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Summary: 1920s America: hypocracy and religion in an ugly mix
Review: Sinclair Lewis is perhaps best known for his perceptive yet restrained look at the changing American society during the 1920s with his justly famous trio 'Main Street', 'Babbitt', and 'Arrowsmith'. However in 1927 Lewis took off his gloves and decided to hit below the belt with a real bruiser of a novel, 'Elmer Gantry' - a dark and ugly look at shyster evangelists, gullible middle Americans, and the endless in-fighting between Christian sects. Is 'Elmer Gantry' a successful deviation from Lewis's previous works? Yes, very much so.'Elmer Gantry' is about a young, fiesty man who decides on becoming a preacher because, well, he thought it would be a good way of making some easy money. He seems hardly religious, if not agnostic/atheistic. In fact most everyone in the clergy seem to have doubts about holy word. Elmer claws his way to the top, trampling what few friends he has along the way. In this world it seems that only the wicked thrive. Very depressing, yet compelling. My only complaint with 'Elmer Gantry' is that there are several slow areas. In Elmer's life he seems to wander from ministry to ministry, from scandal to scandal. Often these seem like lateral transitions and ... it makes for dull reading. But fortunately these lapses are short-lived. Bottom line: an extremely harsh, and probably overly cynical look at organised Christain followings in early 20th century America. An extremely controversial book when originally released that still unsettles believers and non-believers alike. Recommended.
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Summary: One of my favorites
Review: The slang is dated, and today's technology isn't foreseen, but the human nature is exactly the same. You can envision Jimmy Swaggert, James Bakker, Paula White or any of the other innumerable other TV evangelist charlatans in a hot second, when you read about Elmer's true nature as a womanizing, conniving, deceptive hypocrite. Of course, Elmer would have been unfrocked a bit sooner by today's prying media, or would he? Look at Swaggert, whose sins are like Elmer's, and whose "repentance" absolutely mirrors Elmer's at the end of the book. He still fills up the churches like Elmer did. What "Elmer Gantry" really proves is that the American mind is still fertile ground for would-be messiahs, no matter how base and hypocritical they are in real life. Indeed, the book makes you wonder if all religion hasn't always been thus. Today's Catholic child abuse scandals, the Taliban destruction of art, and Pat Robertson's political ambitions surely argue that "Elmer Gantry" is not some simple, anti-religious tract. In that respect, the book is ultimately useful. Indeed, this book may be one of the most valuable books of the 20th Century in that it helped thwart the American recurring tendency toward theocracy. Where is the book's kind today?
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Summary: Was Elmer Gantry the model for the televangelists?
Review: The timing of "Elmer Gantry" (1927) is consistent with its being a fictionalization of the careers of Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson. But parallels with real-world history played little part in the book's success. At a time when a large majority of believers were repulsed by the antics of flamboyant "hot gospel" evangelists, "Elmer Gantry" touched a lot of receptive nerves. ...
When the movie, "Elmer Gantry," was released, the suggestion was raised that Gantry was modeled after Billy Graham. Since Graham was still a child when the book was written, the suggestion was nonsense. But it probably sold a lot of tickets.
Ultimately, the identification of Gantry and Falconer as real people is peripheral, even irrelevant, to the book's appeal. Lewis portrayed barnstorming preachers as lying humbugs, and every time a Jimmy Swaggart or a Jim Bakker is exposed as exactly that, persons tempted to write a book on such a subject are reminded that it has already been done - incomparably. While Lewis portrayed all religion as something less than a force for good, he did so in a low-key manner that enabled moderate believers to rationalize that the book's target was only extremist, flamboyant religions, not their own conservative sects. Lewis won a Nobel Prize for his literature, and "Elmer Gantry" leaves little doubt that it was well deserved.
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