• Title: Babbitt
• Author: Sinclair Lewis
• Genre/Subject: American Literature
• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication Date: 1922
• Start date: 6/23/24
• Finish date: 7/2/24

Review:

This was an extraordinary novel, and I was not expecting that at all. How I came to read this was due to a trivia question that I got wrong a few weeks ago. The question was: Who was the first American author to receive a Pulitzer Prize? So I looked at the choices and we had Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, and Sinclair Lewis. I figured it had to be Hemingway, but no. Sinclair Lewis. So, I decided to see who this was and what made him Pulitzer worthy. I was familiar with C.S. Lewis and Upton Sinclair but had no knowledge of Sinclair Lewis other than knowing he was a writer.

As luck would have it there was an ancient copy (1946 edition) of Babbitt on a shelf here at Neilos International World Headquarters and I decided to grab it and let’s see what I can learn.

We are introduced right away to a Mr. George F. Babbitt, of Zenith, New York. Mr. Babbitt, Georgie to his pals, is an upstanding citizen and businessman, a Booster, a Rotarian, a distinguished member of the Fraternal Order of Elks, and a practicing Presbyterian. A pillar of the Zenith community! Fade to black, roll credits… or maybe not just yet.

It quickly becomes apparent that Honest George Babbitt is crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Shady real estate deals, drinking during prohibition, fingers in all sorts of fiddles and backstreet deals. Rather than harming his reputation, it increases his esteem as he is known to his peers as a Regular Good Fellow. Those capital letters added by Sinclair Lewis.

If you’ve ever read Milton’s Paradise Lost you will find it difficult not to root for Satan, so it is with Babbitt. I found myself constantly saying things like, “Hope he closes that deal, man that is dirty but he’ll make a pile” or “Georgie, get out of there before you get caught!”

As the narrative moves along Babbitt’s star starts to rise, then fall, then rise again. And the best part is, I have known many Babbitts in my life and it’s crazy accurate. Service clubs seem to grow these Babbitts in a vat out behind the hall. All these backslapping Regular Fellas that meet and network and do not give one flying fuck about you, the community, the poor, Gladys Knight and the Pips, nothing but their own soft flabby asses matter.

Babbitt however, begins to doubt his convictions like how a churchgoer eventually begins to figure out that it’s all make believe. In the business community of Zenith, like in religion, this is intolerable and slowly Babbitt gets pushed farther and farther away from the circle of firelight into the outer darkness.

The prose is glorious, poetic in parts even. Like this: “He wandered home and found his wife radiant with the horrified interest we have in the tragedies of our friends.” or “They came out into a treacherous summer night, the air lazy and a little moon above transfigured maples.”

Unsurprisingly Babbitt was highly controversial when it came out in 1922. That’s the same year Joyce’s Ulysses came out, so if you were into controversy that was a banner year.

This book was an exquisite piece of literature and it was a joy to read. This deserves nothing less than the coveted Neilosian 5 stars. Get a copy, borrow this one, read it. Here endeth the lesson.