In 1921, when Sinclair Lewis’s book Main Street was passed over for the Pulitzer Prize in favor of The Age of Innocence, he sent Edith Wharton a congratulatory letter expressing his admiration for her work. She responded warmly, saying that this was the “first sign I have ever had–`literally’–that `les Jeunes’ at home had ever read a word of me.” Although distressed that Lewis’s book had been rejected because it had offended certain readers, she felt that his work had brought her hope: “Some sort of standard is emerging from the welter of cant and sentimentality, and if two or three of us are gathered together, I believe we can still save Fiction in America.” Lewis and his wife came out to Saint-Brice-sous-Forˆt soon after this exchange of letters. His relationship with Wharton was cordial but not intimate. They saw each other intermittently for several years, and he dedicated his novel Babbitt to her.¹

Edith Wharton is one of the few female authors to whom I often return. Her tangled, somewhat awkward relationship with Sinclair Lewis has always sparked my curiosity. Depending one whom one references, Edith’s note was laced with some irony. Last month I finally checked out a copy of Lewis’s Main Street from the library.

Lewis’s Main Street is criticized for failing to transcend the vice-like perspective of its heroine, Carol Milford. That is, to say, Lewis’s novel is not buoyantly American, per se. It is a satire meant to dissolve the romance and sentimentalism America often attributes to rural, small-town life. I approached Main Street prepared for an academic dissection, a cold-witted lab project that would dismember Lewis and point to his failure to become a “great American novelist,” an ambition after which he earnestly (not, as is in vogue, ironically) chased. It would be a lesson in what not to do, how not to stumble over oneself in the path. “Maintain a shrewd, academic distance,” I told myself, then just as soon forgot it.

But occasionally I find a character, author, or plot-line that strips me of the illusion of individuality. It pins those parts of myself that I find most sacred (or shameful) to a humble highway billboard for all to see. And although it may be possible to view one’s hidden self with a critical eye, one cannot escape the embarrassment of self-revelation. Indeed Main Street digs up that self-condemned part of your heart–whether it be a root of romantic populism, idealistic dreams of reform, or fanciful notions of self-autonomy–and exposes its futility.

This novel, like any, has its flaws. It is too clever. At points, it feels hackneyed, theatrically contrived. What sparse and eventual redemption Lewis summons at the end does little to redeem Main Street. But whatever its shortcomings, this novel becomes personal. To laugh at Carol is to laugh at oneself. To ridicule Carol is to ridicule oneself. To defend Carol is to defend oneself.

Although he is also a Nobel prize-winner, Sinclair Lewis is no Edith Wharton. And as you read Main Street you recognize that no one was more conscious of shortcoming than Sinclair Lewis. Lingerman, author of the biography Rebel From Main Street, noted that “[Lewis] measured American life by high standards and found it was not good enough. Yet who else depicted his country’s faults with such coruscatingly funny, ambivalently loving satire? His fiction functioned at its highest pitch when galvanized by anger at some banality or stupidity or injustice.” Those who have read Main Street should note what a striking parallel can be found between the Lewis Lingerman depicts and the heroine Lewis created. Carol Kennicutt seems to be born out of an autobiographical self-loathing and, broader still, a chagrin for “housebound and airless America.”

Lewis’s life was a maze of writers’ squabbles, alcoholism, and family tragedy. His immense popularity takes many by surprise for Sinclair Lewis’s works have all but disappeared from the American canon. Although his popularity fell as quickly as it rose, his prolific writing never flagged between the years 1912-51. Neither did his displeasure for American Arts and Academe in which Lewis found “the divorce in America of intellectual life from all authentic standards of importance and reality” personified. He made more enemies than friends prior to death and Lewis’s legacy was unfairly tarnished by an unfortunate biographer, the kind one wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, the kind of biographer that hates his subject second only to himself by the time the scribbled manuscript is typeset.

Yet even the notoriously vindictive Mark Schorer, whose spiteful Sinclair Lewis biography was published within the decade Lewis died, begrudgingly admits that although “[Lewis] was one of the worst writers in modern American literature…without his writing one cannot imagine modern American literature. That is because, without his writing, we can hardly imagine ourselves….He gave us a vigorous, perhaps a unique thrust into the imagination of ourselves.”

For myself, reading Sinclair Lewis reiterated how relying on the popular “canon” can cheat us of formative works and worthy writers.  It increased my desire to hunt up the long-forgotten or oft-overlooked. It encouraged me to broaden my horizon and resist cursory judgment. I was reminded to hunt for resources in unlikely places and savor the unexpected.  Do yourself a favor: find a work that can do the same for you.  

¹The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Much has been made of its self-conscious Victorian morals, dogged naturalism, romantic nostalgia, and stringent emphasis on fate. Few authors can so forcefully shove the wheel of fortune into the center of a narrative without collapsing the structure and ending with a sour note of adolescent nihilism. On occasion, both Shakespeare and Hardy could.¹ But enough lauding.

Hardy’s MC is subtitled A Story of a Man of Character. Being “a man of character” is a Victorian, and essentially a middle class, ideal. The angst to distinguish themselves, to secure self-assurance in the upheaval of Victorian England, led the middle class to rigorously emphasize a moral education.  Eventually, the Victorian concept of “character” came to define both a social and moral standard of conduct. Middle class England² grew rapidly within the Victorian Age. As its impact on society as a whole deepened (leading in large part to the Reform Bills) in a comparitively homogeneous society, their ideals spread, affecting those of every class and creed.  

Within MC, Henchard’s ability to behave as a man of character is inexorably linked to the state of his reputation. He begins as a poverty-stricken drunkard, reeling from one village to the next with a neglected wife and child. After selling his wife and daughter to the highest bidder, Henchard’s conscience spurs him to change, to aspire to a moral and social ideal. A perfect stereotype of the rising middle class, he works his fingers to the bone, rising to a position of great wealth and authority in his community, and swears an oath against the alcoholism that plagued him in the past.  Eventually, and token of the rising civic opportunities the middle class were afforded, Henchard becomes the mayor of Casterbridge.  And in that upward social and moral narrative, three significant elements of the middle class culture are identified: power (ownership of one’s destiny), money (the right to an honest wage for an honest day’s work), and politics (the hope of affecting change).

Ironically, Henchard’s onus to both a social reputation and certain moral obligations precipitates his downfall. When, unbeknownst to the village, his long-missing wife (Susan) reappears with a grown child, he shrewdly maneuvers a courtship and remarriage with Susan so that both his moral obligation and social reputation are satisfied. The “business-like determination” with which the mayor approaches these duties was not without cost. The village, still ignorant of Henchard’s history with Susan, begins to question his reputation in marrying beneath his station. Henchard’s bumbling (step-) daughter proves an obstacle as well, since he has received litte in the way of a moral education. Elizabeth Jane proves socially incompetent and morally naive. After the death of Susan, Henchard’s reputation and character begin to unravel rapidly. While his moral deceit becomes clear in his private life, his social reputation suffers at the hands of modernization in his public life. His downward spiral becomes inevitable and Henchard sinks both morally and socially to the bottom once more.

I can’t make up my mind as to what Hardy wished to communicate. Was there any irony in his narration? Does he truly believe, as Heraclitus³ noted, that one’s “character is destiny” or is he lacing this social commentary with yet another bite of social criticism?  I favored an ironic interpretation until I reached the wedding of Lucetta and Farfrae, after which Hardy’s obligation to a moral/just ending began to alter the trajectory of the narrative.  Any opinions on the matter are welcome.

Addendum: Oh! And if you like to explore architecture and spatcal patterns in literature, MC has much to offer.

____

¹Fitting, since critics also parallel Hardy’s tale to Aristotelian tragedy.

²The middle class enveloped a broad spectrum–farmer, professors, merchants, clergy, etc.

³Hardy’s tone mirrors that of Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, whose teaching was variously interpreted as follows:

Character is fate.
A man’s character is his fate.
A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

The Figure of Writing and the Future of English Studies

Time not only reminds us of our humanity, but also betrays it on occasion. Time serves as a threat and a promise. Redeem it well; it’s a promise. Squander it, and it’s a curse. Time itself is amoral, but we allow the way in which we choose to redeem time to infuse our life with meaning.

As it so happens, I live in the bastion of industrialized, western culture: America. In America, time is money. Time seems excessively linear. You’re going forward or you’re going backwards. Use it or lose it. To do it faster is to do it better. Streamlining your life allows you to have more, be more, see more. Our concept of redeeming time is inherently wrapped up in cultural ideals.

One of the most telling mirrors of any culture is its language. So let’s examine what it means in 2000-something America to be “slow.” Morally, we associate it with idleness or laziness. Socially, we associate it with provincialism, backwardness. Intellectually? Stupidity. Idiocy. In contrast, think about the ideas you associate with the word “speed,” “fast,” or “fast-paced.” Efficiency. Effort. Power. Progress. Successful. Smart. Sharp. A step ahead. In fact, the most negative association I can drum up at the moment is “grueling,” a particularly ambivalent idea in light of the puritan work ethic.

Yet it remains popular to recognize that before “Just Do It,” “There [Was] No Finish Line.” Many scholars (i.e., Whorf) argue that time hasn’t always entailed the linear. In fact, literature often frames time as a more cyclical concept, one which is popularly associated with more traditional cultures. There is a comforting lens of nostalgia with which a beleaguered mind will often gaze on past cultures. But I think pointing backwards to another time or culture is, at best, a misinformed, albeit well-intentioned, attempt to battle the cultural presuppositions that pressure so many people to hasten already hurried lives.

With good reason, many scholars strongly disagree with those scholars that give into this notion. Barnes, critical of these dichotomizations of traditional and modern worldviews, feels that this conclusion is little more than “an amusing but ultimately sterile ballet of symbols.” So I pause here to acknowledge: just as industrialized Western time is not fully linear, traditional conceptions of time are not thoroughly cyclical. I’m not advocating a return to “simpler” or “happier” conceptions of time. (For the record, neither am I suggesting that the “cyclical” and “linear” are moral dichotomies.)

I’d be foolish to claim that old Nike slogan as a relic of another era. (Just the same, I do think “There Is No Finish Line” promotes a saner philosophy than that of “Just Do It.”) But, like many others, I sheepishly catch myself finding unhealthy comfort in an escape to the purely “cyclical,” a Never-land-of-sorts where life isn’t something you do at all. I envy the ability to live unfettered to the slavish notion that time is better spent because you spent it doing more or doing everything faster, because redeeming one’s time requires so many counter-intuitive choices.

All this talk of time well-spent reminds me of the biblical account of Lazarus’s two sisters, Martha and Mary. In the account, Jesus Christ comes to visit the sisters’ house. Martha, desiring to put him and his companions at ease, spends the visit hurrying around in order to meet the physical needs of her guests. Instead of joining Martha in the preparations, Mary spends the visit at Jesus feet, engaging in spiritual kinship through conversation. When Martha expresses her frustration with Mary to Jesus, he rebukes her for neglecting the more “needful” thing with which Mary chose to redeem her time. “Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her,” he reminds Martha.

Without being guilty of nostalgia, I think one can say that “a full life” is not simply a quantitative idea but also a qualitative one. As it is, life is like a vapor. It’s gone almost as soon as it begins. Ironically, what makes it valuable is not how little or how much we accomplish, but whether we accomplish the needful thing, in itself an extensive topic. I’m suspicious that our concept of “well-spent” time is irreparably molded to our cultural expectations. Ultimately, whether one is content or dissatisfied with the tempo of their life, our susceptibility to cultural norms should cause everyone pause (no pun intended). How do we measure time well-spent? What informs that perception? Do my choices connect to that needful thing?

I know this isn’t the post you’ve come to expect, but my cultural research pollutes everything these days. My sense of irony shudders at the sentimentality and seriousness in this post. I know it’s not quite up to snuff. But maybe its personal nature will make up for the rest of the literary drivel. As my wise friend S. pointed out: if you live by your successes, you die by your failures.