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Elmer Gantry
Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church--a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence--is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest ,most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire.
465 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
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About the author
Sinclair Lewis
510 books1,119 followersNovelist Harry Sinclair Lewis satirized middle-class America in his 22 works, including
Babbitt
(1922) and
Elmer Gantry
(1927) and first received a Nobel Prize for literature in 1930.
Middle-class values and materialism attach unthinking George F. Babbitt, the narrow-minded, self-satisfied main character person in the novel of Sinclair Lewis.
People awarded "his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters."
He knowingly, insightfully, and critically viewed capitalism and materialism between the wars. People respect his strong characterizations of modern women.
Henry Louis Mencken wrote, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade...it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclai...
Middle-class values and materialism attach unthinking George F. Babbitt, the narrow-minded, self-satisfied main character person in the novel of Sinclair Lewis.
People awarded "his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters."
He knowingly, insightfully, and critically viewed capitalism and materialism between the wars. People respect his strong characterizations of modern women.
Henry Louis Mencken wrote, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade...it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclai...
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October 22, 2023
The Revival of the Revival
It has always impressed me that Donald Trump’s political rallies are little more than evangelical tent meetings. These gatherings are a uniquely American institution dating to before the Revolution. They seem to run in cycles of popularity of approximately fifty years from the middle of the 18th century. What Trump has accomplished quite apart from any political disruption is the latest revival of the Revival. Elmer Gantry is a how-to manual for this kind of work and has dated very little since it was written a century ago. And if Donald Trump has never read it (which is likely), he has certainly learned how to live it, and to exploit its presence in American cultural DNA.
The central core of a tent meeting is of course the preacher. What he preaches about is not nearly as important as how he does it. He is a showman. And his audience expects a good show. Those who participate in a revival do not do so in order to learn or to consider, much less to argue, but to believe in something, anything really, with others whom they perceive as tribal members.
America is a Christian nation in at least this one important respect: believing is belonging. Belonging has historically been of great value to a folk on the edge of civilisation, living among others - other refugees, native Americans, Black slaves - with nothing in common except their location, and with constant fear of betrayal or attack. Revivalism has always been inherently racist and super (that is to say anti) natural. Even at the beginning of the 19th century, it could attract as many as 20,000 people in what was the still largely wilderness of Kentucky.
The revival creates community by giving people something to believe in and other folk who are ready to believe. Historically revivalists have believed in rather outrageous things, from the imminence of the Second Coming to the peculiar holiness of the American Republic, to the superiority of Northern European culture. The questionable character of such beliefs in other than producing feelings of spiritual camaraderie is irrelevant to the participants. Their desire to believe in order to belong is overwhelming. It is not accidental that the most notorious cults, secular as well as religious, are the product of this aspect of American culture. The historical matrix of these intensely believing, intensely belonging groups is the revival.
It is remarkable how the grifting personality of Lewis’s protagonist captures the social essence of Trump:
Elmer’s electoral as well as clerical shenanigans are Trumpian in their shameless determination to dominate. But also in their obvious plea for acceptance. He needs his audience desperately as he plays on their need for belonging:
Elmer, like Trump, is a creation of his audience: “He had but little to do with what he said. The willing was not his but the mob's; the phrases were not his but those of the emotional preachers and hysterical worshipers whom he had heard since babyhood.” The lack of originality is crucial. What he says must be familiar, resonating not with thought or reason but with forgotten emotion. It is his sense of inarticulate feelings that is the source of his power.
Little does his audience know however that they will become more and more like him, and that what that means is literally diabolical because: “He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.” Elmer and Trump use religious language not because they believe it but because it is the opening to any amount of counter-factual nonsense: “Why is that it's only in religion that the things you got to believe are agin all experience?” This is not a query but a principle of method. Faith is impervious to experience. This is what Elmer and Trump know. Essentially anyone who believes in the Virgin Birth, Predestination, and the absolute necessity of full immersion baptism will believe anything!*
Elmer Gantry is not a period piece; it is an insight into the perennial American culture, a culture of inherent alienation. National (and nationalistic) mythology has never been sufficient to overcome the pervasive alienation among a country of immigrants. The line from George Whitfield in Savannah (and his advocacy for the reintroduction of slavery in Georgia) to Barton Stone at Cane Ridge (a sort of Te Deum for the defeat of the native Americans in the Northwest Indian Wars) to the involvement of white evangelicalism in the Jim Crow legislation after the American Civil War, to the gentile racism of Billy Graham and other 20th century fundamentalists leads directly to Trump. Elmer Gantry is not about a temporary and transient aberration in American culture but about its very constitution.
* It might appear that I am overstating the case. I am not. Tertullian, a Christian apologist of the late 2nd century explained the intellectual attitude of the new religion quite well in his dictum Credo quia absurdum -“I believe because it is absurd.” It is clear that this is the explanation for so much of modern life, particularly life with the internet. The more absurd the statements of Trump or QAnon or Tucker Carlson, the more they are taken as the way the world is. In short, The Christian idea of faith is central to American culture and generates its affection for salaciousness. It also goes a long way in explaining much of American advertising.
It has always impressed me that Donald Trump’s political rallies are little more than evangelical tent meetings. These gatherings are a uniquely American institution dating to before the Revolution. They seem to run in cycles of popularity of approximately fifty years from the middle of the 18th century. What Trump has accomplished quite apart from any political disruption is the latest revival of the Revival. Elmer Gantry is a how-to manual for this kind of work and has dated very little since it was written a century ago. And if Donald Trump has never read it (which is likely), he has certainly learned how to live it, and to exploit its presence in American cultural DNA.
The central core of a tent meeting is of course the preacher. What he preaches about is not nearly as important as how he does it. He is a showman. And his audience expects a good show. Those who participate in a revival do not do so in order to learn or to consider, much less to argue, but to believe in something, anything really, with others whom they perceive as tribal members.
America is a Christian nation in at least this one important respect: believing is belonging. Belonging has historically been of great value to a folk on the edge of civilisation, living among others - other refugees, native Americans, Black slaves - with nothing in common except their location, and with constant fear of betrayal or attack. Revivalism has always been inherently racist and super (that is to say anti) natural. Even at the beginning of the 19th century, it could attract as many as 20,000 people in what was the still largely wilderness of Kentucky.
The revival creates community by giving people something to believe in and other folk who are ready to believe. Historically revivalists have believed in rather outrageous things, from the imminence of the Second Coming to the peculiar holiness of the American Republic, to the superiority of Northern European culture. The questionable character of such beliefs in other than producing feelings of spiritual camaraderie is irrelevant to the participants. Their desire to believe in order to belong is overwhelming. It is not accidental that the most notorious cults, secular as well as religious, are the product of this aspect of American culture. The historical matrix of these intensely believing, intensely belonging groups is the revival.
It is remarkable how the grifting personality of Lewis’s protagonist captures the social essence of Trump:
“Elmer was never really liked. He was supposed to be the most popular man in college; every one believed that every one else adored him; and none of them wanted to be with him. They were all a bit afraid, a bit uncomfortable, and more than a bit resentful... Elmer assumed that he was the center of the universe and that the rest of the system was valuable only as it afforded him help and pleasure.”
Elmer’s electoral as well as clerical shenanigans are Trumpian in their shameless determination to dominate. But also in their obvious plea for acceptance. He needs his audience desperately as he plays on their need for belonging:
“The greatest urge was his memory of holding his audience, playing on them. To move people--Golly! He wanted to be addressing somebody on something right now, and being applauded!”
Elmer, like Trump, is a creation of his audience: “He had but little to do with what he said. The willing was not his but the mob's; the phrases were not his but those of the emotional preachers and hysterical worshipers whom he had heard since babyhood.” The lack of originality is crucial. What he says must be familiar, resonating not with thought or reason but with forgotten emotion. It is his sense of inarticulate feelings that is the source of his power.
Little does his audience know however that they will become more and more like him, and that what that means is literally diabolical because: “He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.” Elmer and Trump use religious language not because they believe it but because it is the opening to any amount of counter-factual nonsense: “Why is that it's only in religion that the things you got to believe are agin all experience?” This is not a query but a principle of method. Faith is impervious to experience. This is what Elmer and Trump know. Essentially anyone who believes in the Virgin Birth, Predestination, and the absolute necessity of full immersion baptism will believe anything!*
Elmer Gantry is not a period piece; it is an insight into the perennial American culture, a culture of inherent alienation. National (and nationalistic) mythology has never been sufficient to overcome the pervasive alienation among a country of immigrants. The line from George Whitfield in Savannah (and his advocacy for the reintroduction of slavery in Georgia) to Barton Stone at Cane Ridge (a sort of Te Deum for the defeat of the native Americans in the Northwest Indian Wars) to the involvement of white evangelicalism in the Jim Crow legislation after the American Civil War, to the gentile racism of Billy Graham and other 20th century fundamentalists leads directly to Trump. Elmer Gantry is not about a temporary and transient aberration in American culture but about its very constitution.
* It might appear that I am overstating the case. I am not. Tertullian, a Christian apologist of the late 2nd century explained the intellectual attitude of the new religion quite well in his dictum Credo quia absurdum -“I believe because it is absurd.” It is clear that this is the explanation for so much of modern life, particularly life with the internet. The more absurd the statements of Trump or QAnon or Tucker Carlson, the more they are taken as the way the world is. In short, The Christian idea of faith is central to American culture and generates its affection for salaciousness. It also goes a long way in explaining much of American advertising.
January 12, 2018
I am tempted to start preaching!
My dear fellow Goodreaders! We have come together to celebrate this book, the revelation of eternal truth, showing the sins of man in his most hideous shape! Read! Recant! Redeem yourselves! Listen to the words of universal wisdom, and confess! Have you ever committed the sin of vanity? Is hypocrisy foreign to you? Do you feel secret joy when you succeed in manipulating people to act in your favour?
I can't do it. I find myself recoiling in disgust even as I try copying Elmer Gantry's attitude to beat him with his own weapons. There is a bitter truth in the fact that a few vocal hypocrites with basic rhetorical skills and enough confidence to take for granted that all people should listen to them gain so much power and assemble crowds, while careful thinkers who ponder their words and look at causes and effects before they judge a situation remain in the shadows.
Elmer Gantry would have done a better job of selling the important message of the book, burning it in exaltation or yelling out his Doomsday message to the listening crowds. Or maybe his vanity would have prevented him from completely rejecting a story that is all about HIM? Not a favourable story, true, but centred around that massive ego nonetheless!
Rarely have I hated a character more than Elmer Gantry, and that is worrying, considering how many incarnations of him spread their messages around the world at the moment.
His ambitious mother sets the stage for him, wishing for him to become a preacher to satisfy her vanity. Elmer builds a career on speaking the words of the Bible, exploiting the Christian messages to gain power and license to do whatever he desires for himself. Whenever he is caught in an act of sin (as defined by himself from the pulpit, in a show of sublime hypocrisy), he uses the tools of his profession to turn the case against the accusers.
It is symptomatic that he is repeatedly shown to be of mediocre intelligence, finding it hard to understand the full context of literary texts, but that he excels in implementing vocabulary to impress people of even less education:
"He wasn't altogether certain what it meant, but it had such a fine uplifting roll. 'Blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit'. Fine!"
Or, even more revealing:
"Personally, he did not find that he cared so much for Browning. There were so many lines that he had to read three or four times before they made sense, and there was so much stuff about Italy and all those wop countries.
But Browning did give him a number of new words for the notebook of polysyllables and phrases which he was to keep for years, and which was to secrete material for some of his most rotund public utterances."
It strikes me that I should actually give Gantry credit for writing down those hard polysyllables in a notebook, as most politicians nowadays would use a teleprompter or just write them on the palm of their hand? There was craft in his hypocritical speeches still!
I could add countless anecdotes from the book, proving over and over again that Elmer Gantry is a stupid, sexually abusive, narcissistic character who gets away with everything because he grasps the power of basic vocabulary that is spit out in a state of rage and indignation. He is an abominable colleague, husband, lover (if the label can even be applied to what he does to women), and Uriah Heep pales beside him in 'is 'umble approach to deceit and self-indulgence. As opposed to the rival of David Copperfield, though, Elmer Gantry does not end up spreading his poison in prison. He concludes with the confirmation that his is a pattern that will be successful in future as well, his closing words dripping with the author's sarcasm and involuntary prophetic power:
"We shall yet make these United States a moral nation!"
#MAMA?
Beware of the moral ideas of Elmer Gantry, America!
Bravo, Sinclair Lewis, I would like to say! What a brave act of honesty. What insight into the propagandistic world of preachers (of religion or ideology).
I will close with the words Voltaire used to sign letters to friends:
Écrasez l'infâme!
My dear fellow Goodreaders! We have come together to celebrate this book, the revelation of eternal truth, showing the sins of man in his most hideous shape! Read! Recant! Redeem yourselves! Listen to the words of universal wisdom, and confess! Have you ever committed the sin of vanity? Is hypocrisy foreign to you? Do you feel secret joy when you succeed in manipulating people to act in your favour?
I can't do it. I find myself recoiling in disgust even as I try copying Elmer Gantry's attitude to beat him with his own weapons. There is a bitter truth in the fact that a few vocal hypocrites with basic rhetorical skills and enough confidence to take for granted that all people should listen to them gain so much power and assemble crowds, while careful thinkers who ponder their words and look at causes and effects before they judge a situation remain in the shadows.
Elmer Gantry would have done a better job of selling the important message of the book, burning it in exaltation or yelling out his Doomsday message to the listening crowds. Or maybe his vanity would have prevented him from completely rejecting a story that is all about HIM? Not a favourable story, true, but centred around that massive ego nonetheless!
Rarely have I hated a character more than Elmer Gantry, and that is worrying, considering how many incarnations of him spread their messages around the world at the moment.
His ambitious mother sets the stage for him, wishing for him to become a preacher to satisfy her vanity. Elmer builds a career on speaking the words of the Bible, exploiting the Christian messages to gain power and license to do whatever he desires for himself. Whenever he is caught in an act of sin (as defined by himself from the pulpit, in a show of sublime hypocrisy), he uses the tools of his profession to turn the case against the accusers.
It is symptomatic that he is repeatedly shown to be of mediocre intelligence, finding it hard to understand the full context of literary texts, but that he excels in implementing vocabulary to impress people of even less education:
"He wasn't altogether certain what it meant, but it had such a fine uplifting roll. 'Blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit'. Fine!"
Or, even more revealing:
"Personally, he did not find that he cared so much for Browning. There were so many lines that he had to read three or four times before they made sense, and there was so much stuff about Italy and all those wop countries.
But Browning did give him a number of new words for the notebook of polysyllables and phrases which he was to keep for years, and which was to secrete material for some of his most rotund public utterances."
It strikes me that I should actually give Gantry credit for writing down those hard polysyllables in a notebook, as most politicians nowadays would use a teleprompter or just write them on the palm of their hand? There was craft in his hypocritical speeches still!
I could add countless anecdotes from the book, proving over and over again that Elmer Gantry is a stupid, sexually abusive, narcissistic character who gets away with everything because he grasps the power of basic vocabulary that is spit out in a state of rage and indignation. He is an abominable colleague, husband, lover (if the label can even be applied to what he does to women), and Uriah Heep pales beside him in 'is 'umble approach to deceit and self-indulgence. As opposed to the rival of David Copperfield, though, Elmer Gantry does not end up spreading his poison in prison. He concludes with the confirmation that his is a pattern that will be successful in future as well, his closing words dripping with the author's sarcasm and involuntary prophetic power:
"We shall yet make these United States a moral nation!"
#MAMA?
Beware of the moral ideas of Elmer Gantry, America!
Bravo, Sinclair Lewis, I would like to say! What a brave act of honesty. What insight into the propagandistic world of preachers (of religion or ideology).
I will close with the words Voltaire used to sign letters to friends:
Écrasez l'infâme!
May 4, 2025
“He began slowly, his great voice swelling to triumphant certainty as he talked. He preached that atonement was the one supreme fact in the world. It rendered the most sickly and threadbare equals of kings and millionaires, demanding of the successful that they make every act a recognition of the atonement. To preach the good news of the gospel, ah! For this, the Methodist missionaries had faced the ferocious lion and the treacherous fevers of the jungle, the poisonous cold of the Arctic, the parching desert and the fields of battle. There is no triumph of business so stirring, no need of a sick friend so urgent, as the call to tell the blinded and perishing sinners the need for repentance. Repentance- repentance-repentance- in the name of the Lord God!" - ‘Elmer Gantry’
“These are those that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat, for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto the fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” - Revelation 17:15-17
“We are lazy! We are not now burning with the fever of righteousness. On your knees you slothful, and pray God to forgive you and to aid you and me to form a brotherhood of the helpful, joyous, fiercely righteous followers of every commandment of the Lord Our God!” - ‘Elmer Gantry’
************
‘Elmer Gantry’ was Sinclair Lewis’ eleventh novel, published in 1927 shortly before winning the 1930 Nobel Prize. Lewis begins with Gantry enrolled in a Kansas Baptist college in 1902. He is the football team captain, a tall handsome bully who hates piety and admires drunkenness and profanity. His roommate Jim Lefferts is the football team quarterback, his personality studious and thoughtful, although he enjoys drinking and chasing women with Gantry. The college has its regular degrees in law and business, but many of the students plan to pursue careers as preachers. Gantry goes out with Lefferts, getting boozed up, picking fights for fun. Knocking out an evangelist’s heckler he becomes a center of prayer vigils for conversion.
For all of his bluster against religion Gantry had been born and bred Baptist. In his small town the church had provided everything; from art to music and literature, to theater and social gathering. His great gifts were his looks and baritone voice. He is approached by an evangelist visiting the school to save the souls of students, a football legend from Chicago. In admiration he is manipulated into testifying at a meeting, against his own instincts and to the horror of his roommate. Classmates and faculty are enraptured with his exhortations and fall into an ecstatic state. Gantry loves the command he holds over an audience. He discovers a limitless fountain of words that had been drilled in his head by church and school at his disposal.
Challenged by the Dean to have a calling from God and join the ministry Gantry drinks moonshine, convincing him he’s seen the light. Two years later he is an ordained minister in Winnemac, a fictional state invented by Sinclair Lewis when Sauk Center, Minnesota where he was born and grew up had complained about its portrayal. His popular novels ‘Babbit’, ‘Arrowsmith’ and ‘Dodsworth’ were set there. H L Mencken called it a “standardized chain store state in the Midwest”. Gantry lives in a rundown seminary finishing up his studies. He obtains a ministry in a nearby town, staying as a guest at the Deacon’s house. He repays him by seducing Lulu, his teenage daughter, and once tired of her he tries to escape her attentions.
Gantry’s fellow seminary students argue religious platitudes in sanctimonious and hypocritical tones. Of all his peers and teachers Gantry stands alone in his oratorical gifts, able to deliver fiery sermons devoid of meaning. He undermines his classmate and professor, who each meet a terrible fate, and schemes for his fiancée to appear unfaithful to get out of a shotgun wedding. After quitting the congregation in her home town he is offered a job in a city for an Easter sermon. Wasted on whiskey, he is kicked out of the seminary and proscribed from the pulpit. Gantry is a horrible person, but his stupidity, narcissism and lack of self awareness is both comic and tragic. Without options he spends two years as a farm equipment salesman.
On the way Gantry stumbles into a big tent evangelical event that holds four thousand people, with a three tiered stage and the beautiful lady preacher Sharon Falconer, based on Aimee Semple McPherson, a Pentecostal star of the period. He gets religion all over again and sees his future before him. After he stalks her and wheedles his way in, he has a spot in a Lincoln Nebraska Friday night revival, entrancing the crowd with his tale of a failed businessman finding salvation and success after hearing Sister Falconer’s good word. He joins with the traveling show, and infatuated he gives up smoking and drinking, but still can’t keep his hands off a waitress or two. She fires her former lover and hires him as full time assistant.
By 1910 they were running out of souls to save and turned to their gifts of healing, as had been pioneered by the Christian Scientists. Collections broke prior records as Falconer and Gantry honed their skills as circus performers. Actors are hired and crutches brought in to decorate the altar. Elmer is angry as Sharon hogs the profits. A tabernacle is opened on the New Jersey shore with a rotating cross crowning its roof and room for a chorus of two hundred. Gantry begins to eye the virginal pianist, but noticed by Falconer she is fired and he nearly as well. When a tragic and unforeseen accident happens Gantry attempts to continue with evangelism but finds little success emulating former grandiose aspirations and lucrative achievements.
Gantry hooks up with New York City mystic Mrs. Riddle who teaches the mysteries of Eastern metaphysics and Western philosophies, combining Greek, Roman, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Judaic and Christian theology, then known as ‘New Thought’. Cheated by Riddle he pilfers the collections and is caught, when fired he strikes out on his own as an itinerant swami. His classmate Frank Shallard had moved to Eureka, married a parishioner and had three kids when Gantry shows up at his door, defeated and desperate for a loan. Lewis’ writing is critical of the American culture and its writers complacency. ‘Elmer Gantry’ is a story of hubris and greed but also a metaphor for clawing out of poverty by exploiting one’s neighbor’s naïveté.
On his last spiritual legs, Gantry is discovered by a big shot Bishop of the Methodist church in the state capital of Zenith. Hired he is hustled to the hayseed town of Banjo Crossing. Lewis’ description of the idyllic and rustic village is both charming and funny as Gantry falls in love with the Church trustee’s daughter Cleo, her father a wealthy merchant in the region. Despite his mental density he begins to read books of all kinds, mainly to steal material for his sermons. Offered to complete his Doctorate of Divinity by exam he dismisses the degree as sophistry, seeing his mission is to get local hicks up to literary snuff. In a marriage with Cleo for money and ambition he proves he’s a misogynist and misanthrope of the worst sort.
Promoted to larger towns and cities he joins the theological and civic clubs and has two children in 1916 and 1917. Ever increasing crowds and his Bible thumping fury propel him to Zenith where he leads the main Methodist church. His wife is uninterested in sex after childbirth and Gantry goes back to his old ways. Lewis’ novel critiques male sexual attitudes in the post-Victorian era. He has included strong female characters such as Sharon Falconer, yet many women are cast as willing supporters of the gender role divisions during the time. The Women’s Suffrage movement and its leaders such as Susan B. Anthony had an influence on Lewis in the period before the book was published and are evident in Gantry’s depiction.
Despite a hectic schedule, and a growing impatience with his suffering wife and children, Gantry seeks to perfect sermons, gaining a following of hidebound conservatives as youthful liberals find him archaic. He surveys his rival Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, finding reactionaries and radicals. Reverend McGarry, the focus of his hate, is a PhD from the University of Chicago who espouses equality in the Church regardless of wealth. Gaining fame in the city he finds people he had slighted have moved to Zenith, Shallard whose loan he reluctantly repays, and Lulu now married with two boys. Bored with Cleo, he rekindles the affair he had ended years ago.
To drum up publicity he starts an anti-vice crusade, leading police to break down the doors of part time prostitutes and small time bootleggers. Church attendance skyrockets and Gantry supplements the excitement with vaudeville acts of juggling and strong man antics. Lewis’ portrait of a religious demagogue is not so over the top as to defy belief. Once Gantry rids the city of sin he socializes with businessmen in country clubs. He attacks Shallard from his pulpit as atheist and socialist, goading him forward to confess his doubts, endangering his life and career to steal a wealthy patron. In radio broadcasts and sermons to 100,000 worshippers and preaching around the world he finds true love in his new secretary, but is tricked in the end.
Unsurprisingly this book didn’t play well among the clergy in 1920’s America. It was banned in some cities and there were calls for Lewis’ arrest, but it became the bestselling novel of 1927. Lewis is often witty and sometimes hilarious. It takes a while to adjust to the colloquial dialogue of the Midwest, which sounds like 1930’s movies, but if anyone should be familiar with it it would be Lewis. Lewis gained experience in small town religious America by meeting and following preachers across the Midwest and attending their church services. Previously he had earned $5 million dollars in today’s money for a single novel in 1920. He was often dismissed by critics in favor of Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald which is a shame.
Lewis understood and portrayed the early 20th century Midwest probably better than anyone. Although cloaked in the garb of satire it might well be the great American novel alongside ‘Huckleberry Finn’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. Outside of his Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize that he declined and a US postage stamp he is not as well recognized today. He was a student of Upton Sinclair, social critic and novelist, wrote plots for Jack London and became friends with H G Wells and William Shirer. His 1935 novel ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ described the election of a fascist United States president, foreshadowing what would happen eighty years later. In some ways he is an American Dickens, both a social observer and storyteller.
“These are those that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat, for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto the fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” - Revelation 17:15-17
“We are lazy! We are not now burning with the fever of righteousness. On your knees you slothful, and pray God to forgive you and to aid you and me to form a brotherhood of the helpful, joyous, fiercely righteous followers of every commandment of the Lord Our God!” - ‘Elmer Gantry’
************
‘Elmer Gantry’ was Sinclair Lewis’ eleventh novel, published in 1927 shortly before winning the 1930 Nobel Prize. Lewis begins with Gantry enrolled in a Kansas Baptist college in 1902. He is the football team captain, a tall handsome bully who hates piety and admires drunkenness and profanity. His roommate Jim Lefferts is the football team quarterback, his personality studious and thoughtful, although he enjoys drinking and chasing women with Gantry. The college has its regular degrees in law and business, but many of the students plan to pursue careers as preachers. Gantry goes out with Lefferts, getting boozed up, picking fights for fun. Knocking out an evangelist’s heckler he becomes a center of prayer vigils for conversion.
For all of his bluster against religion Gantry had been born and bred Baptist. In his small town the church had provided everything; from art to music and literature, to theater and social gathering. His great gifts were his looks and baritone voice. He is approached by an evangelist visiting the school to save the souls of students, a football legend from Chicago. In admiration he is manipulated into testifying at a meeting, against his own instincts and to the horror of his roommate. Classmates and faculty are enraptured with his exhortations and fall into an ecstatic state. Gantry loves the command he holds over an audience. He discovers a limitless fountain of words that had been drilled in his head by church and school at his disposal.
Challenged by the Dean to have a calling from God and join the ministry Gantry drinks moonshine, convincing him he’s seen the light. Two years later he is an ordained minister in Winnemac, a fictional state invented by Sinclair Lewis when Sauk Center, Minnesota where he was born and grew up had complained about its portrayal. His popular novels ‘Babbit’, ‘Arrowsmith’ and ‘Dodsworth’ were set there. H L Mencken called it a “standardized chain store state in the Midwest”. Gantry lives in a rundown seminary finishing up his studies. He obtains a ministry in a nearby town, staying as a guest at the Deacon’s house. He repays him by seducing Lulu, his teenage daughter, and once tired of her he tries to escape her attentions.
Gantry’s fellow seminary students argue religious platitudes in sanctimonious and hypocritical tones. Of all his peers and teachers Gantry stands alone in his oratorical gifts, able to deliver fiery sermons devoid of meaning. He undermines his classmate and professor, who each meet a terrible fate, and schemes for his fiancée to appear unfaithful to get out of a shotgun wedding. After quitting the congregation in her home town he is offered a job in a city for an Easter sermon. Wasted on whiskey, he is kicked out of the seminary and proscribed from the pulpit. Gantry is a horrible person, but his stupidity, narcissism and lack of self awareness is both comic and tragic. Without options he spends two years as a farm equipment salesman.
On the way Gantry stumbles into a big tent evangelical event that holds four thousand people, with a three tiered stage and the beautiful lady preacher Sharon Falconer, based on Aimee Semple McPherson, a Pentecostal star of the period. He gets religion all over again and sees his future before him. After he stalks her and wheedles his way in, he has a spot in a Lincoln Nebraska Friday night revival, entrancing the crowd with his tale of a failed businessman finding salvation and success after hearing Sister Falconer’s good word. He joins with the traveling show, and infatuated he gives up smoking and drinking, but still can’t keep his hands off a waitress or two. She fires her former lover and hires him as full time assistant.
By 1910 they were running out of souls to save and turned to their gifts of healing, as had been pioneered by the Christian Scientists. Collections broke prior records as Falconer and Gantry honed their skills as circus performers. Actors are hired and crutches brought in to decorate the altar. Elmer is angry as Sharon hogs the profits. A tabernacle is opened on the New Jersey shore with a rotating cross crowning its roof and room for a chorus of two hundred. Gantry begins to eye the virginal pianist, but noticed by Falconer she is fired and he nearly as well. When a tragic and unforeseen accident happens Gantry attempts to continue with evangelism but finds little success emulating former grandiose aspirations and lucrative achievements.
Gantry hooks up with New York City mystic Mrs. Riddle who teaches the mysteries of Eastern metaphysics and Western philosophies, combining Greek, Roman, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Judaic and Christian theology, then known as ‘New Thought’. Cheated by Riddle he pilfers the collections and is caught, when fired he strikes out on his own as an itinerant swami. His classmate Frank Shallard had moved to Eureka, married a parishioner and had three kids when Gantry shows up at his door, defeated and desperate for a loan. Lewis’ writing is critical of the American culture and its writers complacency. ‘Elmer Gantry’ is a story of hubris and greed but also a metaphor for clawing out of poverty by exploiting one’s neighbor’s naïveté.
On his last spiritual legs, Gantry is discovered by a big shot Bishop of the Methodist church in the state capital of Zenith. Hired he is hustled to the hayseed town of Banjo Crossing. Lewis’ description of the idyllic and rustic village is both charming and funny as Gantry falls in love with the Church trustee’s daughter Cleo, her father a wealthy merchant in the region. Despite his mental density he begins to read books of all kinds, mainly to steal material for his sermons. Offered to complete his Doctorate of Divinity by exam he dismisses the degree as sophistry, seeing his mission is to get local hicks up to literary snuff. In a marriage with Cleo for money and ambition he proves he’s a misogynist and misanthrope of the worst sort.
Promoted to larger towns and cities he joins the theological and civic clubs and has two children in 1916 and 1917. Ever increasing crowds and his Bible thumping fury propel him to Zenith where he leads the main Methodist church. His wife is uninterested in sex after childbirth and Gantry goes back to his old ways. Lewis’ novel critiques male sexual attitudes in the post-Victorian era. He has included strong female characters such as Sharon Falconer, yet many women are cast as willing supporters of the gender role divisions during the time. The Women’s Suffrage movement and its leaders such as Susan B. Anthony had an influence on Lewis in the period before the book was published and are evident in Gantry’s depiction.
Despite a hectic schedule, and a growing impatience with his suffering wife and children, Gantry seeks to perfect sermons, gaining a following of hidebound conservatives as youthful liberals find him archaic. He surveys his rival Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, finding reactionaries and radicals. Reverend McGarry, the focus of his hate, is a PhD from the University of Chicago who espouses equality in the Church regardless of wealth. Gaining fame in the city he finds people he had slighted have moved to Zenith, Shallard whose loan he reluctantly repays, and Lulu now married with two boys. Bored with Cleo, he rekindles the affair he had ended years ago.
To drum up publicity he starts an anti-vice crusade, leading police to break down the doors of part time prostitutes and small time bootleggers. Church attendance skyrockets and Gantry supplements the excitement with vaudeville acts of juggling and strong man antics. Lewis’ portrait of a religious demagogue is not so over the top as to defy belief. Once Gantry rids the city of sin he socializes with businessmen in country clubs. He attacks Shallard from his pulpit as atheist and socialist, goading him forward to confess his doubts, endangering his life and career to steal a wealthy patron. In radio broadcasts and sermons to 100,000 worshippers and preaching around the world he finds true love in his new secretary, but is tricked in the end.
Unsurprisingly this book didn’t play well among the clergy in 1920’s America. It was banned in some cities and there were calls for Lewis’ arrest, but it became the bestselling novel of 1927. Lewis is often witty and sometimes hilarious. It takes a while to adjust to the colloquial dialogue of the Midwest, which sounds like 1930’s movies, but if anyone should be familiar with it it would be Lewis. Lewis gained experience in small town religious America by meeting and following preachers across the Midwest and attending their church services. Previously he had earned $5 million dollars in today’s money for a single novel in 1920. He was often dismissed by critics in favor of Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald which is a shame.
Lewis understood and portrayed the early 20th century Midwest probably better than anyone. Although cloaked in the garb of satire it might well be the great American novel alongside ‘Huckleberry Finn’, ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. Outside of his Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize that he declined and a US postage stamp he is not as well recognized today. He was a student of Upton Sinclair, social critic and novelist, wrote plots for Jack London and became friends with H G Wells and William Shirer. His 1935 novel ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ described the election of a fascist United States president, foreshadowing what would happen eighty years later. In some ways he is an American Dickens, both a social observer and storyteller.
March 14, 2021
I think this is my favorite Sinclair Lewis book so far. His character Elmer Gantry is one of the sleaziest protagonists I have ever met. Given the themes of religious fanaticism and hypocrisy, the subject has certainly not aged a day. That makes the book entirely relevant nearly a century later. I am surprised that it did not win a Pulitzer as it was even better and more entertaining than Arrowsmith.
Elmer Gantry goes from frat boy to superpower evangelical rabble-rouser in this story which takes place in the same fictional universe of the state of Winnemac as Babbitt, Arrowsmith, and Dodsworth. In fact, we cross paths with George Babbitt on two occasions and, if memory serves, get a brief glimpse of the wealth of the Dodsworths. There is a cute aside where Lewis gives himself a little self-criticism for Main Street which was a pretty interesting choice given that it was the book that preceded Babbitt and that took place outside the world of Winnemac.
Our hero admittedly does give up alcohol and tobacco in order to fit better into his role as a moralistic preacher, but his propensity towards sexy ankles never goes away and nearly proves his downfall over and over again, reminding this reader of other recent figures who have similar characteristics. I think that his lowest moment is his callous treatment of his ex-college friend Frank, a rather introspective but preacher who, despite his doubts, continues to preach in order not to lose to the Gantrys of the world. Unfortunately, the bad guys usually win and this was no exception.
Of note, is the remarks about anti-Semitism throughout the book including an early note on a college bonfire with Elmer and buddies where they burn the shingle of a Jewish shopkeeper. Lewis was a friend of anti-Semite H.L. Mencken, but to his credit, he did write books later that were more overtly critical of anti-Semitism. The reason it stuck out for me is that the seeds of the anti-Semitism that would keep America out of WWII and also prevent Jewish refugees from gaining asylum before it was too late were already deeply ingrained in the American psyche at the turn of the century.
I highly recommend this rocambolesque critique of religion which is perhaps even more scathing than his criticisms of the medical industry in Arrowsmith. An American masterpiece.
Elmer Gantry goes from frat boy to superpower evangelical rabble-rouser in this story which takes place in the same fictional universe of the state of Winnemac as Babbitt, Arrowsmith, and Dodsworth. In fact, we cross paths with George Babbitt on two occasions and, if memory serves, get a brief glimpse of the wealth of the Dodsworths. There is a cute aside where Lewis gives himself a little self-criticism for Main Street which was a pretty interesting choice given that it was the book that preceded Babbitt and that took place outside the world of Winnemac.
Our hero admittedly does give up alcohol and tobacco in order to fit better into his role as a moralistic preacher, but his propensity towards sexy ankles never goes away and nearly proves his downfall over and over again, reminding this reader of other recent figures who have similar characteristics. I think that his lowest moment is his callous treatment of his ex-college friend Frank, a rather introspective but preacher who, despite his doubts, continues to preach in order not to lose to the Gantrys of the world. Unfortunately, the bad guys usually win and this was no exception.
Of note, is the remarks about anti-Semitism throughout the book including an early note on a college bonfire with Elmer and buddies where they burn the shingle of a Jewish shopkeeper. Lewis was a friend of anti-Semite H.L. Mencken, but to his credit, he did write books later that were more overtly critical of anti-Semitism. The reason it stuck out for me is that the seeds of the anti-Semitism that would keep America out of WWII and also prevent Jewish refugees from gaining asylum before it was too late were already deeply ingrained in the American psyche at the turn of the century.
I highly recommend this rocambolesque critique of religion which is perhaps even more scathing than his criticisms of the medical industry in Arrowsmith. An American masterpiece.
May 17, 2013
BkC 56
Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: Today universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church - a saver of souls who lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence - is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no record of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire.
My Review: I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother was a pedophile, and I was her philed pedo. She was also the most thunderational kind of christian nutball, the most conservative kind of social fascist conformist, and a chilly, appearance-obsessed harpy. Unless you were a stranger, when she presented as a pious, charming, lovely woman.
So Elmer Gantry was, for me, a documentary not a novel. I read it at maybe fifteen or so, just after I read Babbitt, and was astounded to read my own experiences of the asshole religiosifiers who surrounded me in a book over fifty years old! I hated them, powerfully and corrosively, then as now, and there was for me a giant pouring of balm over my outraged soul as I read this book: These people aren't the first! These people didn't invent this idiocy! If Lewis escaped to tell about it, so can I!
The rise of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and that ignorant ilk is not new, ladies and gents, it's happened before. This novel will show you that this kind of perverted conservative religious stupidity has always been with us, and its basic small-souled evil isn't unique to our times either.
Depending on my mood, that's either a comfort or a misery. But it always makes me feel less alone, less like I'm missing something and misinterpreting other things, to read this classic exposé of the long-standing culture of ignorant and evil exploitive "salvation artists."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: Today universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church - a saver of souls who lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence - is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no record of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire.
My Review: I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother was a pedophile, and I was her philed pedo. She was also the most thunderational kind of christian nutball, the most conservative kind of social fascist conformist, and a chilly, appearance-obsessed harpy. Unless you were a stranger, when she presented as a pious, charming, lovely woman.
So Elmer Gantry was, for me, a documentary not a novel. I read it at maybe fifteen or so, just after I read Babbitt, and was astounded to read my own experiences of the asshole religiosifiers who surrounded me in a book over fifty years old! I hated them, powerfully and corrosively, then as now, and there was for me a giant pouring of balm over my outraged soul as I read this book: These people aren't the first! These people didn't invent this idiocy! If Lewis escaped to tell about it, so can I!
The rise of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and that ignorant ilk is not new, ladies and gents, it's happened before. This novel will show you that this kind of perverted conservative religious stupidity has always been with us, and its basic small-souled evil isn't unique to our times either.
Depending on my mood, that's either a comfort or a misery. But it always makes me feel less alone, less like I'm missing something and misinterpreting other things, to read this classic exposé of the long-standing culture of ignorant and evil exploitive "salvation artists."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
April 10, 2019
Bigoted Bully in Beliefs Biz
Flatulistic televangelist farming for funds
A timeless, albeit rather tame, tale of a bigoted bully (who seems close to insanity at times) abuses his power in the name of religion, serially succumbing to temptations of the flesh and the pitfalls of arrogant pride. I frankly expected a more powerful condemnation, but then recalled this novel is set in the early 1900s.
It's shameful that the charlatans have only worsened in this country. And yet, it could be even worse: a world in which the USA has hoisted a bigoted, bullying, unbalanced demagogue to political power. Then, would it be ironic to say that life trumps fiction?
Flatulistic televangelist farming for funds
A timeless, albeit rather tame, tale of a bigoted bully (who seems close to insanity at times) abuses his power in the name of religion, serially succumbing to temptations of the flesh and the pitfalls of arrogant pride. I frankly expected a more powerful condemnation, but then recalled this novel is set in the early 1900s.
It's shameful that the charlatans have only worsened in this country. And yet, it could be even worse: a world in which the USA has hoisted a bigoted, bullying, unbalanced demagogue to political power. Then, would it be ironic to say that life trumps fiction?
December 5, 2008
Just before the 4th of July, I finished Elmer Gantry. It turned out to be one of the greatest novels I have ever read. Elmer Gantry, published in 1927, was so much more complex, so much more biting and chilling in its description of the worst parts of the American psyche, so much more timeless, than I ever imagined it would be. I expected a comic-book story and dated prose -- I got, instead, vivid characters and lines of text I found myself re-reading per their beautiful structure and perfect descriptions. This book isn't just as it's usually, simply described: adventures of a golden-tongued evangelist who lives a live of hypocrisy and self-indulgence. This also isn't a novel whose primary, sole purpose is to attack the clergy. Elmer Gantry is a searingly-accurate profile of the USA, one that still stands oh-so-many years later. I finished the book and sat staring out the window for 10 minutes. I didn't know whether to laugh or weep.
What's so disheartening about this book, for me, is, as noted in the afterword by Mark Schorer, "The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality." Frank Shallard is defeated. So is Jim Lefferts. All the good people go down.
Maybe you have to have been raised in the South or Midwest of the USA, and to have been brought up Baptist or Methodist, to really, truly get all the layers of Elmer Gantry, all the hidden humor, all the razor-sharp and, at times, incredibly subtle, criticism and commentary. If you've never been to a church supper where a person claims to have traced their lineage all the way back to Adam and Eve, if you have never had your school board or local city council hear arguments about why certain books should be banned from school or local libraries, if a significant number of your family wouldn't boycott your wedding if you chose to serve alcohol, if you have never heard Catholics called "Papists" from a pulpit, if school friends haven't told you, in all sincerity, that they are going to pray for you because of your questions and intellect, if you haven't heard "Christians" rationalize about their actions that are in direct conflict to what the Bible says, I'm not sure you can really, truly get this book. But I could be wrong (I frequently am)
Ofcourse, all you have to have done is lived in the USA and paid attention to the actions of Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition in order to be chilled by the last line of the novel -- and don't go reading it before you've read the entire book. Part of me is ashamed to have only finally read Sinclair Lewis when I'm already past 40 -- and part of me wonders if I could ever have understood this book on the level I feel that I do had I not been this age.
And don't go looking for these characters, nor this story, in the movie version. The events of the movie are less than 100 pages of the book, and are so incredibly sanitized in comparison -- the novel's Sharon Falconer is NOTHING like the Celluloid version. I love the movie, but it's a completely different story.
Sinclair Lewis is quoted as saying "I love America, but I don't like it" and "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." My sentiments exactly.
What's so disheartening about this book, for me, is, as noted in the afterword by Mark Schorer, "The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality." Frank Shallard is defeated. So is Jim Lefferts. All the good people go down.
Maybe you have to have been raised in the South or Midwest of the USA, and to have been brought up Baptist or Methodist, to really, truly get all the layers of Elmer Gantry, all the hidden humor, all the razor-sharp and, at times, incredibly subtle, criticism and commentary. If you've never been to a church supper where a person claims to have traced their lineage all the way back to Adam and Eve, if you have never had your school board or local city council hear arguments about why certain books should be banned from school or local libraries, if a significant number of your family wouldn't boycott your wedding if you chose to serve alcohol, if you have never heard Catholics called "Papists" from a pulpit, if school friends haven't told you, in all sincerity, that they are going to pray for you because of your questions and intellect, if you haven't heard "Christians" rationalize about their actions that are in direct conflict to what the Bible says, I'm not sure you can really, truly get this book. But I could be wrong (I frequently am)
Ofcourse, all you have to have done is lived in the USA and paid attention to the actions of Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition in order to be chilled by the last line of the novel -- and don't go reading it before you've read the entire book. Part of me is ashamed to have only finally read Sinclair Lewis when I'm already past 40 -- and part of me wonders if I could ever have understood this book on the level I feel that I do had I not been this age.
And don't go looking for these characters, nor this story, in the movie version. The events of the movie are less than 100 pages of the book, and are so incredibly sanitized in comparison -- the novel's Sharon Falconer is NOTHING like the Celluloid version. I love the movie, but it's a completely different story.
Sinclair Lewis is quoted as saying "I love America, but I don't like it" and "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." My sentiments exactly.
July 2, 2013
Brothers and sisters! I say, brothers and sisters lend me your ear! I have read the words of Mr. Sinclair Lewis as set down in the good book Elmer Gantry in which this author of the early 20th century condemns organized religion, most notably the Baptist Church. His main character, a one Mr. Elmer Gantry, as the title suggests, is an most insincere and hypocritical preacher of the faith. Insincere and hypocritical! Yes sah, that is the crux, the very essence of the text. A text of greater length than needs be, though great enough for the showing of many a various facet of the numerous Christian sects. Elmer himself floats most randomly from one to the other like the lowest sinner descending the layers of Hell, where evil takes on many a cunning disguise. Nothing is as it seems there, as can be said with Elmer Gantry where even "Scotty" the golf pro is not an actual Scot, but a fraud who's learnt his false accent from a Liverpudlian Irishman! False deceptors, ye be damned! Thus is the condemnation of Sinclair Lewis, a man who him very self has aspersion cast upon him. Yes, it is true, my brothers and sisters! Though Mr. Lewis condemns the wayward ways of organized religion's leaders, he also condemns hisself, literally invoking his own name within these pages through the mouth of a criticizer of the author's past works. Though he does this, still upon publication the people's of the State of New Hampshire, once known as the "Live Free or Die" State, invited Mr. Lewis to a New Hampshire jail cell. And the people of Virginia promised to hang, yes I said hang the good author for the work he had done...I ask you, brothers and sisters, is this Christianity? Is this God's will?
July 16, 2021
I am not religious in any traditional sense of the term. The idea of a spiritual leader or preacher as a showman is profoundly bizarre to me, and Baptist revivals kinda freak me out. This book did absolutely nothing to change my mind on that.
Charismatic, manipulative, deeply insecure and not terribly smart, Elmer Gantry’s character does not seem very spiritual. But somehow, those traits also make him the “perfect” evangelist preacher. His roller-coaster of rises and falls might have stretched my imagination at a certain point, but now I find it depressingly believable. How he goes from seminary student to salesman and then back to preaching is a sardonic highlight of the parallel between both professions: what is a preacher if not someone trying to sell you religion?
Not that any of the other characters were much more likable: while they are perhaps less hypocritical than Elmer, they are all absolutely detestable, which is why as interesting a statement as this novel might be, I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I think that the most unsettling part of this book is not just the hypocrisy, which I associate with religion almost automatically – but rather the fact that it is supposed to be set in the early 20th century but feels like it could be happening right now. I was absolutely not surprised to learn that Lewis was threatened with stoning for writing this.
A very well written book, filled with very unpleasant events and characters that ring uncomfortably realistic. I look forward to getting just as unsettled by “It Can’t Happen Here”.
Charismatic, manipulative, deeply insecure and not terribly smart, Elmer Gantry’s character does not seem very spiritual. But somehow, those traits also make him the “perfect” evangelist preacher. His roller-coaster of rises and falls might have stretched my imagination at a certain point, but now I find it depressingly believable. How he goes from seminary student to salesman and then back to preaching is a sardonic highlight of the parallel between both professions: what is a preacher if not someone trying to sell you religion?
Not that any of the other characters were much more likable: while they are perhaps less hypocritical than Elmer, they are all absolutely detestable, which is why as interesting a statement as this novel might be, I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I think that the most unsettling part of this book is not just the hypocrisy, which I associate with religion almost automatically – but rather the fact that it is supposed to be set in the early 20th century but feels like it could be happening right now. I was absolutely not surprised to learn that Lewis was threatened with stoning for writing this.
A very well written book, filled with very unpleasant events and characters that ring uncomfortably realistic. I look forward to getting just as unsettled by “It Can’t Happen Here”.
November 23, 2020
Ageless portrayal of the rise of a hypocrite
A lot of Sinclair Lewis can be read as social history in our days at the turn of the 21st century. Social mores and the whole tenor of society have changed dramatically since the days of his major works. But ELMER GANTRY still reads like a story of our times. Though it covers a period roughly stretching from 1902 to 1926, and America has been transformed since then, the basic idea of the novel---how a man, selfish, ignorant, bullying, and posing as a 'regular guy', can fool most of the people most of the time---is still very much relevant to us. Business was the heart of America in Lewis' day, and it still is. But a career model drawn from that sphere could be used in many other walks of life. ELMER GANTRY is about a man who uses religion and a Protestant church to rise socially, to get and abuse power for his own ends. From Elmer's evangelical college days with his drinking, womanizing, total lack of ability or interest in studies, and his lying and maneuvering to get what he wants, to the stunning but realistic conclusion to the book, Lewis paints a vibrant portrait of an unprincipled climber ; a man who will change any opinion, betray anybody, and do anything to get ahead. If we consider the sagas of TV evangelists in our days, the difference between their revealed hypocrisies and those written by Lewis is startlingly small. The sole difference was that in the 1920s, there was no television for Elmer Gantry to exploit.
Certain sections of the book read better than others--it is not of uniform quality---and sometimes you wonder why Lewis inserted a chapter here or there. I think particularly of the two chapters on the fate of Frank Shallard, Gantry's alter-ego. They seemed to be an afterthought, and the point was brutally taken, but for what purpose other than shock ? On the other hand, Lewis' use of the colloquial language of the times and inclusion of thousands of minor details of life in that era reveal a whole world which might, in the absence of ELMER GANTRY, have disappeared from our consciousness. On the whole, this is a powerful novel about an unscrupulous, offensive scoundrel which still resonates well in our day. The Gantrys of this world are endless. Unfortunately.
**I would like readers to note that I wrote this review 21 years ago. Without blowing my own horn, I would just like to ask...."You know what I'm talkin about?"
A lot of Sinclair Lewis can be read as social history in our days at the turn of the 21st century. Social mores and the whole tenor of society have changed dramatically since the days of his major works. But ELMER GANTRY still reads like a story of our times. Though it covers a period roughly stretching from 1902 to 1926, and America has been transformed since then, the basic idea of the novel---how a man, selfish, ignorant, bullying, and posing as a 'regular guy', can fool most of the people most of the time---is still very much relevant to us. Business was the heart of America in Lewis' day, and it still is. But a career model drawn from that sphere could be used in many other walks of life. ELMER GANTRY is about a man who uses religion and a Protestant church to rise socially, to get and abuse power for his own ends. From Elmer's evangelical college days with his drinking, womanizing, total lack of ability or interest in studies, and his lying and maneuvering to get what he wants, to the stunning but realistic conclusion to the book, Lewis paints a vibrant portrait of an unprincipled climber ; a man who will change any opinion, betray anybody, and do anything to get ahead. If we consider the sagas of TV evangelists in our days, the difference between their revealed hypocrisies and those written by Lewis is startlingly small. The sole difference was that in the 1920s, there was no television for Elmer Gantry to exploit.
Certain sections of the book read better than others--it is not of uniform quality---and sometimes you wonder why Lewis inserted a chapter here or there. I think particularly of the two chapters on the fate of Frank Shallard, Gantry's alter-ego. They seemed to be an afterthought, and the point was brutally taken, but for what purpose other than shock ? On the other hand, Lewis' use of the colloquial language of the times and inclusion of thousands of minor details of life in that era reveal a whole world which might, in the absence of ELMER GANTRY, have disappeared from our consciousness. On the whole, this is a powerful novel about an unscrupulous, offensive scoundrel which still resonates well in our day. The Gantrys of this world are endless. Unfortunately.
**I would like readers to note that I wrote this review 21 years ago. Without blowing my own horn, I would just like to ask...."You know what I'm talkin about?"
March 27, 2023
Reading Elmer Gantry is like visiting New York City for the first time but taking a 3 day train ride from Chicago to get there with frequent stops in Ohio and Indiana in between.
You are really excited to be on the train in Chicago but by the nth stop in some Ohio town you are tired of the train (Elmer) knowing every detail of its interior all too well. You just wish the train would pass through these minor sub plots and get to the excitement of New York and the final chapters when maybe everyone will finally get their revenge on Elmer.
In all seriousness this is a masterpiece in literature and arguably the essential American character study of a fictional demagogue. The middle chapters did not add so much to the story but at least Lewis’ prose is impeccable. I loved the ending of the book — not what I expected — but true to Lewis’ style.
4.5 stars. Sinclair Lewis must have known an Elmer Gantry in real life. This story seemed too real including all of the ins and outs of parish life and the countless vivid examples of the power of persuasion. Lewis was clearly a literary genius.
You are really excited to be on the train in Chicago but by the nth stop in some Ohio town you are tired of the train (Elmer) knowing every detail of its interior all too well. You just wish the train would pass through these minor sub plots and get to the excitement of New York and the final chapters when maybe everyone will finally get their revenge on Elmer.
In all seriousness this is a masterpiece in literature and arguably the essential American character study of a fictional demagogue. The middle chapters did not add so much to the story but at least Lewis’ prose is impeccable. I loved the ending of the book — not what I expected — but true to Lewis’ style.
4.5 stars. Sinclair Lewis must have known an Elmer Gantry in real life. This story seemed too real including all of the ins and outs of parish life and the countless vivid examples of the power of persuasion. Lewis was clearly a literary genius.
January 7, 2012
On the surface, this is a story of a bad guy, made all the more evil by his using the name of God to hoodwink people and lift himself up for public admiration. He is the living embodiment of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Unfortunately, this is not a book that can be read on the surface and be done with. Elmer Gantry isn't a cut-and-dried villain. On the contrary, it is his very humanness that makes his story equal parts repulsive and irresistible. We see in Gantry's hypocrisy our own inclination to INTEND to be better than we ever actually are. You can only hate him as far as you hate yourself. But, oh, did I hate him. Especially the way he treated his long-suffering wife and children. I just wanted to punch him in the face.
There is so much more to this book than just the behavior of the title character. It raises issues of religion and prejudice. It illustrates the uncomfortable reality that in real life wickedness is not always punished and righteousness is not always rewarded. It holds a mirror up to our self-righteous behavior; the way we vociferously condemn vice in its obvious forms, but ignore our own, more damaging, un-Christian-like behavior toward others. It also reminds us that those we put our trust and faith in are not always deserving of that trust.
I wish that I had the time and mental focus to review this book to the full extent it deserves. There's really a lot to it. But suffice it to say that while reading this book wasn't diverting (aside from the fantastic prose), it was beneficial.
There is so much more to this book than just the behavior of the title character. It raises issues of religion and prejudice. It illustrates the uncomfortable reality that in real life wickedness is not always punished and righteousness is not always rewarded. It holds a mirror up to our self-righteous behavior; the way we vociferously condemn vice in its obvious forms, but ignore our own, more damaging, un-Christian-like behavior toward others. It also reminds us that those we put our trust and faith in are not always deserving of that trust.
I wish that I had the time and mental focus to review this book to the full extent it deserves. There's really a lot to it. But suffice it to say that while reading this book wasn't diverting (aside from the fantastic prose), it was beneficial.
November 25, 2020
I've read that this novel caused quite a furor when it was released, even being denounced by Billy Sunday. Well, I wouldn't know, I wasn't there, but it wouldn't surprise me as I remember when some Christians got very "excited" about the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ". All they accomplished in my opinion was drawing more attention to the movie than it would otherwise never have garnered.
As for Elmer Gantry, I am a Christian and this book does arguably, take a pretty dim view of some or possibly most Christians. Gantry is basically a ne'er-do-well who starts out in law and is side tracked by alcohol and his "womanizing" ways. He is more or less accidentally ordained as a Baptist minister. Later on he becomes a Methodist. Gantry manages to destroy several lives throughout the book and leaves a trail of broken people among those who are close to him. For a while he becomes the "manager" (and lover) of Sharon Falconer a character who seems to be loosely based on Aimee Semple McPherson. When Falconer is killed in the fire that destroys her new tabernacle his "career" is over there.
Gantry never gets his "comeuppance" in that he marries well and gets his own congregation.
As for it's reflection on Christian life and Christians anyone who follows the news knows that there are people who make money from those who want badly to believe. It is of course a fallacy to construe that all Christians fall into the crooked and/or gullible paradigm.
Unfortunately (and most Christians are aware of this) we need to "be aware" of those who would twist the Gospel (good-news) teaching of Christ to a money making venture. As in other areas Lewis approach while not ideal does show up an area where awareness is needed.
I settle on 3 stars as while the book has it's points the writing isn't really among the "greatest" and the book does take advantage of prurient interest. In other words, for it's day, its quite racy (staying this side of actual porn which of course has been around a while). The book is readable and while I wouldn't use the word "enjoyable" as we watch several lives more or less destroyed, it is interesting and well plotted.
In the end, it must be admitted, the character of Gantry is well formed even if some of the supporting cast isn't. Gantry is one of a handful of literary characters to become at least fairly iconic. Most know that a reference to "Elmer Gantry" is a reference to a dishonest and probably "immoral" (debauched, depraved?) clergyman.
As for Elmer Gantry, I am a Christian and this book does arguably, take a pretty dim view of some or possibly most Christians. Gantry is basically a ne'er-do-well who starts out in law and is side tracked by alcohol and his "womanizing" ways. He is more or less accidentally ordained as a Baptist minister. Later on he becomes a Methodist. Gantry manages to destroy several lives throughout the book and leaves a trail of broken people among those who are close to him. For a while he becomes the "manager" (and lover) of Sharon Falconer a character who seems to be loosely based on Aimee Semple McPherson. When Falconer is killed in the fire that destroys her new tabernacle his "career" is over there.
Gantry never gets his "comeuppance" in that he marries well and gets his own congregation.
As for it's reflection on Christian life and Christians anyone who follows the news knows that there are people who make money from those who want badly to believe. It is of course a fallacy to construe that all Christians fall into the crooked and/or gullible paradigm.
Unfortunately (and most Christians are aware of this) we need to "be aware" of those who would twist the Gospel (good-news) teaching of Christ to a money making venture. As in other areas Lewis approach while not ideal does show up an area where awareness is needed.
I settle on 3 stars as while the book has it's points the writing isn't really among the "greatest" and the book does take advantage of prurient interest. In other words, for it's day, its quite racy (staying this side of actual porn which of course has been around a while). The book is readable and while I wouldn't use the word "enjoyable" as we watch several lives more or less destroyed, it is interesting and well plotted.
In the end, it must be admitted, the character of Gantry is well formed even if some of the supporting cast isn't. Gantry is one of a handful of literary characters to become at least fairly iconic. Most know that a reference to "Elmer Gantry" is a reference to a dishonest and probably "immoral" (debauched, depraved?) clergyman.
December 14, 2020
Senryu Review:
Huckster hick Gods up
to ascend the Christian pole
of cant and bunkum
Huckster hick Gods up
to ascend the Christian pole
of cant and bunkum
February 12, 2023
Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry might be the angriest novel he ever wrote, some achievement for the author of Babbitt and It Can't Happen Here. The title character elevates himself from an aimless, glad-handing college student to an aimless, glad-handing preacher who is driven purely by a combination of ambition and appetites. He drinks (a habit he reluctantly gives up when Prohibition becomes law of the land), he chases women, he plagiarizes sermons from atheist tracts, he jumps from one congregation to the next, bullying and wheedling his way to the nexus of religious power, with the stated goal of "making America a moral nation!" Gantry is the ultimate pious hypocrite, demanding an impossible moral standard from others while indulging in every imaginable vice - and what's more, even threats to expose his shortcomings only strengthen his hold on his follower. The book, frankly, becomes exhausting as Gantry is without redeeming features and few if any of his supporting players are much more appealing: we see priests that don't believe in god, bigots who beat Catholics and Jews, bombastic female faith healers who turn into babyish sex kittens in private, scheming ex-lovers, a few ineffectual, tongue-wagging liberals whose protests earn them scorn or violent rebukes. If Elmer Gantry isn't a pleasant read, it's sadly evergreen in its view of evangelical religion as more business than church, choosing campaigns against vice, immorality and minorities on the basis of what attracts attention, money and power rather than any devotion to God. It's easy enough to see modern echoes of Lewis in every religious charlatan and political demagogue who can betray their stated principles, even commit crimes, and walk away unscathed because their followers reject morality beyond their idol's whims. The 1960 film with Burt Lancaster is heavily bowdlerized, covering only about 100 pages of the book (the subplot with Sister Sharon Falconer, the abovementioned faith-healer), sanding over the novel's coarse edges and assuring us, with a Hays Code-enforced disclaimer, that the story doesn't represent most Christians. True enough, but it represents enough of their leaders to remain deeply troubling.
July 19, 2013
A truly delightful novel. Lewis takes obvious pleasure from poking fun at religion – and he takes on the various church denominations and destroys them with attacks from multiple positions. He exposes hypocrisy through Elmer Gantry – who supposedly is a protector of morality while enhancing his career by vapid publicity, name-calling and disdaining the women who fall in love with him. He also ignores his family while pursuing his goals.
This book exposes the lust for power behind the evangelical movements and more traditional churches. It is also about the cult of personality – in this case Elmer Gantry. This is even more abundantly clear with the Sharon Falconer episode. Actually the book looses some of the momentum, I feel, after the sudden death (dubious at that) of Sharon midway through the story. Nevertheless what follows is Elmer’s continuing journey through the religion business. Elmer switches convictions whenever there is opportunity for his advancement. There are a host of colourful characters. Most of the religious ones are portrayed as extremely flawed. It is interesting that towards the end of the book Elmer’s crusade has the look of an attack on liberalism – against the teaching of science in schools, for prohibition – the keeping of “moral values”.
This book exposes the lust for power behind the evangelical movements and more traditional churches. It is also about the cult of personality – in this case Elmer Gantry. This is even more abundantly clear with the Sharon Falconer episode. Actually the book looses some of the momentum, I feel, after the sudden death (dubious at that) of Sharon midway through the story. Nevertheless what follows is Elmer’s continuing journey through the religion business. Elmer switches convictions whenever there is opportunity for his advancement. There are a host of colourful characters. Most of the religious ones are portrayed as extremely flawed. It is interesting that towards the end of the book Elmer’s crusade has the look of an attack on liberalism – against the teaching of science in schools, for prohibition – the keeping of “moral values”.
October 26, 2023
Elmer Gantry In Novel And Opera
After listening to a new recording of an opera, "Elmer Gantry" by Robert Aldridge with a libretto by Herschel Garfein, I wanted to read the famous 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis on which the opera was based. Composed in 2007, the opera receives an excellent performance from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Florentine Opera Company and a cast of distinguished singers.
The outlines of the Elmer Gantry story are familiar from the novel and from its well-known movie adaptation. Set in the American Midwest in the early 20th Century, the title character is a football-playing hard drinking young man who becomes a minister by virtue of his speaking voice. Gantry is an evangelist before becoming the pastor or a series of increasingly larger churches. Gantry is crude, a scoundrel, and a hypocrite. While making a name for himself as an uncompromising crusader against vice, he has a series of affairs before he is blackmailed by a pair of conniving criminals. He has a narrow escape. Gantry has become one of the stock hypocritical figures and villains of American literature.
It was valuable comparing the novel to the opera. The novel is lengthy and prolix. Although operatic librettos most commonly are inartistic and subservient to the music, the libretto for "Elmer Gantry" is a outstanding example of compression and telescoping. The opera ends with the death of Sharon Falconer,the enigmatic and charismatic woman evangelist with whom Elmer has been having an affair. Sharon Falconer is easily the most fascinating character in both the opera and the novel. In the novel, she dies before the book's midpoint. Although she receives a masterly portrayal in both the novel and the opera, the opera makes her a more complex character than the book. In addition, the opera shows a great deal of sympathy for the midwest rural people who were the primary target of the revivalists. This sympathy is largely absent in Lewis.
In some ways, the opera improves upon Lewis' "Elmer Gantry"; but, as with a movie, it is no substitute for reading the book. The book has substantial strengths; I found myself gripped by it. While the opera drastically shortened the time frame of the story, the novel takes its course over a lengthy period, from 1902 to the mid-1920s'. The book is filled with extraordinary detail of harsh life in the American Midwest. In places the book reads more like a sociological description than an imaginative, dramatic work of fiction. When the reader meets Gantry, he is a senior at a small evangelical college. The book moves slowly through Gantry's "call" to the ministry, his seduction and manipulative abandonment of a young, naive woman, Lulu, and his education at the seminary. The key section of the book involves the portrayal of Sharon Falconer and Gantry's relationship to her. Following her death, Gantry becomes involved in New Thought. He then takes a series of Baptist pulpits, marries a woman he does not love to advance his career, has numerous affairs, and then nearly meets his downfall in a too-hastily written conclusion. For all its weaknesses, "Elmer Gantry" is a powerful novel with a strong cumulative effect.
The book has been described as "the noisiest novel in American literature, the most braying, guffawing, belching novel that we have." (Lewis' biographer Mark Schorer, as quoted in the liner notes to the opera.) Besides all the rattling, the deceit, and the melodrama, Lewis' novel includes a degree of thought. The novel makes reference (chapter XX, section 11) to the great American idealist philosopher, Josiah Royce, a thinker Gantry cannot begin to understand. Together with the hypocrites and timeservers, the novel includes two good, thoughtful characters, Gantry's college friend Jim Lefferts, and Gantry's fellow-student at the seminary, Frank Shallard, both of whom come to unfortunate ends. The book also includes several scenes among clerics in which issues of science, religion, faith, fundamentalism, morals, skepticism are discussed with some sensitivity. Some of these scenes detract from the pace of the story and result in a book that drags in places. But some rethinking of the nature of religion is occurring in the novel. In places, "Elmer Gantry" is not the simple burlesque stereotype of religion that some critics have found it.
The novel was the subject of strong and understandable criticism when it appeared due to its portrayal of both revivalist and more mainline Protestant ministers and for what was perceived as the book's mockery of religion. The book is one-sided on any account. (The opera is much less so.) But it is not the total, shrill anti-religious screed of some readers. For all its length, rambling, and flaws, "Elmer Gantry" held my interest and attention. The book also has more power to inspire thought than is sometimes realized. I greatly enjoyed the Aldridge-Garfein operatic version of "Elmer Gantry". They realized aptly that the book merited an artistic rendition in music. For all the virtues of the opera, I was glad to have the opportunity to think more about Elmer Gantry and about American religion by reading Lewis' classic American novel.
Robin Friedman
After listening to a new recording of an opera, "Elmer Gantry" by Robert Aldridge with a libretto by Herschel Garfein, I wanted to read the famous 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis on which the opera was based. Composed in 2007, the opera receives an excellent performance from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Florentine Opera Company and a cast of distinguished singers.
The outlines of the Elmer Gantry story are familiar from the novel and from its well-known movie adaptation. Set in the American Midwest in the early 20th Century, the title character is a football-playing hard drinking young man who becomes a minister by virtue of his speaking voice. Gantry is an evangelist before becoming the pastor or a series of increasingly larger churches. Gantry is crude, a scoundrel, and a hypocrite. While making a name for himself as an uncompromising crusader against vice, he has a series of affairs before he is blackmailed by a pair of conniving criminals. He has a narrow escape. Gantry has become one of the stock hypocritical figures and villains of American literature.
It was valuable comparing the novel to the opera. The novel is lengthy and prolix. Although operatic librettos most commonly are inartistic and subservient to the music, the libretto for "Elmer Gantry" is a outstanding example of compression and telescoping. The opera ends with the death of Sharon Falconer,the enigmatic and charismatic woman evangelist with whom Elmer has been having an affair. Sharon Falconer is easily the most fascinating character in both the opera and the novel. In the novel, she dies before the book's midpoint. Although she receives a masterly portrayal in both the novel and the opera, the opera makes her a more complex character than the book. In addition, the opera shows a great deal of sympathy for the midwest rural people who were the primary target of the revivalists. This sympathy is largely absent in Lewis.
In some ways, the opera improves upon Lewis' "Elmer Gantry"; but, as with a movie, it is no substitute for reading the book. The book has substantial strengths; I found myself gripped by it. While the opera drastically shortened the time frame of the story, the novel takes its course over a lengthy period, from 1902 to the mid-1920s'. The book is filled with extraordinary detail of harsh life in the American Midwest. In places the book reads more like a sociological description than an imaginative, dramatic work of fiction. When the reader meets Gantry, he is a senior at a small evangelical college. The book moves slowly through Gantry's "call" to the ministry, his seduction and manipulative abandonment of a young, naive woman, Lulu, and his education at the seminary. The key section of the book involves the portrayal of Sharon Falconer and Gantry's relationship to her. Following her death, Gantry becomes involved in New Thought. He then takes a series of Baptist pulpits, marries a woman he does not love to advance his career, has numerous affairs, and then nearly meets his downfall in a too-hastily written conclusion. For all its weaknesses, "Elmer Gantry" is a powerful novel with a strong cumulative effect.
The book has been described as "the noisiest novel in American literature, the most braying, guffawing, belching novel that we have." (Lewis' biographer Mark Schorer, as quoted in the liner notes to the opera.) Besides all the rattling, the deceit, and the melodrama, Lewis' novel includes a degree of thought. The novel makes reference (chapter XX, section 11) to the great American idealist philosopher, Josiah Royce, a thinker Gantry cannot begin to understand. Together with the hypocrites and timeservers, the novel includes two good, thoughtful characters, Gantry's college friend Jim Lefferts, and Gantry's fellow-student at the seminary, Frank Shallard, both of whom come to unfortunate ends. The book also includes several scenes among clerics in which issues of science, religion, faith, fundamentalism, morals, skepticism are discussed with some sensitivity. Some of these scenes detract from the pace of the story and result in a book that drags in places. But some rethinking of the nature of religion is occurring in the novel. In places, "Elmer Gantry" is not the simple burlesque stereotype of religion that some critics have found it.
The novel was the subject of strong and understandable criticism when it appeared due to its portrayal of both revivalist and more mainline Protestant ministers and for what was perceived as the book's mockery of religion. The book is one-sided on any account. (The opera is much less so.) But it is not the total, shrill anti-religious screed of some readers. For all its length, rambling, and flaws, "Elmer Gantry" held my interest and attention. The book also has more power to inspire thought than is sometimes realized. I greatly enjoyed the Aldridge-Garfein operatic version of "Elmer Gantry". They realized aptly that the book merited an artistic rendition in music. For all the virtues of the opera, I was glad to have the opportunity to think more about Elmer Gantry and about American religion by reading Lewis' classic American novel.
Robin Friedman
July 11, 2021
Oh man, I am left a little speechless. Let me pull myself together. I just finished this classic novel by Sinclair Lewis. I have owned this book for decades but only recently decided now is the time to read it. It is a look at the morals of a church man, Elmer Gantry, who chooses to go into the ministry because he figures it would be easier than to get a degree and become a lawyer. He does go to ministry school and becomes an ordained minister, and he is really good at what he does. Sadly, what he does includes twisting his secret immorality so that it works to his advantage. He is able for the most part to give up the booze and the tobacco so that he appears righteous, but he can't seem to break with the habit of meeting women, even after his marriage, and seducing them into falling for him. He is one of those people who uses religion and his "faith in God" to further his own purposes, however low-class and hurtful they may be, while at the same time furthering his ambitions to become the dictator of morals in America, heck in the whole world. I think I started to believe he could actually pull it off. And the more rotten he is in his private affairs, the more admired, respected and esteemed he is by his congregations. I had a teacher once who told me that if Satan were a man on campus we would elect him student body president. That sums up the life of Elmer Gantry.
This book was written in 1926, but is still relevant today. Sinclair Lewis is a masterful writer, at times poignant, but often very clever and downright funny in his ironic juxtapositions. He paints the characters and situations so deftly that the flow between Elmer the righteous man of God and Elmer the morally bankrupt degenerate seem to be rational and acceptable, until in the end it becomes undeniable. I have to be honest. The middle of the book seemed to drag a little, but all in all, I enjoyed reading it. No wonder it is a classic!
This book was written in 1926, but is still relevant today. Sinclair Lewis is a masterful writer, at times poignant, but often very clever and downright funny in his ironic juxtapositions. He paints the characters and situations so deftly that the flow between Elmer the righteous man of God and Elmer the morally bankrupt degenerate seem to be rational and acceptable, until in the end it becomes undeniable. I have to be honest. The middle of the book seemed to drag a little, but all in all, I enjoyed reading it. No wonder it is a classic!
Read
March 26, 2024Power, greed, concupiscence, and hypocrisy are four words that are associated with Elmer Gantry’s path to pastoral glory, to his magnetic adoration as a vendor of salvation. Elmer was a studious explorer, noting what worked best to capture imaginations, and the easy money that could then follow if successful – quite a good gig for those that can make it work. So he came to witness the success of Sharon Falconer of Hanning Hall, Broughton, Virginia – born Katie Jonas in Utica, New York, formerly a stenographer, and daughter of a brickyard laborer – an evangelical, itinerant preacher who had the secret sauce. Elmer went to work for Sharon and honed his skills. They became intimate, even though Sharon had a few unusual bedroom quirks, ones that would likely send many a man running for the hills never to look back. Elmer didn’t flinch, such was the strength of his attraction, at least for a while – his many attractions never lasted long. Sharon dies holding a cross when her seashore tabernacle pier in New Jersey goes up in flames during a service. Elmer sees to his survival and moves on; not so the 111 persons who perished. He eventually finds his way to Zenith in the state of Winnemac, the same town featured in Babbitt. He’s charged with a Methodist church on the wane – not for long, though. His congregation grows impressively through some bare-knuckle marketing tactics. Then his fortunes swell further as an early adopter of radio.
But did Elmer actually believe? The question of belief didn’t seem to consume his attention much because whether he was selling tools and machinery for the Pequot Farm Implement Company or forgiveness from a pulpit, Elmer Gantry owned his destiny and was never to be deterred. He intended to rule the world.
But did Elmer actually believe? The question of belief didn’t seem to consume his attention much because whether he was selling tools and machinery for the Pequot Farm Implement Company or forgiveness from a pulpit, Elmer Gantry owned his destiny and was never to be deterred. He intended to rule the world.
August 11, 2008
This send up of religious institutions was so devestating that many religious leaders called for Lewis to be stoned to death for writing it. His biting, insightful, and humorous look at religious hypocrisy is as pertinant today as it was when it was first written.
The pure strength of Lewis's prose is refreshing after reading more recent authors. His control and understanding of syntax, grammar, and words maintains a strength and clarity of voice throughout the work. However, he does not sacrifice wit or levity for all his precision.
There are occasions when his passion overcomes him and his critiques fall a little heavy-handed, but these moments are rare and short. He never falls to the sort of surrogate lecturing that many 'political' authors do, and so does not risk boring or underestimating his reader.
He certainly never partakes in the more grievous sin of lecturing the audience as the narrator. Indeed, he rarely makes a point towards his own opinions without undermining it with a little hypocrisy or hubris on the character's part.
The absurdity of Voltaire's satire has nothing on the ridiculous yet believable world created by Lewis. Hyperbole is the haven of the idealist. Realism is more interested in engaging reason than inciting passion, and while Lewis's understated wit never insults his reader's intelligence, it still presents an unsettling and prescient view of power, ignorance, and the masses.
The pure strength of Lewis's prose is refreshing after reading more recent authors. His control and understanding of syntax, grammar, and words maintains a strength and clarity of voice throughout the work. However, he does not sacrifice wit or levity for all his precision.
There are occasions when his passion overcomes him and his critiques fall a little heavy-handed, but these moments are rare and short. He never falls to the sort of surrogate lecturing that many 'political' authors do, and so does not risk boring or underestimating his reader.
He certainly never partakes in the more grievous sin of lecturing the audience as the narrator. Indeed, he rarely makes a point towards his own opinions without undermining it with a little hypocrisy or hubris on the character's part.
The absurdity of Voltaire's satire has nothing on the ridiculous yet believable world created by Lewis. Hyperbole is the haven of the idealist. Realism is more interested in engaging reason than inciting passion, and while Lewis's understated wit never insults his reader's intelligence, it still presents an unsettling and prescient view of power, ignorance, and the masses.
June 9, 2016
I had expected that I would know the basics from having seen the movie but the book was completely different! Excellent satire about evangelical Christians, small town America & hypocrisy and the Anthony Heald narration was very good.
Elmer Gantry is a hypocrite but he doesn't even seem to realize it (or only dimly)! So many aspects of Elmer reminded me of Donald Trump that at times it was hard to continue (and made me hate the ending -- great for satire but awful for the real world).
Elmer Gantry is a hypocrite but he doesn't even seem to realize it (or only dimly)! So many aspects of Elmer reminded me of Donald Trump that at times it was hard to continue (and made me hate the ending -- great for satire but awful for the real world).
October 28, 2025
Back in the 1960s, I remember seeing the movie version of
Elmer Gantry
starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons on our old black and white TV. The movie won three Academy Awards including best actor for Lancaster. Since then, I have had the novel by Sinclair Lewis on my list of books to read and finally, after 60 years or so, got around to it. As I was reading the book, I also decided to rewatch the movie (available on several streaming sites) to see how it compares with the book.
"Elmer Gantry is a 1927 satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis that presents aspects of the religious activity of the United States in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. Reverend Dr. Elmer Gantry, the protagonist, is attracted by drinking, chasing women, and making easy money (although eventually renouncing tobacco and alcohol). In the novel's fictional world, after various forays into smaller fringe churches, Gantry becomes a major moral and political force in the Methodist Church despite his hypocrisy and serial sexual indiscretions." The novel follows Gantry from his young days when he was in college and leaning towards atheism at the encouragement of one of his friends. He was a hard drinker and womanizer. He later attends a Baptist seminary and eventually is ordained a Baptist minister. But when he fails to appear at a church service because he was too drunk, he is thrown out of the seminary. He goes on to be a salesman but happens upon a tent revivalist service featuring a very prominent female evangelist, Sharon Falconer. Gantry gains her confidence and becomes her second in command and her lover. This relationship eventually ends when a tragic fire kills Falconer and many of her followers. Gantry goes on to be a Methodist minister where he gains power by manipulating political figures to conduct raids against bootleggers, prostitutes, and bar goers (this part of the story occurred during prohibition). Gantry almost meets his downfall when a husband and wife blackmail team lures him into an illicit affair. Gantry claims to be repentant but is he really?
Elmer Gantry was a best-seller in 1927 but it did cause a public outcry and was banned in Boston and other cities. It has been called the "greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire."
I have read one other novel by Lewis, Main Street, which I thought was an interesting look at rural life in the early twentieth century. Gantry is really a very harsh look at religion during the same time period and its sometimes blatant hypocrisy. One other reviewer of this novel compares the revivalist part of the story to Donald Trump's political rallies. I tend to agree with that and Trump could have used Gantry as a template to his political goals. Towards the end of the novel, Gantry felt that he could one day be "dictator of the world." By combining all the moral organizations together, he would be "the man behind the throne, the man who would send for presidents, and give orders. . . and that man, perhaps the most powerful man since the beginning of history, was going to be Elmer Gantry. Not even Napoleon or Alexander had been able to dictate what a whole nation should wear and eat and say and think. That Elmer Gantry was about to do. . . I'm going to be the emperor of America—maybe the world." The novel really left me with a lot to think about!
As far as the movie version, it really only used a small part of the middle of the novel for its basis. The section about the female evangelist, Sharon Falconer, is the source of most of the movie with some characters from the book being changed with different roles. I still think the movie is excellent but the book really takes the Elmer Gantry character to another level.
"Elmer Gantry is a 1927 satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis that presents aspects of the religious activity of the United States in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. Reverend Dr. Elmer Gantry, the protagonist, is attracted by drinking, chasing women, and making easy money (although eventually renouncing tobacco and alcohol). In the novel's fictional world, after various forays into smaller fringe churches, Gantry becomes a major moral and political force in the Methodist Church despite his hypocrisy and serial sexual indiscretions." The novel follows Gantry from his young days when he was in college and leaning towards atheism at the encouragement of one of his friends. He was a hard drinker and womanizer. He later attends a Baptist seminary and eventually is ordained a Baptist minister. But when he fails to appear at a church service because he was too drunk, he is thrown out of the seminary. He goes on to be a salesman but happens upon a tent revivalist service featuring a very prominent female evangelist, Sharon Falconer. Gantry gains her confidence and becomes her second in command and her lover. This relationship eventually ends when a tragic fire kills Falconer and many of her followers. Gantry goes on to be a Methodist minister where he gains power by manipulating political figures to conduct raids against bootleggers, prostitutes, and bar goers (this part of the story occurred during prohibition). Gantry almost meets his downfall when a husband and wife blackmail team lures him into an illicit affair. Gantry claims to be repentant but is he really?
Elmer Gantry was a best-seller in 1927 but it did cause a public outcry and was banned in Boston and other cities. It has been called the "greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire."
I have read one other novel by Lewis, Main Street, which I thought was an interesting look at rural life in the early twentieth century. Gantry is really a very harsh look at religion during the same time period and its sometimes blatant hypocrisy. One other reviewer of this novel compares the revivalist part of the story to Donald Trump's political rallies. I tend to agree with that and Trump could have used Gantry as a template to his political goals. Towards the end of the novel, Gantry felt that he could one day be "dictator of the world." By combining all the moral organizations together, he would be "the man behind the throne, the man who would send for presidents, and give orders. . . and that man, perhaps the most powerful man since the beginning of history, was going to be Elmer Gantry. Not even Napoleon or Alexander had been able to dictate what a whole nation should wear and eat and say and think. That Elmer Gantry was about to do. . . I'm going to be the emperor of America—maybe the world." The novel really left me with a lot to think about!
As far as the movie version, it really only used a small part of the middle of the novel for its basis. The section about the female evangelist, Sharon Falconer, is the source of most of the movie with some characters from the book being changed with different roles. I still think the movie is excellent but the book really takes the Elmer Gantry character to another level.
May 5, 2022
What struck me while reading this book was how absolutely static the world of religious fundamentalism is. Lewis wrote this book in 1926, yet the world of Evangelical Fundamentalism that he satirizes in it was essentially unchanged fifty years later when I was growing up within that culture. The language was unchanged; all the stock, pious phrases of the uniquely churchy language that I grew up with in the '70s were present here. The ideas, the cultural paranoia, distrust of intellect - Lewis nailed all these things, and they are as relevant to the culture I grew up in or the right wing religious culture of today as they were ninety years ago when he wrote this novel.
Lewis attended Evangelical church services up to three time each Sunday as research while writing Elmer Gantry. It shows. This is a powerful novel that, unfortunately, is nearly as relevant today as when it was written.
Lewis attended Evangelical church services up to three time each Sunday as research while writing Elmer Gantry. It shows. This is a powerful novel that, unfortunately, is nearly as relevant today as when it was written.
May 21, 2022
Beliefs are inherent to the human condition. As homo sapiens, beliefs have lodged themselves into the present form of the human psyche for the past 50,000 years. The vast majority of these beliefs are formed by mixing a meager bit of evidence together with a heavy dose of emotion. They lack a necessary foundation, such as a moral conviction of right versus wrong or the scientific process, to form anything resembling a solid truth. As such, a society founded upon these beliefs cannot grow.
Sinclair Lewis strikes at the heart of these beliefs with Elmer Gantry. His story serves to illustrate how arbitrary, expedient, and temporary they can be. Without a stable foundation they easily erode away or worse, mutate into some other belief in service of our own ever-changing desires. And Lewis' means of conveying his attack is through the intellectual path of rich but sublime irony.
As for Elmer Gantry the character, Lewis creates a human in the homo sapien image. Gantry is the human instrument who is devoid of any real moral conviction and has no need for the scientific process. As such, Gantry is the conveyor of the feelings associated with forming and discarding beliefs on a whim. At one moment, he is likable and the next he is deplorable, all without missing a step. Elmer Gantry instilled himself in my consciousness and he allowed me to judge his hypocrisy and to feel the pain of his acts. And any book that can achieve that sort of emotional connection rises above the rest.
The book focuses on religion in the early 1900s and emphasizes how entire religious institutions were built on these frail beliefs and how such institutions fell due to human capriciousness. By extension, Elmer Gantry’s theme applies to any institution at any point in time be it government, business, or religion. With this in mind, Sinclair’s book is indeed timeless, practically spanning 50,000 years. Is it any wonder that humans have just recently learned how to fly?
Sinclair Lewis strikes at the heart of these beliefs with Elmer Gantry. His story serves to illustrate how arbitrary, expedient, and temporary they can be. Without a stable foundation they easily erode away or worse, mutate into some other belief in service of our own ever-changing desires. And Lewis' means of conveying his attack is through the intellectual path of rich but sublime irony.
As for Elmer Gantry the character, Lewis creates a human in the homo sapien image. Gantry is the human instrument who is devoid of any real moral conviction and has no need for the scientific process. As such, Gantry is the conveyor of the feelings associated with forming and discarding beliefs on a whim. At one moment, he is likable and the next he is deplorable, all without missing a step. Elmer Gantry instilled himself in my consciousness and he allowed me to judge his hypocrisy and to feel the pain of his acts. And any book that can achieve that sort of emotional connection rises above the rest.
The book focuses on religion in the early 1900s and emphasizes how entire religious institutions were built on these frail beliefs and how such institutions fell due to human capriciousness. By extension, Elmer Gantry’s theme applies to any institution at any point in time be it government, business, or religion. With this in mind, Sinclair’s book is indeed timeless, practically spanning 50,000 years. Is it any wonder that humans have just recently learned how to fly?
November 3, 2016
This was amazing. I will definitely need to explore other books by Sinclair Lewis. Wow. This man could WRITE! I don't know much about Lewis, but he must have had some extensive exposure to the Christianity of his day. I found this very educational regarding the religious landscape of America during the turn of the century. Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Catholics, Mormons, New Thoughters are represented here with all their foibles and idiosyncrasies. A fascinating comparative study, to say the least; but, more prominently, a blistering rebuke on religious hypocrisy. Lewis set his cannons ablaze upon insincere Christianity. This story will make one stop dead-in-his-tracks before he tries to go into the ministry for status or prestige. Is ministry simply an opportunity for upward mobility? Does it stroke the ego? Does it place us in an admiring light? Is it a chance to garner influence? Do we enjoy flattery? Vie for authority? Do we yearn for greatness? If the answer is yes to any one of these, then Lewis is gunning for you.
The Dr. Rev. Elmer Gantry started out as an unsuspecting, jovial, young seminarian who didn't have a clue what he was getting into. But, he was promised that if he went into the ministry he could really make a difference in the world. Think again, Elmer. There's more that goes into it than that. Yet he blithely went along as an out-and-out fraud, seeking for worldly acclaim. And as he ascended the corporate ladder, each rung became more and more precarious. I sat enthralled the entire way. A humorous, yet convicting read. Highly recommended for seminarians and young aspiring leaders.
The Dr. Rev. Elmer Gantry started out as an unsuspecting, jovial, young seminarian who didn't have a clue what he was getting into. But, he was promised that if he went into the ministry he could really make a difference in the world. Think again, Elmer. There's more that goes into it than that. Yet he blithely went along as an out-and-out fraud, seeking for worldly acclaim. And as he ascended the corporate ladder, each rung became more and more precarious. I sat enthralled the entire way. A humorous, yet convicting read. Highly recommended for seminarians and young aspiring leaders.
October 15, 2007
Elmer Gantry is a womanizing troublemaker who manages to become a successful preacher despite his frequent questionable conduct, and often destroying the lives of those around him along the way.
This is really a fantastic book and one that, although it was written 80 years ago, is still quite fresh and thought-provoking. It explores religion and the lives of those who deliver it to us in a way few authors would dare.
This is really a fantastic book and one that, although it was written 80 years ago, is still quite fresh and thought-provoking. It explores religion and the lives of those who deliver it to us in a way few authors would dare.
August 15, 2022
What God hath rot.
January 4, 2015
If you've ever laughed at (or been disgusted by) the antics of televangelist charlatans like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, Sinclair Lewis had their number 80 years ago. The fictional Elmer Gantry rises to prominence before the era of radio and TV evangalism, but his greed, self-serving political ambitions, and sexual indiscretions are just like those of his real-life counterparts.
I actually listened to part of this audiobook while mistakenly thinking the author was Upton Sinclair. Duoh! How embarrassing. Besides having similar names, the authors were contemporaries who wrote about similar topics in the same time period, and their style is similar as well, though Lewis is a bit more satirical while Sinclair is more pedagogical. But both of them write bitingly about the foibles of early 20th century America.
Elmer Gantry follows the protagonist from his beginnings as an irreverent student at a religious university who's basically browbeaten into being "saved" by another traveling preacher who turns out to be a cynical fraud himself. But Elmer is set out on his path, and goes to seminary to become a Baptist preacher. After getting caught with one of his flock, he's kicked out by the Baptists. He becomes assistant (and lover) to a crazy woman evangelist named Sharon Falconer, who on the one hand is as phony as he is, and on the other seems to really believe every bit of nonsense she spouts. Her character was quite interesting; today we'd probably call her bipolar, and she seems to be the one woman Elmer truly loves, as he remembers her for the rest of his life, even when he moves on to bigger and better venues after losing her.
He spends a little time doing whacky New Age spirituality and "self-help" seminars (yes, this stuff was going around 80 years ago too) before he manages to con himself into the Methodist church, and pretty soon he's a minister. From there he keeps moving on to bigger and bigger churches, becoming more and more powerful, and always as hypocritical, self-centered, greedy, and rapacious as ever.
This was a great story for its study of hypocrisy and very cynical and realistic examination of religion in America. (Sinclair did his homework, sitting in on a lot of church services to write this.) It's not exactly an indictment of Christianity and shouldn't be taken that way -- the novel doesn't take a stand on the rightness or wrongness of any particular religious beliefs, only on the all-too-realistic behavior of the clergy and parishioners. Sinclair writes a straightforward story with lots of minor characters, each of them very human and flawed and interesting. By the end of the book, you're really, really hoping that Elmer Gantry will finally get his comeuppance, but despite many close calls and setbacks over the course of his career, Gantry is like an eel who always seems to wriggle his way out of the worst of his difficulties.
I recommend this highly as American literature set in the same time period as the novels of Upton Sinclair and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I actually listened to part of this audiobook while mistakenly thinking the author was Upton Sinclair. Duoh! How embarrassing. Besides having similar names, the authors were contemporaries who wrote about similar topics in the same time period, and their style is similar as well, though Lewis is a bit more satirical while Sinclair is more pedagogical. But both of them write bitingly about the foibles of early 20th century America.
Elmer Gantry follows the protagonist from his beginnings as an irreverent student at a religious university who's basically browbeaten into being "saved" by another traveling preacher who turns out to be a cynical fraud himself. But Elmer is set out on his path, and goes to seminary to become a Baptist preacher. After getting caught with one of his flock, he's kicked out by the Baptists. He becomes assistant (and lover) to a crazy woman evangelist named Sharon Falconer, who on the one hand is as phony as he is, and on the other seems to really believe every bit of nonsense she spouts. Her character was quite interesting; today we'd probably call her bipolar, and she seems to be the one woman Elmer truly loves, as he remembers her for the rest of his life, even when he moves on to bigger and better venues after losing her.
He spends a little time doing whacky New Age spirituality and "self-help" seminars (yes, this stuff was going around 80 years ago too) before he manages to con himself into the Methodist church, and pretty soon he's a minister. From there he keeps moving on to bigger and bigger churches, becoming more and more powerful, and always as hypocritical, self-centered, greedy, and rapacious as ever.
This was a great story for its study of hypocrisy and very cynical and realistic examination of religion in America. (Sinclair did his homework, sitting in on a lot of church services to write this.) It's not exactly an indictment of Christianity and shouldn't be taken that way -- the novel doesn't take a stand on the rightness or wrongness of any particular religious beliefs, only on the all-too-realistic behavior of the clergy and parishioners. Sinclair writes a straightforward story with lots of minor characters, each of them very human and flawed and interesting. By the end of the book, you're really, really hoping that Elmer Gantry will finally get his comeuppance, but despite many close calls and setbacks over the course of his career, Gantry is like an eel who always seems to wriggle his way out of the worst of his difficulties.
I recommend this highly as American literature set in the same time period as the novels of Upton Sinclair and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
April 9, 2021
At the age of 74 I think that Elmer Gantry is a name that I have probably known for much of my life. It was always associated with a hard drinking lecherous preacher. But I have never read the book until I just now completed listening to it in the audible version. The book was first published in 1927 and the times have considerably changed although I have lived in the town with Jerry Falwell JR, the 21st-century Elmer Gantry. Actually the book disappointed me as the Elmer of Sinclair Lewis is not the barnstorming carousing Elmer of my imagination! I thought he was actually quite sedate although that might have been partially due to the limitations to which Lewis was willing to go in his authorial descriptions. And at the end Elmer is able to escape from the trap that is set for him.
In 1927 this book might have deserved more than two stars but I think that in the year 2021, It has seriously lost its punch and any message that it might have once contained. I am glad to be able to check this book off of my reading bucket list but I think others might be able to save their time and effort. The embarrassing stories of the wayward evangelical ministers have been well told in the mid and late 20th century. And in much more detail.
The name Elmer Gantry has a certain currency with a certain age but it has not lived on. My 28-year-old daughter who does not live with her head in the sand by any means had never heard of the name! This simply reinforces my belief that this book may have played a role in 1927 but no longer has much wallop.
In 1927 this book might have deserved more than two stars but I think that in the year 2021, It has seriously lost its punch and any message that it might have once contained. I am glad to be able to check this book off of my reading bucket list but I think others might be able to save their time and effort. The embarrassing stories of the wayward evangelical ministers have been well told in the mid and late 20th century. And in much more detail.
The name Elmer Gantry has a certain currency with a certain age but it has not lived on. My 28-year-old daughter who does not live with her head in the sand by any means had never heard of the name! This simply reinforces my belief that this book may have played a role in 1927 but no longer has much wallop.
October 31, 2019
A wonderful look into hypocrisy, in this case the kind demonstrated by religion.
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