Rating: 
Summary: Romance and money in 19th century America
Review: "The Rise of Silas Lapham," by William Dean Howells, first appeared in book form in 1885. It is the story of the title character: a Vermont-born Civil War veteran who rises from humble beginnings to make a huge fortune in the paint business. With his wife and two daughters, Lapham lives in Boston. Despite his wealth, he is keenly aware of the gulf that exists between him and the city's aristocratic "old rich."The book has a quality that seems to anticipate the TV soap operas that became popular in the 20th century: it is a story of intertwined romantic and financial intrigue. Howells pays particular attention to people's attitudes about social manners. Overall, this is an entertaining and interesting evocation of a time of growth and change in the United States. The characters are well-drawn, and Howells keeps the plot moving along. There is an interesting continuing theme of the relationship between "real" life and novels; for example, George Eliot's "Middlemarch" is cited a number of times by characters in the book. For an interesting complementary text to "Silas Lapham," try Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."
Rating: 
Summary: The Rise of Silas Lapham
Review: I've had William Dean Howells' "A Modern Instance" and "The Rise of Silas Lapham," like many, many other books on my bookshelf for a long time. A recent meeting of a reading group of mine finally allowed me to make the time to read Howells' 1885 work, "Silas Lapham". I am extraordinarily glad I did. From the start of the novel, we are drawn into the world of late 19th century Boston, post-Reconstruction America, where newly rich industrialists attempt to enter the society life of old money. Howells crafts an extraordinarily realistic look at the American Dream gone awry. "The Rise of Silas Lapham" begins with an interview that a local newspaperman is doing of Colonel Silas Lapham, a mineral paint tycoon. Lapham's account of his rise from the backwoods of Vermont to his marriage, to service in the Civil War, to his propagation of a successful mineral paint business is chronicled and gives us a taste of the effort and perseverance necessary for his rise, as well indicating the possibility of some potential failings, especially with regard to his one-time partner, Milton Rogers. We soon learn that Mrs. Persis Lapham aided a society woman in distress the year before, and the return of her son, Tom Corey, from Texas, signals another sort of ambition on the part of the Lapham daughters, Irene and her older sister Penelope. The rest of the novel plays out the ways in which the Laphams try to parley their financial success into social status - and how the Laphams are affected by the gambit. Howells explores a number of significant cultural issues in "Silas Lapham": isolationism, social adaptability, economic solvency among all classes, personal integrity and familial ties, and the relationship between literature and life. The fact that the story is set about 20 or so years after the end of the American Civil War sets an important and subtle context that runs throughout the novel and inflects all of the thematic elements. The ways that the characters interact, the way that the society functions, even though the majority of the novel takes place in Boston, is importantly affected by the fact that Reconstruction is drawing to a close, Manifest Destiny is in full swing, and ultimately, America was at a point of still putting itself together and trying to view itself as the "United" States. Howells' treatment of the social interactions between the industrially rich Laphams and the old moneyed Coreys underscores the difficulty in creating and maintaining a national identity, especially when the people even in one northern city seem so essentially different. The romance story involving the Laphams and Tom Corey is obviously an important element of the story, and Howells does an amazing job of not allowing the romance plot to become as overblown and ludicrously sentimental as the works of fiction he critiques in discussions of novels throughout his own work. "The Rise of Silas Lapham" questions the nature of relationships, how they begin, how they endure - the contrast between the married lives of the Coreys and the Laphams is worth noting, as is the family dynamic in both instances. I'm very pleased to have gotten a chance to read this novel. Generally when I say an author or a work has been neglected, I mean that it's been neglected primarily by me. Having turned an eye now to Howells, I am very impressed with the depth of his characterization, the ways he puts scenery and backdrop to work for him, the scope of his literary allusions, and his historical consciousness. This is certainly a great American novel that more people should read. It may not be exciting, but it is involving, and that is always an excellent recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: The Rise of Silas Lapham
Review: I've had William Dean Howells' "A Modern Instance" and "The Rise of Silas Lapham," like many, many other books on my bookshelf for a long time. A recent meeting of a reading group of mine finally allowed me to make the time to read Howells' 1885 work, "Silas Lapham". I am extraordinarily glad I did. From the start of the novel, we are drawn into the world of late 19th century Boston, post-Reconstruction America, where newly rich industrialists attempt to enter the society life of old money. Howells crafts an extraordinarily realistic look at the American Dream gone awry. "The Rise of Silas Lapham" begins with an interview that a local newspaperman is doing of Colonel Silas Lapham, a mineral paint tycoon. Lapham's account of his rise from the backwoods of Vermont to his marriage, to service in the Civil War, to his propagation of a successful mineral paint business is chronicled and gives us a taste of the effort and perseverance necessary for his rise, as well indicating the possibility of some potential failings, especially with regard to his one-time partner, Milton Rogers. We soon learn that Mrs. Persis Lapham aided a society woman in distress the year before, and the return of her son, Tom Corey, from Texas, signals another sort of ambition on the part of the Lapham daughters, Irene and her older sister Penelope. The rest of the novel plays out the ways in which the Laphams try to parley their financial success into social status - and how the Laphams are affected by the gambit. Howells explores a number of significant cultural issues in "Silas Lapham": isolationism, social adaptability, economic solvency among all classes, personal integrity and familial ties, and the relationship between literature and life. The fact that the story is set about 20 or so years after the end of the American Civil War sets an important and subtle context that runs throughout the novel and inflects all of the thematic elements. The ways that the characters interact, the way that the society functions, even though the majority of the novel takes place in Boston, is importantly affected by the fact that Reconstruction is drawing to a close, Manifest Destiny is in full swing, and ultimately, America was at a point of still putting itself together and trying to view itself as the "United" States. Howells' treatment of the social interactions between the industrially rich Laphams and the old moneyed Coreys underscores the difficulty in creating and maintaining a national identity, especially when the people even in one northern city seem so essentially different. The romance story involving the Laphams and Tom Corey is obviously an important element of the story, and Howells does an amazing job of not allowing the romance plot to become as overblown and ludicrously sentimental as the works of fiction he critiques in discussions of novels throughout his own work. "The Rise of Silas Lapham" questions the nature of relationships, how they begin, how they endure - the contrast between the married lives of the Coreys and the Laphams is worth noting, as is the family dynamic in both instances. I'm very pleased to have gotten a chance to read this novel. Generally when I say an author or a work has been neglected, I mean that it's been neglected primarily by me. Having turned an eye now to Howells, I am very impressed with the depth of his characterization, the ways he puts scenery and backdrop to work for him, the scope of his literary allusions, and his historical consciousness. This is certainly a great American novel that more people should read. It may not be exciting, but it is involving, and that is always an excellent recommendation.
Rating: 
Summary: What does it profit a man to gain the world ?
Review: Silas Lapham is a self-made man who despite having a fourtune is unable to break into the upper-crust of Society. This story chronicals how Silas and the entire Lapham family become the Beverly Hillbillies for the pre-TV world. In the end the families happiness can only happen by following the old saying of to thine own self be true.
Rating:
Summary: What does it profit a man to gain the world ?
Review: Silas Lapham is a self-made man who despite having a fourtune is unable to break into the upper-crust of Society. This story chronicals how Silas and the entire Lapham family become the Beverly Hillbillies for the pre-TV world. In the end the families happiness can only happen by following the old saying of to thine own self be true.
Rating:
Summary: "Boston Paint Tycoon Plots to Gatecrash Elite : Loses Shirt"
Review: The photographs of Alfred Stieglitz still look modern and talented today, but it's nearly impossible to imagine how they would have looked to viewers in the 1890s, when they were taken. They were revolutionary, amazing, radically avant-garde. In a similar vein, the first novel about an American industrialist---a novel first printed in 1885---cannot seem so new, so fresh to our 21st century eyes. This theme startles nobody anymore. But in tracing the ups and downs of Silas Lapham, late of a Vermont village, a Civil War veteran, and founder of a fortune in 1870s Boston, Howells produced a highly original novel for his day. Lapham, his plain-spoken wife Persis, and two daughters live in luxury, thanks to the successful paint manufacturing business whose ubiquitous ads disfigured large portions of the New England countryside. Puffed up with success and not averse to considerable bragging, Lapham decides to build a sumptuous mansion on the water side of Beacon Street in the then-new district of Back Bay. At the same time, the Laphams come into contact with a family from the old Boston Brahmin elite, a family whose son falls in love with a Lapham daughter. The reaction of both families to this potential liaison, the love affair itself, and the fate of the Lapham fortune form the subject of this solid novel. William Dean Howells was and is known as one of the early American "realists", as opposed to the more romantic style that dominated most of 19th century English language literature. Not being a person well-versed in the "accepted wisdom" of literary criticism and history, I can only say that compared to later writers, for example, Crane, Norris, Dreiser, and Sinclair, to be followed later by Anderson and Lewis, I find that Howells' work still retains plenty of the more romantic elements even while he does portray the life and business of a paint tycoon with considerable accuracy and empathy. No snobbish repudiator of nouveaux riches gaucheries, Howells. This book is not a sarcastic look at the "ridiculous efforts of a bourgeois to climb above his station". Lapham may have his faults, but he is essentially a good, likeable man. If you have an interest in Boston history or in knowing what Boston life was like in the 1870s, I believe you will certainly enjoy reading THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. The story is a little artificial, the language a bit outdated, I felt, though in comparison to the horrors and perversities that throng some modern works, the novel might fill a few winter afternoons with a quiet pleasure. Certain stylistic oddities surprised me, such as the sudden appearance of a narrative "I" after over 200 pages ! Howells has been quite neglected in recent times: for sure, he may not be a Dostoevsky, Balzac, or Faulkner, but don't brush him off.
Rating:
Summary: "Boston Paint Tycoon Plots to Gatecrash Elite : Loses Shirt"
Review: The photographs of Alfred Stieglitz still look modern and talented today, but it's nearly impossible to imagine how they would have looked to viewers in the 1890s, when they were taken. They were revolutionary, amazing, radically avant-garde. In a similar vein, the first novel about an American industrialist---a novel first printed in 1885---cannot seem so new, so fresh to our 21st century eyes. This theme startles nobody anymore. But in tracing the ups and downs of Silas Lapham, late of a Vermont village, a Civil War veteran, and founder of a fortune in 1870s Boston, Howells produced a highly original novel for his day. Lapham, his plain-spoken wife Persis, and two daughters live in luxury, thanks to the successful paint manufacturing business whose ubiquitous ads disfigured large portions of the New England countryside. Puffed up with success and not averse to considerable bragging, Lapham decides to build a sumptuous mansion on the water side of Beacon Street in the then-new district of Back Bay. At the same time, the Laphams come into contact with a family from the old Boston Brahmin elite, a family whose son falls in love with a Lapham daughter. The reaction of both families to this potential liaison, the love affair itself, and the fate of the Lapham fortune form the subject of this solid novel. William Dean Howells was and is known as one of the early American "realists", as opposed to the more romantic style that dominated most of 19th century English language literature. Not being a person well-versed in the "accepted wisdom" of literary criticism and history, I can only say that compared to later writers, for example, Crane, Norris, Dreiser, and Sinclair, to be followed later by Anderson and Lewis, I find that Howells' work still retains plenty of the more romantic elements even while he does portray the life and business of a paint tycoon with considerable accuracy and empathy. No snobbish repudiator of nouveaux riches gaucheries, Howells. This book is not a sarcastic look at the "ridiculous efforts of a bourgeois to climb above his station". Lapham may have his faults, but he is essentially a good, likeable man. If you have an interest in Boston history or in knowing what Boston life was like in the 1870s, I believe you will certainly enjoy reading THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. The story is a little artificial, the language a bit outdated, I felt, though in comparison to the horrors and perversities that throng some modern works, the novel might fill a few winter afternoons with a quiet pleasure. Certain stylistic oddities surprised me, such as the sudden appearance of a narrative "I" after over 200 pages ! Howells has been quite neglected in recent times: for sure, he may not be a Dostoevsky, Balzac, or Faulkner, but don't brush him off.
Rating:
Summary: Must read for every "Enron" manager
Review: This is a must read book and provides a glimpse of business morals in the nineteenth century. Read first, Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age" and Charles Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit". Silas' 'rise' is not ironic unless accumulation of wealth is your only value. While his monetary assets may shrink, his family 'prospers' in many ways. Clearly, Howells makes the point that honest work can bridge the gap of old rich and new. Commerce is not inherently bad, but it does ask the question, how far should one go in disclosure and protecting others from their potential investment folly.
Rating:
Summary: A perfectly symmetrical novel -- literally.
Review: To the page, this book is symmetrical in its structure. It opens with a public confession (to a reporter) and ends with a private one (to a priest). In the exact center comes Lapham's moment of realization when he is drunk at a party. There is more to the structure, but that should be enough to get you going.
A reviewer below calls Lapham a 'mogul with a conscience' which is accurate. The true core of this book is the way Howells carefully built it, though. Considering it comes from an age before modernism, it certainly feels quite modern. Give it a shot.
Rating: 
Summary: A very forgettable novel
Review: William Dean Howells is an unjustly neglected American Renaissance author; his prose is more readable today than Clemmens, Hawthorne or Melville. His background as a journalist no doubt helps. The Lapham family is a delight to spend a couple of hundred pages with, as they interact and ultimately fall prey to Boston brahmin society. Silas Lapham is a self-made man who scores a killing in paint from his dad's farm; he becomes a self-unmade man. You get absorbed in the world Howells describes. Especially good reading on a plane.
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