Columnist Alice B. Lloyd, writing for The weekly standardrecently published an article about the novel’s renewed popularity can’t happen here by Sinclair Lewis. That 1944 book about the fictional election of a president who comes to rule the United States as a dictator has been a bestseller since Donald Trump took office.
Instead of praising the importance of that book, Lloyd reveals in his column that he described can’t happen here as one of Sinclair Lewis’ more disappointing efforts. She admits that the Minnesota author, in addition to being the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, she has at least four novels that are more relevant today than me.It can’t happen here.
His classic about a small-town realtor in the fictional Minnesota town of Zenith, a novel titled Babbitt after his main character, he is the first listed by Lloyd in his column. the next is Main Streetan early feminist account of the ambitious wife of a small town doctor.
It is also included as a novel in Lloyd’s List dodsworth, which chronicles the troubled marriage and adjustment of life of a retired automobile magnate. The final novel centers on the hypocrisy of a traveling evangelist named Elmer Gantry, which was made into a popular movie starring Burt Lancaster as the main character.
The list omits an even better examination of religion in the United States, a novel called the seeker of god. This virtually forgotten Sinclair Lewis book is set in pre-Civil War America, but his message is quite relevant to the religious turmoil we’re experiencing today.
Aaron Gadd is a teenager when the book begins, working as a carpenter’s apprentice in a small town in New Jersey. After hearing an evangelist at a revival, Aaron is convinced to join the man’s missionary camp in the unstable territory that would eventually become the state of Minnesota.
As the missionaries attempt to bring the teachings of Jesus to the Sioux tribesmen on the plain, Aaron ultimately finds himself questioning the many inexplicable aspects at the heart of Christianity. Through his association with those he was supposed to convert, the young missionary learns to appreciate the faith of the Native Americans around him.
A Dakota tribesman named Black Wolf has Gadd consider some of the eccentric rituals of Christianity, which he claims are more implausible than those involved in his people’s worship.
“Naturally, since we know our God permeates every inch of space, we hold no place sacred to him,” Black Wolf tells Aaron. “Christians dare not worship together unless they have built an isolated refuge against evil spirits, and this they call a church, a chapel, or a temple.”
Aaron has to admit that worship should be done everywhere, just as the Dakotas believe. He also doubts, once pointed out by Black Wolf, the Christian practice of setting aside Sunday for worship.
“Christians have a special day that is sacred to their main god, while for Indians every day, hour and minute is filled with duty and gratitude towards God,” Black Wolf tells Gadd. “His voice of him is in every breeze, in every flowing water, to be revered as much at midnight on a Wednesday as at noon on a Sunday.”
Black Wolf also makes Aaron question the ritual of Christian marriages in comparison to the Dakota and other tribes, who are outraged by the pomposity of the wedding ceremony.
“The suggestive rites and hideous jokes of public marriage are the most horrible of all,” Black Wolf says of the typical Christian wedding. “Between us Dakotas, marriage is a strictly private matter between a man and a woman who run away for a while to consummate their marriage only in full view of the stars and clouds.”
In the seeker of god Sinclair Lewis has shown Americans that it’s okay to question their faith from time to time and allow themselves to hear how they may be perceived by other cultures. With the religious and cultural divide among the citizens of the United States today, many of us could benefit from reading a book from 1949 that, somewhat sadly, addresses many of the problems we face today.