Book For The Week: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Main Street

by

Sinclair Lewis

Snuggled down into my train seat while one small town after another sped past the window, through Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa, and then Nebraska was certainly an appropriate time for me, curled up with my kindle,  to finish reading Main Street by Sinclair Lewis.   Half way through the book when I climbed onto the train,  I reached the end of it about the middle of  Nebraska.  A contact had blogged about Sinclair Lewis last year.  I had not been exposed to him in school like most Americans so he was a new author to me.   His topics seemed interesting so I decided to start with his most famous work to see how I liked him.  Main Street is a novel that tells the story of a young woman named Carol.   She is a  college educated woman who works as a librarian in Minneapolis.  At a social gathering,  mutual acquaintances introduce her and a single doctor from a small town upstate.  After a year of dating during his visits to the city, they are married and he takes her home to "Gopher Prairie".    The next four hundred or so pages explain how Carol experiences the disillusionment of marriage and the frustrations of arriving in a small town as a newcomer.  Carol is in many respects rather silly as she is young and has a lot to learn.   Never the less,  the way that the author is able to capture her experience and express it is amazing.    Although written around 1920,  I found the book  remains in touch with the small town experience in our country today.   Having experienced both marriage  and moving  into small towns as an outsider more than once in my life,  I found this a book that while reading  I could nod and say that I knew exactly where Carol was coming from more often than I rolled my eyes at her immaturity.   In fact,  as the story progressed,  she matured.   It is required reading for many students and perhaps if I had read it as a young person and had not the experiences I have had that made the story  real  for me,  I may not have liked it as well.   On the other hand,  reading it from the perspective that I now have,  I not only very much liked the book,  but I admire Sinclair Lewis' skill in not only being able to pick up on the experience but to express that experience in novel form.   Among the books read and listened to on audio in 2012,  Main Street by Sinclair Lewis will be in my top ten.  Click on the book title and author's name above to follow links to more information.