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: Babbitt Ariseth From the Ashes
Review: When the 20's were bursting out all over, we find the antithesis of the Fitzgeraldian hero, a 40 something, unoriginal, humpty dumpty, but groomed sort of fellow called Babbitt. Babbitt's secret desire is to live again, not in the suburban sense, but in a wild and colorful way, and he supresses it until he finally bursts and makes a complete ass of himself. He throws away his Boosterism, his faithful but bland wife, and converges on his quiet midwestern city of Zenith with a fervor that will rock the tabloids and fuel the gossips until the second coming of Christ. Realizing that the futility of his efforts will not free him from the dyed in the wool masses, Babbit submits to becoming a cog in the machine and finally realizes his ambitions through his offspring in a dying F.U. to Zenith and to the world. Hurray for Chicken Croquets and Lettuce Sandwiches, and a toast to Sinclair Lewis who has had entirely to many already.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic - yet somewhat pedantic and tedious
Review: Yes, Babbitt is an undeniable classic. Yes, Sinclair Lewis provides biting satire of the middle-aged conservative middle class white male that made a profound impact on both literature and society in general; he did, needless to say, coin the term for the conformist and prosaic middle class individual with his title character, Babbitt. Laudable. Genuinely laudable.
Be that as it may, I do not need a whole book that, by the way is far from riveting, to preach to me ad nauseam of the dangers of conformity and capitulation to the powers that be. Much better books out there actually(get this!) disseminate this message in a much more subtle and much less pedantic and didactic manner(e.g. A Clockwork Orange, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, 1984, & The Razor's Edge to name just a few). Painfully, Lewis incessantly introduces us to a slew of new unendearing and banal characters whose roles in the novel are less than substantive, if not just totally pointless. Lewis remains one of the best-selling American novelists of the 20th Century. That being said, he fails to belong in my opinion, however, in the 1st tier of truly sublime 20th Century literary talent such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, or even Vonnegut and Salinger.
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