Book Review: Arrowsmith (Lewis)
Have I read this before: I feel like I started reading this back in junior high (I distinctly remember seeing a copy on the library bookshelves at school) but I must have thought “oh god this is hard” and stopped.
(It wasn’t hard to read; I was just an idiot.)
Review: This book was absolutely not what I was expecting, but was still quite enjoyable. It was a bit dry, but not unbearably so. It was actually quite interesting reading this book given the current COVID climate today, as a decent portion of the book deals with an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the Caribbean and how ethics play into testing and distributing a treatment to those infected. COVID obviously isn’t as serious as the plague, but the discussion of the development of a treatment for the plague, distribution of it, and the ethics of it all seem very…relatable.
Favorite Part: Some of Lewis’ short, blunt descriptions are great.
“Professor Max Gottlieb was about to assassinate a guinea pig with anthrax germs, and the bacteriology class were nervous.”
“Like all ardent agnostics, Martin was a religious man.”
“Clif Clawson, at forty, was gross.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Babbitt (Lewis)
Have I read this before: I think I tried to read it in junior high, but didn’t get very far.
Review: Have you conformed to the standards of middle-class living? Then you, my friend, are a Babbitt! Lewis does a great job of expressing a pestering suffocation that goes along with living the supposed “American Dream” that, for Babbitt, really just consists of sleepwalking through life, work, and societal pressures. It’s quite depressing, of course, but also unsurprisingly still relatable even today. I remember a lot of my friends had very high ambitions in high school/college, but the majority of them now (at least from what I can tell) are really just…existing in a very confined societal role. It’s sad.
Favorite Part: There’s nothing that stood out to me, but that was sort of the point. Babbitt exists in monotony and, though he considers it, cannot escape but praises those who do.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Main Street (Lewis)
Have I read this before: I don’t think so. When I chose this book I thought I’d read it in junior high as one of my first books off my list, but I feel like I certainly would have remembered this story if I had.
Review: The alternate title for this should have been “An Anti-Tourism Pamphlet for the Small Town American Midwest.” I get that it’s a satirical take on small towns in the US, but holy crap. Lewis does do a good job of making Gopher Prairie (one of the said small towns) incredibly unappealing to Carol, the main character who came from a bigger city, but very homey and endearing to her husband, who is from the town. This was a very frustrating (but engaging) read because it’s hundreds of pages of Carol trying to better the town, the townspeople shutting down her ideas, Carol trying to conform to their ways, the townspeople shunning her because of where she came from, and this constant war she has with herself over feeling like she is basically losing every aspect of herself by being beaten down by the small town life (and trying to conform to it) and feeling guilty about wanting out and wanting to go back to the city.
Favorite part: As someone who grew up in a relatively small town (Moscow) and moved to a big city (Calgary), I really related to Will (Carol’s husband) upon returning to Gopher Prairie after an extended time away. He finds joy in the smallest, simplest changes about the town that he notices, like a new sign on a store or a neighbor’s new roof. I feel like I have that same sort of reaction every time I go back to Moscow, haha.
Rating: 7/10
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