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Rating: 
Summary: America the beautiful?
Review: Both Mainstreet and Babbitt are critical and realistic apraisels of life in America. More specifically mid-western America. Carl Van Doren commented saying,"Not one of them ( the contemporaries of Lewis) has kept so close to the main channel of American life as Mr. Lewis or so near to the human surface. He is part of a channel and a surface. To venture into hyperbole, not only is he one American telling stories, but he is America telling stories." These books once swept the nation with controversy due to their honesty of American life. I would recommend these books to anyone who enjoy books about people and the details concerning their lives, dreams and aspiratins. Lewis slowly draws the reader into the ever intricate and mediocre lives of the characters. While the stories are rarely fast paced they are certainly worth the read. If I had to make any recommendation I would advise reading Babbitt first due to the fact that it is more involving and fluid than Mainstreet. In addition to the two novels this book is published under a beautiful binding made to library standards. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: America the beautiful?
Review: Both Mainstreet and Babbitt are critical and realistic apraisels of life in America. More specifically mid-western America. Carl Van Doren commented saying,"Not one of them ( the contemporaries of Lewis) has kept so close to the main channel of American life as Mr. Lewis or so near to the human surface. He is part of a channel and a surface. To venture into hyperbole, not only is he one American telling stories, but he is America telling stories." These books once swept the nation with controversy due to their honesty of American life. I would recommend these books to anyone who enjoy books about people and the details concerning their lives, dreams and aspiratins. Lewis slowly draws the reader into the ever intricate and mediocre lives of the characters. While the stories are rarely fast paced they are certainly worth the read. If I had to make any recommendation I would advise reading Babbitt first due to the fact that it is more involving and fluid than Mainstreet. In addition to the two novels this book is published under a beautiful binding made to library standards. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Relevant to today's Society
Review: I read "Main Street" several years ago. It impressed me then and the memory of it has stayed with me. I had previously read "Babitt" and "Arrowsmith" which were both good novels but neither compared to "Main Street". Both previous novels poked fun at small town middle America. As a resident of North Dakota, I got a good chuckle over Lewis's portrayal of Arrowsmith's brief trip to our fair state. My recollections of "Babitt" are that it was rather satirical in its' imagery of a shallow well-to-do man. All of us could chuckle at him because he reminded us of so many people we knew. The impact of "Main Street", to me, is how we see the world through the eyes of the main character; the doctor's wife. She is a real person dealing with real observations about real people in a real community. Something in her clicks and says, "this is all too shallow, too plastic, too predetermined". We agree with her and yet feel somewhat uncomfortable in doing so because there is so much that she questions and much of it we have already accepted. I was extremely impressed with Lewis's portrayal of this feminine character and how he chose her (as opposed, for example, to her husband) to be the eyes of his reality. For that time and place, it was, I think, a bold move on the author's part. And it works! I remeber the impact of her questioning her relationship with her husband. It almost seemed like a scene out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This book was the one that made Lewis notorious in his own home town. I expected to have to appreciate the times to be able to appreciate the book. I found myself sensing issues and scenarios that are just as common and real today. If you only have time for one book by America's first Nobel Prize-winning author, I recommend that you select this one to read. You won't be sorry!
Rating:
Summary: Relevant to today's Society
Review: I read "Main Street" several years ago. It impressed me then and the memory of it has stayed with me. I had previously read "Babitt" and "Arrowsmith" which were both good novels but neither compared to "Main Street". Both previous novels poked fun at small town middle America. As a resident of North Dakota, I got a good chuckle over Lewis's portrayal of Arrowsmith's brief trip to our fair state. My recollections of "Babitt" are that it was rather satirical in its' imagery of a shallow well-to-do man. All of us could chuckle at him because he reminded us of so many people we knew. The impact of "Main Street", to me, is how we see the world through the eyes of the main character; the doctor's wife. She is a real person dealing with real observations about real people in a real community. Something in her clicks and says, "this is all too shallow, too plastic, too predetermined". We agree with her and yet feel somewhat uncomfortable in doing so because there is so much that she questions and much of it we have already accepted. I was extremely impressed with Lewis's portrayal of this feminine character and how he chose her (as opposed, for example, to her husband) to be the eyes of his reality. For that time and place, it was, I think, a bold move on the author's part. And it works! I remeber the impact of her questioning her relationship with her husband. It almost seemed like a scene out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This book was the one that made Lewis notorious in his own home town. I expected to have to appreciate the times to be able to appreciate the book. I found myself sensing issues and scenarios that are just as common and real today. If you only have time for one book by America's first Nobel Prize-winning author, I recommend that you select this one to read. You won't be sorry!
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful edition of two important American novels
Review: These two novels have changed their reason for importance since they were written. When new, they were very current. Full of fashionable slang, capturing the rising tide of America's urbanization, female independence, new machines, greater sexual license, and the pressures all this put on an agrarian culture. Now they capture memories of a time that seems more distant than it is. All of it seems so innocent and simple. Yes, the writing is very good if not great and the characters still do live, but their context is a memory.
Lewis' writing is certainly effective, memorable, and attractive. All reasons to keep reading him and enjoying the stories and thinking about what he has to say. I think what keeps him from being timeless is that it seems to be all about evoking a time and place. There is certainly nothing wrong in doing that; it is just that as the times change the writing may not survive being transplanted into the new context. I think it is a testament to the author's power that he is still read and lives in our present, even if his influence continues to diminish.
At the end of "Main Street" when Carol Kennicott says, "But I have won in this: I've never excused my failures by sneering at my aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them." I think we admire her. However, when she continues, "I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dishwashing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith." any intended irony is made more strange by the added irony of history and cultural change since these words were written. It all feels more distant and even unnecessarily argued given where we are now. Do young people today even wash dishes? Europe generous?
The name Babbitt lives on as a kind of archetype. When someone is called a Babbitt, everyone of a certain age and older knows exactly what is meant. When I grew up in the `60s he was revived as an epithet for our parents' generation and yet the baby boomers became more conformist and materialistic than any previous generation. Maybe that is why we haven't taught George F. Babbitt and his exploits to our children as well as we might have.
The perfect sentence for Babbitt is, I think: "Nothing gave Babbitt more purification and publicity than his labors for the Sunday School." Will anything else help you understand his character more fully?
The Library of America is a largely magnificent series of very handsomely done editions that are of such quality that they are permanent additions to your library. I love having them on my shelf. They are a joy to read, hold, and admire. In addition to the two novels there is a chronology of Lewis' life that serves as a mini-bio, John Hersey provided the notes on the text. A fine edition of two important American novels.
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