Babbitt

Rating:
Summary: The Best Satire
Review: 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:
Summary: Highly Entertaining
Review: Sinclair Lewis wrote a series of satires that exposed the hypocrisy of early 20th century America. “Babbitt” is a snapshot of the life of George F. Babbitt, a somewhat prosperous middle class businessman who lives in Zenith, Ohio. Zenith has a population of 300,000+, and has an active business community. This community has its own rituals and ironclad rules. These rules consist of being one of the gang, being a member of all the right clubs and organizations, and never deviating from the ideals of business and money. These rules cause enormous difficulties for Babbitt when he goes through a midlife crisis at the end of the book and begins spouting liberal ideas and associating with the “wrong” crowd.

This is my first encounter with Sinclair Lewis. I really don’t know why I chose to read “Babbitt” first, as I also have copies of “Main Street” and “Arrowsmith”. I think it was the unusual cover of the Penguin edition, which is a picture of a painting called “Booster” by Grant Wood. To me, that picture IS Babbitt, and I’ll always be able to see Babbitt in my head whenever I’m reminded of this book.There really isn’t a lot of symbolism here (and the symbolism that is here is pretty easy to decipher) and the prose is much closer to our present day writing and speech. This is brilliant satire, and you’ll laugh out loud at many of the situations Babbitt gets himself into. An especially hilarious incident occurs when one of the local millionaire businessmen finally accepts an invitation to dine with Babbitt. The evening goes badly because Babbitt is in a lower social class. Lewis then shows Babbitt going to a dinner at an old friends house who is in a lower class then him. It’s hilarious to see the similarities between the two events, and it brings home how class is strictly enforced in Zenith, and by extension, America.

Babbitt is a person that I found myself both hating and liking, often within the space of one page. He’s ignorant, in that he is a major conformist who often repeats slogans and phrases merely because others in his circle say the same things. He’s a namedropper who refers to people he doesn’t even know as though they were his best friends. He’s also high volume. Babbitt is one of those people we all know who is always boisterous and noisy so they can hide their own insecurities or ignorance. Just when you think you can’t stand Babbitt for another second, Lewis tosses in a situation that makes you feel for the man. Babbitt is the boss at a real estate company, and he worries about his employees liking him. When a confrontation arises with one of his salesmen, Babbitt frets and doesn’t want to fire the guy, although the rules of business eventually force him to do exactly that. He wants all of his employees to like him. He also feels bad about cheating on his wife while she is away and worries about what his children will think of him when he comes in drunk after a night of carousing. Ultimately, although Babbitt can be a major heel, the reader is almost forced to sympathize with him. This is true especially at the end of the book, when Babbitt renounces his liberal ways and rejoins his old colleagues. His return to the pack is not quite complete, however. Babbitt is changed by his transgression, and has learned a few lessons that he imparts to his son on the last page of the book, thus ending the tale on an upbeat note.

I would like to have seen a better section of explanatory notes in this Penguin edition. While some of the more obscure references are defined, many are not. Also, some of the language in the book is very 1920’s slang, and for a 21st century ear, it can be difficult to pick up on some of them. This book is both funny and sad, but well worth reading. Sinclair Lewis eventually won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes for his literary endeavors. It’s not hard to see why. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: "I've never done a thing in life I wanted to do"
Review: Classic portrayal of the American businessman, and American business culture. As one previous reviewer titled his review: "shockingly modern". I was drawn to this book after hearing Joseph Campbell quote Babbitt in the "Power of Myth" series: "I've never done a single thing I've wanted to in my whole life!", Babbitt tells his son at the end of the novel. He's hoping that his son will be strong enough not to turn into him, and it's a strange moment because it's both sad and uplifting. Babbitt is someone most of us have encountered (or, if we're honest enough to admit it, are or have been to varying degrees) and it's easy to sympathize with his patriotic, capitalist "zippo"! We root for him, while despising him at the same time. He struggles internally with the discrepencies between the capitalist bag of goods he's been sold, and his own natural desires, values, and free will. Like most people unwilling or unable to work hard enough to break out on their own, he settles on an easy compromise: conformity. But only after humorous, sometimes bold, but ultimately futile attempts to "break free" (I'm reminded of Jim Carrey slamming into the physical boundaries of his pre-fab world in the movie, "The Truman Show"). Babbitt is punished by society's worst weapon - ostracism - and he folds neatly back into the herd. One hears the sound of a breaking spirit, and even more sadly, understands.

Rating:
Summary: Peppy All-American Booster Weathers Mid-Life Crisis
Review: Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Hart Benton, the artist, were about the same age, they both focussed on the American Heartland, and as I read Lewis, I see that they both had something else in common. They both had a tendency to draw cartoonish characters. George F. Babbitt is the main character of a satire by the same name; you might even laugh aloud in some places. Lewis is skillful, but at times, heavy-handed. He has portrayed an average Joe of 1920, the pep- and vim-obsessed go-getting businessman who was the bedrock of our industrial age, hypocritical, materialist, crooked, conformist, even proto-fascist. Babbitt is a real estate agent, a family man surrounded by the wealth of material goods provided by thriving industrial capitalism. He belongs enthusiastically and unquestioningly to any organization dedicated to preserving his and his family's ready access to those goods---professional group (realtors association), Boosters, church, and set social circle. He spouts meaningless platitudes on every subject, knows nothing except the price of real estate and methods of collusion, and ignores his feelings, his family, and the rest of the world, all the while believing that his city, state, and country are the best in the world. The first 90-odd pages of BABBITT are pure genius; one of the best character portraits you are likely to find in American literature---but it is a caricature after all. Lewis' choice of names underlines his cartoonish glee in writing this brilliant novel---Vergil Gunch, Professor Pumphrey, Chet Laylock, Matt Penniman, Muriel Frink, Opal Mudge, Carrie Nork, and Miss McGoun---names that could have been annexed years later by MAD magazine ! "Babbitt" has long been a word in American English, signifying a conforming materialist citizen without a mind of his own. Perhaps this is not entirely fair.

George goes through a mid-life crisis, rebels against his static, materialistic life with its know-nothing attitudes, its moral certitudes, and its boring routines. His closest friend (aren't there certain unspoken overtones of homosexual love ?) commits a dastardly deed, breaking George's heart. "On the rebound", he meets the fantastically-named Tanis Judique, femme fatale à la Midwest. Certain consequences arise, Lewis brings in his ever-present fear of American fascist tendencies, and there's a rather hopeful ending, also in the American tradition. If you are looking for a place to begin reading Sinclair Lewis, BABBITT is an excellent choice. If you already know other Lewis novels, don't miss this one. I would say that with "Main Street", "Elmer Gantry" and "Dodsworth", BABBITT is at the solid gold core of Sinclair Lewis' work. He certainly did deserve that Nobel Prize.

Rating:
Summary: The book for which Lewis won the Nobel Prize.
Review: "Babbitt," published in 1922, was the second straight publishing phenomenon for Sinclair Lewis, who had become a household name in 1920 with "Main Street." By 1930, Lewis had published three more notable novels ("Arrowsmith," "Elmer Gantry," and "Dodsworth"), declined the Pulitzer Prize in a fit of pique, and finally became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The 1920s were his prime years, and none of his novels was more renowned than "Babbitt," which merited special recognition from the Swedish Academy when Lewis won the Nobel Prize.

So what is one to make of this novel now? It can be dreadfully dull, and could (indeed should) have been cut in half. It wanders around in search of a plot, and though many of its insights can be funny, overall one has to marvel at how genteel the literature of 1920s was in order to make this book a national sensation.

Basically, it is the story of George F. Babbitt, a solidly Republican, supremely self-satisfied, deeply stupid real estate man, who has a sort of midlife crisis in the course of the novel before returning desperately to his earlier state of censorious complacency by the last chapters. Lewis designed him to be an exemplar of his class, and many thought he was. The term "Babbitt" became a popular way of referring to chubby, materialistic businessmen. And then, by the 1940s, the novel had largely faded into oblivion, except in college classes or high school reading lists.

Why? Quite simply, because it's not a particularly good novel. It is a reasonably well-written slice of satirical social commentary, and little more. Today, it is merely a cultural relic from the twenties, kind of like the abominably bad "Great Gatsby," which dilettantes rave over as if it were actually a good novel. It isn't, and neither is "Babbitt." But for those interested in how America saw itself just before the Great Depression, books like these might be informative.

Rating:
Summary: Fun book
Review: A comincal, engaging book, Lewis tells the story of a 1920's American businessman obsessed with middle-class society and upholding his reputation as an outstanding citizen. His farcical adventures and moral debates highlight American conformist culture and the struggle for individualism

Rating:
Summary: "I've never done a thing in life I wanted to do"
Review: Classic portrayal of the American businessman, and American business culture. As one previous reviewer titled his review: "shockingly modern". I was drawn to this book after hearing Joseph Campbell quote Babbitt in the "Power of Myth" series: "I've never done a single thing I've wanted to in my whole life!", Babbitt tells his son at the end of the novel. He's hoping that his son will be strong enough not to turn into him, and it's a strange moment because it's both sad and uplifting. Babbitt is someone most of us have encountered (or, if we're honest enough to admit it, are or have been to varying degrees) and it's easy to sympathize with his patriotic, capitalist "zippo"! We root for him, while despising him at the same time. He struggles internally with the discrepencies between the capitalist bag of goods he's been sold, and his own natural desires, values, and free will. Like most people unwilling or unable to work hard enough to break out on their own, he settles on an easy compromise: conformity. But only after humorous, sometimes bold, but ultimately futile attempts to "break free" (I'm reminded of Jim Carrey slamming into the physical boundaries of his pre-fab world in the movie, "The Truman Show"). Babbitt is punished by society's worst weapon - ostracism - and he folds neatly back into the herd. One hears the sound of a breaking spirit, and even more sadly, understands.

Rating:
Summary: Kill me now so i don't have to finish this book
Review: I am 15yo. This is a stupid book. I only got to the second chapter. All he talks about is his shoes and his clothes and what his wife's going to wear. I don't care what his wife's going to wear or his shoes! I'm glad my school only makes us read the first couple chapters of a 'classic' and then allows us decide if we want to read the rest. If not, the suicide rate would be higher for literature class.

Rating:
Summary: The heart of Middle America
Review: The action happens in a Midwest city called Zenith -your typical Cleveland, Cincinnatti or Minneapolis, during the 20's. The US are getting out of nation teenage and moving on to superpower status, which will come about after WWII. America is getting rich and the middle class which is its bakcbone is rapidly developing towards the crisis of the Great Depression and the further revival. Many guys are getting rich in the business-friendly country. George F. Babbitt is one of them, proud, ignorant and conformist. It is interstting to compare this novel to the ones by Scott Fitzgerald (the frivolity and wild life of the very rich) and to Steinbeck (the misery of the lowest clasees). Babbitt is the business man, the middle class self-made-man who really built what the US are today. The portrait, however, is not a celebration. Deep inside of him, Babbitt feels the hollowness, the vacuity of a life built around petty business success, a heartless social and family life, and the pretentiousness of his surroundings. At some point, Babbitt tries to rebel against society, but fails utterly, just as his friend Paul, a frustrated violinist turned roof-material salesman, who will end up in jail. It is the story of a man who tries to break up the mold of a rigid society, but is unable to do so for lack of will and spirit.

Although it is certainly unfair and absurd to think that all middle-class life is empty or unhappy, this is a powerful book in that it crudely depicts the dangers of conformity, of the "quiet desperation" of the life devoted solely to material success and social status, with no spiritual or intellectual life whatsoever. It should be read even more now, when American society is conforming to keeping the lowest common denominator in social life, and where mediocrity is rampant in the popular arts and entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: a novel of conformity
Review: 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.