Cass Timberlane by Sinclair Lewis

[keilj]

The best novel about marriage that I've ever read.

This book centers on courtship and marriage - with most of it being about the marriage itself. It is typical Lewis prose, and is set in a midwest town (as usual for Lewis). The book drags a bit in the middle, but the last 80 or so pages are outstanding, so it is well worth getting through the set-up to get to the ending.

Between some of the chapters, there are occasionally some short passages about fictional marriages, and some of these passages are outstanding and quite touching.

But the biggest strength of the book is Lewis' examination of marriage/love/heartache/romantic trust. It is done artfully and unforgettably, and I would think that it will be hard to top this book for tackling those issues well.

[dfloyd]

And I do believe that I read this one when I was very young and did not much care about marriage. After reading Babbitt, Main Street, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith, Doddsworth, and It Can't Happen Here, I was a confirmed Lewis fan. After these, the last few I read I considered not up to par. These include Cass Timberlane and Kingsblook Royal ....that is they weren't as well written as his earlier novels. Toward the end of his life, Lewis, a heavy drinker, suffered from cirrhosis, and I have always felt this affected his novels of this period. Unless you are a dedicated Lewis fan, don't waste your time on Cass or Kingsblood. Anyway, as Carol Kennicott might have said in her usual pungent brevity, 'Happily Married is an Oxymoron.'

[keilj]

And I do believe that I read this one when I was very young and did not much care about marriage. After reading Babbitt, Main Street, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith, Doddsworth, and It Can't Happen Here, I was a confirmed Lewis fan. After these, the last few I read I considered not up to par. These include Cass Timberlane and Kingsblook Royal ....that is they weren't as well written as his earlier novels. Toward the end of his life, Lewis, a heavy drinker, suffered from cirrhosis, and I have always felt this affected his novels of this period. Unless you are a dedicated Lewis fan, don't waste your time on Cass or Kingsblood. Anyway, as Carol Kennicott might have said in her usual pungent bevity, 'Happily Married is an Oxymoron.'

Yeah I should qualify my review and say that this book is probably not for the young. When reading about Cass' loss of his wife to a rival, I knew I would not have appreciated those chapters without having suffered a similar loss myself. So again, this book can probably only be empathized with if someone has suffered a deep romantic loss, and not just the fleeting loses that young lovers might encounter

However, before dismissing this book as "don't waste your time", I would like to know of better, realistic, books about marriage. I don't think the Jane Austen/Bronte sisters novels of romance and love come close to the realism and pathos in Cass Timberlane

PS - I appreciate your comments - it's good to know that at least someone has read Lewis!

[The Comedian]

I've always wanted to get more into Lewis -- I have a copy of Main Street around here that I've never gotten around to -- This novel too looks pretty good. Thanks for the review.

[dfloyd]

A young girl, Carol, fresh out of college marries the young Dr. Kennicott. They move to Gopher Prairie, MN where the Doc sets up practice. Carol. an idealist and psuedo intelectual, is soon repressed by the bucolic atmosphere and mediocrity of the denizens of Gopher Prarie who conduct all social and business intercourse on its Main Street. Her feeling of repression finally comes to the fore when one of villages leading citizens asks her how she likes Gopher Prarie. She replies, 'I think it's an ash heap!' This is a novel of bitter satire, where his novel of more comical satire, Babbitt, is my personal favorite. I think the Coen brothers could make a fantastic movie of Main Street.

After it was published Babbitt or Babbittonian became common words in the English language. No one in the 20th century could write more biting satire than Sinclair Lewis. Using George Follensbee Babbitt as his protaganist, and not a a likeable one, but a bumbling oaf of one, a business man (real estate) who stands for what Lewis felt was the mediocrity pervading American business, Lewis attacks clubism, boosters, Chataqua camps, and even poets who publish in the newspapers. His poet of the newspaper was a parody of the real newspaper poet, Edgar Guest. This prompted Doprothy Parker to lament, 'Id' rather flunk my Wasserman test, than read a poem by Eddie Guest."

[keilj]

Incidentally, this book contained one of the best author's forwards that I have ever read. It is quoted below:


"The scene of this story, the small city of Grand Republic in Central Minnesota, is entirely imaginary, as are all the characters.

But I know that the characters will be "identified,'' each of them with several different real persons in each of the Minnesota cities in which I have happily lingered: in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Winona, St. Cloud, Mankato, Fergus Falls and particularly, since it is only a little larger than "Grand Republic" and since I live there, in the radiant, sea-fronting, hillside city of Duluth.

All such guesses will be wrong, but they will be so convincing that even the writer will be astonished to learn how exactly he has drawn some judge or doctor or banker or housewife of whom he has never heard, or regretful to discover how poisonously he is supposed to have described people of whom he is particularly fond.

SINCLAIR LEWIS"