Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Main Street and the Irony

I just finished reading Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, courtesy of Kindle and Gutenberg.org. The book was published in 1920 and the story takes place in a fictional Minnesota town, Gopher Prairie, through the time before the beginning of World War I to a couple of years after the end of it.

Funny thing about the awards for this book was that, at first, the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, but the Board of Trustees of Pulitzer overturned the Jury’s decision and the award went to Edith Wharton, possibly over the hullabaloo it created in Minnesota. Then, in 1931, Sinclair Lewis was awarded the Nobel prize, and of his works, Main Street was cited together with Arrowsmith.

The book’s language edges on the lyrical, and the writing style is excellent, although the descriptions, as beautiful as they may be, are overdone. The plot was okay, yet the main character rubbed me the wrong way. But then, I love the literary genre and am ready to accept most anything it offers.

The main character is a free-spirited, liberal woman, and although the literary circles tout her as a powerful female protagonist, I found her to be self-serving, brazen, ineffective, and just as annoying as the (entirely Republican) town she’s trying to beautify. In addition, her values remain on the exterior of the idea of beauty. She could have been a stronger, less whiny and impulsive, and more effective character, and she could have respected other human beings more. Plus, I just wonder why the author made her husband to be so tolerant, affectionate, and understanding although he didn’t care too much for his wife’s escapades. I felt the husband was the better person, a hard-to-come-by even in today’s world.

Anyhow, at the end of the novel, Carol, the main character, points to her second child’s head and part of what she says to her husband is sort of a prophecy for future. I thought it was satirical what the main character Carol predicted for the year 2000. Here it is:

“Do you see that object on the pillow? Do you know what it is? It’s a bomb to blow up smugness. If you Tories were wise, you wouldn’t arrest anarchists; you’d arrest all these children while they’re asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will see and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000. She may see an industrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to Mars.”

What an irony that almost the whole world now has unions, and probably due to fiscal crisis all over the place, the bargaining power is taken from the hands of workers, starting in Wisconsin and leaking to Minnesota, where Sinclair Lewis placed his fictional Gopher Prairie!

http://theuptake.org/2011/03/14/minn-gop-hears-to-strip-teachers-bargaining-righ...