge under enemy control before his comrades, the Republicans of the Spanish Civil War, mount a critical attack. He falls in with a band of motley guerrillas, discovering the joy and passion of life even as he must make peace with the real possibility of his death.

When published in 1940, there was little need to explain the title: the bell was tolling pretty loudly for just about everyone outside of Sweden and Chile as the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany rolled up giant chunks of the globe. Germany's three-year dress rehearsal had been the Spanish Civil War, where they helped Spanish fascists and monarchists overthrow the Marxist-led Republicans while Western democracies watched idly. Ernest Hemingway, a strong supporter of the Republican cause, lost arguably the only country he ever really loved.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" could have been an exercise in told-you-so or score settling with the right-wing victors Hemingway despised. Yet the story is so engaging - so raw and sweeping in its style, so visceral in form, and undogmatic in outlook - that it is hard to know from reading it just how bruised a champion Hemingway had been for the losing team. The most drawn-out, brutal section of narrative deals with atrocities committed by Republicans, not fascists. Rebels and Republicans alike appear oddly human.

"Do you think you have a right to kill any one? No. But I have to. How many of those you have killed have been real fascists? Very few. But they are all the enemy to whose force we are the opposing force. But you like the people of Navarra better than those of any other part of Spain. Yes. And you kill them. Yes."

That's one of many internal monologues Jordan has with himself in the course of the book, which may annoy some expecting more wall-to-wall action but works fine by me. It's easy imagining oneself pondering similar questions in similar situations, and the running stream-of-consciousness adds to the nail-biting tension.

Hemingway also does very well by the secondary characters, especially the guerrilla band Jordan takes up with. Their leader, Pablo, was a once-ruthless killer of fascists now reduced to drink and train-robbing. "There is not enough of you left to make a sick kitten," says Pablo's bitter woman, Pilar, herself a tigress and Jordan's chief ally. Pilar is both supporter and scoffer of Jordan's budding relationship with Maria, a teenaged rape survivor rescued by the guerrillas. This is not a merry band of outlaws; their very fractiousness draws you in.

As a Sam Peckinpah fan, I was struck by how pleasingly similar "For Whom The Bell Tolls" was to the classic Western desperado saga "The Wild Bunch". Both are straightforward action yarns with a lot of backstory, vivid characters and setting, and a storyline that cleverly pulls you in even as it seems to ramble.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" is less concerned about the bridge itself (where or when precisely this action is occurring is never spelled out) then the feelings that surround warfare, and how and why one man must do what he can, for as Rick said in "Casablanca", the problems of one man don't add up to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed-up world. Hemingway's ending is less Hollywood but just as stirring, and a fittingly open-ended climax to this singular story.

In the past few days I have finished reading the internationally acclaimed book "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. Before I began reading this book I had heard and read from many that the book was a classic and a very good read; after finishing the book I have to say that I completely agree. This book well deserves the praise that it has been given over the years; it is a classic in every sense of the word.
From Hemingway's unmatched descriptions of the beautiful Spanish countryside to the deep inner thoughts and struggles of the people. Hemingway has captured the true inner feelings of the Spanish people in their struggle for their idea of freedom, from the gripping oppression of fascism.
Yet he goes even further, in the unlikely relationship that develops between Robert Jordan and recently rescued Maria. He is still able to show that there is always some good even in some of the darkest situations. From betrayals and tragedy to unlikely and unexpected aid Hemingway covers all spectrums and interests
The only criticism I can give this book is concerning the ending which I personally found unsatisfying but that is for you to decide for yourself. In conclusion I find this book to be a great read for any who feel they are a skilled enough reader to fully appreciate the majesty of this work of art.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel about love, deception, war, and trustworthiness. Author Ernest Hemingway can be seen as the perfect writer for this book. All novels are not created equally and this one outshines most.

This novel starts off in the midst of the Spanish Civil War in May of 1937. Robert Jordan, the protagonist, is seen in the beginning of the story as an American scientist that wants to blow up a bridge that is being used by the Fascists. The Fascists are people in the war fighting against the Republicans or rebels. Jordan is blocked to this path by a man named Pablo who will not help him with his plans for blowing up the bridge. Pablo, so called leader of the rebels, is the opposite of Jordan by seeing the whole plan as a danger zone for the safety of his men. Pablo's wife Pilar, real leader of the rebels, seems to enjoy the plan and decides to help Jordan out with it. Pablo has been demoted as the leader and now his men blame him for all of the calamities that happen throughout the story, such as the killing of troops just for their horses.

As the story progresses, there is the smell of love in the air when Jordan meets Maria in the rebel camp. Maria is a woman who has been raped by the Fascists and seeks revenge upon them. Maria and Jordan have several "sexual sensations" throughout the novel and they imagine themselves living a normal life after the war is over. This is ironic because things do not work out the way they want to.

By the end of the story, the bridge has been blown apart by Robert and the rebel band, but some people do not make it back alive. Robert Jordan progresses throughout the story as a stiff and unchanging character. He develops a sense of distrust even though he supports the Republican side. Hemingway sets the tone for an appetite of destruction and leads it off into a sense of love and sensation at the end.

This novel can be seen as a great attribute to war fiction by incorporating love and hate into the war zone. Many people should decide to read this book because while reading this book it brings home war in a realistic manner.

Robert Jordan is a young American fighting against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He is sent into the mountains to make contact with a small band of guerillas to blow a bridge in support of an offensive.

Hemingway's tremendous strength of drawing characters that the reader comes to know and care about is on full display in "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Jordan falls in love with the young woman, Maria, who is seeking refuge from a world that has robbed her of her childhood innocence. There is Pablo, the former leader who has seen the futility of the war and cannot face the day without dulling his mind with wine. There is Pilar, Pablo's mate, who longs for her youth, but has now assumed the role of leader and mother to the small group of fighters.

Robert Jordan and the reader come to know the dynamics of the group quite well. Jordan wrestles with the necessity of endangering the group of people for "the cause." This book depicts the contrast of war's brutality with the camaraderie of friends.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is considered a classic for a reason. This is a book that has aged well and will stick with the reader for a long time.

I was very impressed with the order of Elmer Gantry. The book shipped quickly and arrived between the 7-14 day window. The service was professional. The book details matched the quality of the book. I am very pleased with the service provided.

I never expected to be moved so much by this book, to feel so strongly about it. Published in 1927, I expected something dated, both in prose and story -- it wasn't at all. This novel isn't just as it's usually described: adventures of a golden-tongued evangelist who lives a live of hypocrisy and self-indulgence. This also isn't a novel whose primary purpose is to attack the clergy. This is a profile of the USA, of the American psyche, a profile that still works today. I finished the book and sat staring out the window for 10 minutes. I didn't know whether to laugh or weep.

What's so disheartening about this book, for me, is, as noted in the afterword by Mark Schorer, "The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in "Elmer Gantry" are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality." This is a book where all the good guys go down.

Maybe you have to have been raised in the South or Midwest of the USA, and to have been brought up Baptist or Methodist, to really, truly get all the layers of this magnificent book, all the hidden humor, all the razor-sharp and, at times, incredibly subtle, criticism and commentary. If you've never been to a church supper where a person proudly claims to have traced their lineage all the way back to Adam and Eve, if you have never had your school board or local city council hear arguments about why certain books should be banned from school or local libraries, if a significant number of your family wouldn't boycott your wedding if you chose to serve alcohol, if you have never heard Catholics called "Papists" from a pulpit, if school friends haven't told you, in all sincerity, that they are going to pray for you because of your questions and intellect, if you haven't heard "Christians" rationalize about their actions that are in direct contrast to what the Bible says, if you haven't noticed the onslaught of efforts to get science out of our schools, I'm not sure you can really, truly "get" this book. Part of me is ashamed to have only finally read Sinclair Lewis when I'm already 40 -- and part of me wonders if I could ever have understood this book on the level I feel that I do had I not been this age.

Still a landmark in American literature, still a biting, chilling commentary on our country.

When Elmer Gantry was published, author Sinclair Lewis received death threats, an ivitation to be lynched in Virginia, a warning to stay clear of New Hampshire or wind up in a prison cell. I wonder if he would still have the courage to write a similar book today, in the climate of religious fanaticism that prevails. Elmer Gantry is a portrayal of hypocrisy and opportunism among the Evangelical clergy of the early 20th Century. The title character is as hateful and fraudulent as the Bakkers, Swaggerts, and Blackguards of our era, with the same vices, most prominently sexual misbehavior and exploitation. In fact, Gantry is so thoroughly unappealing that the reader's only interest in him is waiting and hoping for his downfall. But the numerous other clergymen, deacons, and congregational leaders portrayed in the novel are none of them very appealing; they are all greedy hypocrites, timorous holders of sinecures, and/or weaklings unable to confront their own doubts about the sanctity of the clerical profession. I have to say that Sinclair Lewis seriously weakens his case by overstating the universality of corruption in the Christian leadership, and damages the literary interest of his book by making his principal character irredeemable. Yet as I survey the current fundamentalist eruption into politics, I also have to say that Lewis was remarkably prophetic. The anti-evolution, anti-science-in-general, anti-diversity rants that fill the pages of Elmer Gantry could be copied-and-pasted right here on our favorite web pages.

The chief woman character of the book, tent evangelist Sharon Falconer, is also portrayed as a power-hungry opportunist, half hypocrite and half delusional madwoman. That portrayal won Lewis no friends, particularly since most readers were certain that Falconer was a thinly disguised representation of Aimee Semple McPherson, one of the founders of modern millenialism, whose personal improprieties are well documented. Likewise, numerous critics supposed that the character of Gantry himself was at least partly a portrait of evangelist Billy Sunday.

We Minnesotans are proud of our Nobel Prize author, though we show our pride mostly by not reading him. Honestly, this is not an easy book to enjoy. The language is stiff and corny at times, the characters are too cartoon-like, and the first half of the book would be better if it were edited in half. Even so, it has intellectual integrity and profound historical relevance, and its unrelenting portrayal of moral shallowness builds enough momentum to make it a worthwhile classic.

-- and Lewis's life threatened in other parts of the country. What better recommendation can there be for a work of fiction?

This paints a vicious picture of a man with no skills (beyond a flair for showmanship), no scruples, and no taste for "honest work." In the buckle of the Bible Belt, he goes to a Baptist college, and there finds his true place in life: preacher. It gives the perfect shield of respectability to his unrespectable womanizing and drinking habit, while arming him with a sword of faith against which no mere fact could defend. Somehow, his indiscretions always catch up to him. Somehow, he always manages a crowd-pleasing display of repentance and a revival-tent plea for forgivenness, which the faithful grant at the tops of their lungs.

Lewis acknowledges that most people in the religion business are honest enough and sincere enough, but also notes that Elmer is hardly unique. As with his other books, Lewis is frightening in the precision with which he draws this truly rapacious character and his depradations on society in the name of morality and faith. It's frightening because of his prescience in describing modern witch-hunts and fundamentalist Christian attack squads, just as much as as for the disdain with which this first of televangelists fleeces his flock.

Gantry's rapacious nature comes through most clearly in his commodity use of women, and especially behindthe closed doors of his married life. Cleo is devoted, wholly loyal, loving, naive, and less than the dirt beneath his feet. I came to dread the passages in which she appears - not for Cleo herself, but for Gantry's treatment of her. Their wedding night is a travesty, in which her gentle and trusting nature encounters his brutality at its animal worst. It turns my stomach to imagine how her children must have been gotten on her. The story needs that poor woman, however, to show just what Gantry would have do to everyone else if his self-serving social restraint were ever to fail.

No wonder Lewis was threatened with hanging. He hit a nerve. Like today, the people he exposed could only retaliate by trying to shout him down with sin and satan, and by physical violence.

//wiredweird

Excellent read, extremely interesting and intelligent prose. Lewis has a field day exposing the sinful, sanctimonious world of evangelism in early twentieth century Mid-America. And does he ever expose it! You will be hard pressed to find a more disreputable jackass in all of literature than Sinclair's main protagonist the Reverend Elmer Gantry. Long before the days of Jim & Tammy Baker & the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart there was this very funny story about this soulless, vapid, amoral, self-absorbed, overbearing, mama's boy who uses religion as his road to success. He's not smart enough, and far too lazy to make it in the real world, so Elmer decides to become a con man, errrrr Methodist preacher (although, it could have been one of several Christian sects) who's definition of success is about two things - money and power.

One thing that I find truly remarkable about this novel was how Sinclair was able to keep us interested and more importantly keep us from throwing the book in the trash or fireplace. When you finish this book, you will know what I mean. For upon reflection, Elmer Gantry is one despicable excuse for a human being. The man has no soul. He manipulates the masses and those around him without ever a tinge of guilt. He treats his family (except of course for his mama) like a pile of horse manure. And he's the most hypocritical cad you'll ever find in fiction. I could go on and on, but I don't want to divulge too much. Yet, despite how loathsome Elmer is, he does have a certain charm about him (don't they all?). It is that charm that keeps us from truly hating him enough to not care anymore. It is that charm that kept me reading on instead of tossing it in the Good Will box. I don't know about the rest of you, but if I can't stand the main character, no matter how interesting the story is or how well written, I usually can't finish the book. Am I the only one like this? Anyway, that's the beauty of Lewis' creation; the character of Reverend Gantry with all of it's vulgarities still had that undefined 'positive' something that keeps us reading on.

It's a great, great story. I had one hec of a time putting it down. I also recommend reading the book's very interesting 'Afterword' written by Mark Schorer. After reading it, I came away with even greater respect for Sinclair Lewis as a writer. The work and research this man did for a story is quite remakable on top of highly commendable. No wonder this classic (along with several others of his) is such an enjoyable read and definitely not dated at all like many classics unfortunately are. For me one of the keys to being dubbed a classic is being timeless. This book truly is. For there are certainly plenty of real life Elmer Gantry's running around all over the place in this world right now.
If you enjoy it half as much as I did, you'll love it.

This book is truly an insight into the world of not only an incarcerated man, but a black man on death row. Lewis speaks honestly, clearly and uncompromisingly about the realities of death row, imprisonment and the conditions that see over two million people, mostly black and brown, caged there. If we are to ever get at the root cause of the boom in the prison industry, we won't get there through get tough on crime laws. It will be by humanizing those who are in that system, and that is something that Lewis does with talent and compassion.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The author has a way of bringing out the truth and touching the heart and soul. His language is powerful and direct. Reginald Lewis truly loves his craft. I'm very pleased to have been introduced to this author and his writing style.

His work, moving and soul searching, reeks with a rare talent.. To miss reading this very moving and inspiring book would be an injustice to the author.

Several poems touched me deeply...His poem, "Where Are You Now?" (For Aunt Mariah) speaks eloquently of the feelings we have when a loved on is dying and the deep sense of loss when it is over..

You don't have to be a poet or a lover of poetry to understand or appreciate this book. Lewis' images are vivid, often cinematic and continuously palpable, harnessed by emotion.. Is Lewis off death row? What happened? Was he exonerated? Was his sentence commuted to life? But after reading through these poems, the meaning becomes clear. Lewis hasn't left, but he leaves all the time.