Literary Award Winners Fiction Book Club discussion

Please comment here on 'Dragon's Teeth' by Upton Sinclair, 1943 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction.

I am having a really hard time getting into this one. I am about a third of the way in and it is just dragging. There is far too much talk about various economic systems. I feel like I am being lectured. Tell me this gets better.

It does! About half way into the novel Lanny becomes involved in trying to help a couple of wealthy Jews escape from Nazi Germany.

An interesting, overly long historical fiction novel set between the years 1929 to 1934. Lanny Budd, the protagonist, has financial acumen. He sells paintings, is popular and gregarious. He speaks English, German and French. He marries the very wealthy Irma, which enables him to continue living an extravagant lifestyle. The novel describes the rise of Hitler and the Nazi takeover of Germany. Lanny’s half sister Bess, is married to Hansi, a Dutch Jewish family’s son. Hansi is a renown musician.

The second half of the novel has good plot momentum with Lanny involved in helping members of a rich Jewish family leave Germany.

I also had a hard time reading the first half of the novel. Overall the book was an okay read. I thought the characters were not fully developed.

I will push on. I am close to the half way point. Hitler has been introduced. There were moments when I felt like I was reading of the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement in the U.S.

Finished. I thought this dragged. Even when the plot began to pick up, it still dragged with all the stuff about the rich wife and questions about how to raise children and the validity of mediums. I wonder if I missed much by starting the series with the third book. I suspecgt that this challenge to Hitler's regime was more daring in 1943 than it is today. Not continuing with this series.

I have similar feelings towards this novel. It is enough that I finished reading this overly long book. I have no inclinations to read any other books in the series. As a reader I have a slight bias against reading about rich people and their financial issues.

The novel is interesting in providing a perspective of the times. As early as 1934 the Jews were being badly treated by the authorities.

It is hard to fathom how an unpleasant, not highly intelligent man, can gain such control over a country.

I wonder how much of the Pulitzer decision was political. As for Hitler's ability to win over an entire country, it is happening again here in the States. It is frightening to live through.