20th Century Classic and Intrigue

You could say that Main Street is a classic. Written in 1920 it was the book noted when Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize. He also won the Pulitzer Price at a later date. Main Street is about life in a little Minnesota town, based on Lewis' home town of Sauk City. Karen and I visited his boyhood home and the Sinclair Lewis Interprative Center when we were in Minnesota.

What I've learned from reading about him since is that he had an unhappy childhood, adult hood and later life. He took out his displeasure in life on the people of Sauk City. At least, that's what's always said. It's true that the people in Lewis' imaginary town of Gopher Prairie have very narrow minds and limited lives. When the heroine comes to town she wants to move the people from these narrow views, open them up and enlighten them. Two things struck me about this.

First, it reminded me a lot of a series I read some time ago about Miss Mapp and Lucia. Lucia moves to a small English village and wants to raise the cultural level of all around her. Carol Kennicott of Gopher Prairie doesn't hold a candle to dear Lucia in pretentiousness. What's interesting is that both Main Street and Queen Lucia (the first in the series) were written at the same time. Maybe this dissatisfaction with parochialism was beginning to fester after the first world war.

The second thing is Mrs. Kennicott moves to Washington, D.C. for a time and learns that the behaviors she doesn't like in Gopher Prairie are to be found everywhere. Not that the world isn't a much more exciting place in D.C., but people is people wherever you go. I will keep that in mind as I take time to experience D.C. up close.

I have also read The Defection of A.J. Lewinter. I read Robert Littell's book, Legends, and like very much how he writes. This book is pretty amusing. A scientist defects to Russia during the cold war. Littell writes about the Russians who have received this unexpected "gift" and the Americans who are trying to figure out if they have lost a great deal when Lewinter left the country. It is interesting in showing both sides pondering what the other side may be thinking, how they are analyzing the other's reaction.

It is also good in showing life in Moscow and Washington at that time. I like the Russian's attempt to explain the facts of life in this communist city to a person who hasn't done the proper research before making this leap. I liked Legends better, but this is a good book.