Prove It!

Today is the birthday of the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature: Sinclair Lewis. Famous for his anti-provincialism, I know a thing or two about him mostly for provincial reasons. He was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, I in Sauk City, Wisconsin. Moreover, a man named Mark Schorer was born in my hometown and went on to head the English department at UC-Berkeley and write the definitive biography of Lewis. With delusions of academia in my head I read his bio as a scholarly example of what a kid from the sticks could do.

Lewis' first 5 novels did nothing, but Main Street was a scandalous success. As The Writer's Almanac puts it:

"No one had ever written such a fierce attack on small-town American life. Lewis described the people in his fictional Gopher Prairie as 'a savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world.'"

Ouch. 'Course by my day we had cable.

Lewis aimed his scathing wit at Chamber of Commerce Boosterism in Babbitt, evangelists in Elmer Gantry, and potential American fascists in It Can't Happen Hear. Schorer points out that of his major novels the only one with a truly heroic figure is Arrowsmith. In it an idealistic medical doctor ranges from small town doctor to public health official to medical school instructor to foundation researcher all while battling small-minded hicks, academic politics and the constant pressure for new glorious and lucrative discoveries. In the end who runs off to do his own research like a latter-day Thoreau. He stays true to the ideal: the relentless skepticism of the scientific method.

Ah, those detached, awkward Sauk boys. Always good for a snide remark.