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maxmflick's review against another edition
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
geoffreyjen's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating book. Written in 1926, and yet still as valid a critique of churches and evangelism today as when it was written. [a:Sinclair Lewis|7330|Sinclair Lewis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1205204856p2/7330.jpg] did a huge amount of research to support the story and it shows. It has been said about satire that the writer must also love the things he lambasts, a little, to write effective satire, and one senses this is the case here. The book covers many aspects of organized religion, from teaching colleges, through revivalist gospel meetings, new age religion before it was called that, mainstream congregations and interfaith committees, with the same ascerbic wit. Well written. Turned into a film but there is material enough here for another one, if someone wanted to try it, although it would still be a controversial subject.
munchin's review against another edition
4.0
Scathing! An unyieldingly scathing and intelligent and often funny evisceration of evangelistic hypocrisy. This book could have been written today about Ted Haggard or 10 years ago about Jerry Falwell or 25 years ago about Jimmy Swaggart or 15 years ago about Jim Bakker or basically at any point in modern American history. Nothing ever changes, huh? I would have liked it more if only the characters weren't so fundamentally despicable.
danbydame's review against another edition
4.0
7/12: I am coincidentally and serendipitously reading this while in the midst of watching Preacher. I would highly recommend this one-two punch to others (but only if you have the stomach to watch Preacher). These two stories are so different, yet share so much. Elmer helps me understand why Jesse puts on that collar, and Jesse adds a modern tint to the lens I am viewing Elmer through.
8/3: I think everyone is very aware of the recent resurgence of The Handmaid's Tale, thanks to Hulu. (no, this isn't misplaced ... bear with me). I think that's great. I am a HUGE fan of Margaret Atwood. In fact, I became a lifelong fan when I was one of the first 100 or so people in the world to read the book back in 1985. (But that's another story, and I am already taxing your patience with this apparent digression.)
However .... At least once a week, I have found myself so annoyed to come across some interview or review professing amazement at how prescient Atwood was to have written something 30 years ago that is SO relevant today. Are they not aware that it was also SO relevant 30 years ago? Have we already forgotten about Falwell and his Moral Majority, Reagan and Gingrich, Pat Robertson and his 700 Club TV show? We should be professing amazement that our fears from 30 years ago seem to have been forgotten and have already resurfaced as something new.
It's this same cycle of historical amnesia and societal swings that the reader experiences with Elmer Gantry (See? just like I promised). Sinclair Lewis writes about the hypocritical power mongering of churches and religion, on both the institutional and individual level. It's a struggle we know well - one of the sanctimonious right (prohibition, anti-immigrant) against the immoral left (socialism, pro-choice). This is 90 years ago. But with a few small substitutions (simple as find/replace in Word) and enhancements (tack on the Internet, maybe trade some religion for Alt Right zenophobia), this could be turned into current-events page-turner beach-read.
So, the big question for me, as yet unanswered, is whether or not to take some solace from this reminder that history repeats itself ... apparently endlessly. Should I feel better knowing that today's world is not that unique, and we will most likely come out the other side of this mess intact, if different? Or should I feel crushing defeat that any gains to be made from coming out that other side are only temporary and we will be back here again in 30, 60 or 90 years?
If you have been tempted to read something related to current events, but are hesitant to tackle something too close to the bone for fear of getting even more emotional, then this might offer you just the right amount of distance to explore the concepts without losing sleep. It's mostly a character study and societal temperature-taking. But the character of Elmer Gantry is surprisingly subtle. Lewis does a good job of keeping him from becoming a caricature. He is exaggerated ... but not that much. It's not big on plot, but the interesting plot twist at the end gave it a nice finish. The only downside for me was the clumsiness of the conversations. I'm not convinced the phrasing was accurate ... But that's a small item, and I'm no expert on early 1900s slang.
8/3: I think everyone is very aware of the recent resurgence of The Handmaid's Tale, thanks to Hulu. (no, this isn't misplaced ... bear with me). I think that's great. I am a HUGE fan of Margaret Atwood. In fact, I became a lifelong fan when I was one of the first 100 or so people in the world to read the book back in 1985. (But that's another story, and I am already taxing your patience with this apparent digression.)
However .... At least once a week, I have found myself so annoyed to come across some interview or review professing amazement at how prescient Atwood was to have written something 30 years ago that is SO relevant today. Are they not aware that it was also SO relevant 30 years ago? Have we already forgotten about Falwell and his Moral Majority, Reagan and Gingrich, Pat Robertson and his 700 Club TV show? We should be professing amazement that our fears from 30 years ago seem to have been forgotten and have already resurfaced as something new.
It's this same cycle of historical amnesia and societal swings that the reader experiences with Elmer Gantry (See? just like I promised). Sinclair Lewis writes about the hypocritical power mongering of churches and religion, on both the institutional and individual level. It's a struggle we know well - one of the sanctimonious right (prohibition, anti-immigrant) against the immoral left (socialism, pro-choice). This is 90 years ago. But with a few small substitutions (simple as find/replace in Word) and enhancements (tack on the Internet, maybe trade some religion for Alt Right zenophobia), this could be turned into current-events page-turner beach-read.
So, the big question for me, as yet unanswered, is whether or not to take some solace from this reminder that history repeats itself ... apparently endlessly. Should I feel better knowing that today's world is not that unique, and we will most likely come out the other side of this mess intact, if different? Or should I feel crushing defeat that any gains to be made from coming out that other side are only temporary and we will be back here again in 30, 60 or 90 years?
If you have been tempted to read something related to current events, but are hesitant to tackle something too close to the bone for fear of getting even more emotional, then this might offer you just the right amount of distance to explore the concepts without losing sleep. It's mostly a character study and societal temperature-taking. But the character of Elmer Gantry is surprisingly subtle. Lewis does a good job of keeping him from becoming a caricature. He is exaggerated ... but not that much. It's not big on plot, but the interesting plot twist at the end gave it a nice finish. The only downside for me was the clumsiness of the conversations. I'm not convinced the phrasing was accurate ... But that's a small item, and I'm no expert on early 1900s slang.
runningbeard's review against another edition
4.0
Life imitating art, over and over again by way of Falwell, Bakker, Crouch, Haggard, Ephren Taylor, Eddie Long, on and on and on.
Was not expecting to enjoy this, but it was surprisingly fun in capturing what appears to be a universal portrayal (or uniquely American?) phenomenon of the scandal ridden charismatic preacher.
Was not expecting to enjoy this, but it was surprisingly fun in capturing what appears to be a universal portrayal (or uniquely American?) phenomenon of the scandal ridden charismatic preacher.
thosh's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I have been meaning to read this for a while, ever since seeing the 1960 Burt Lancaster movie of the same name. Quite a bit was changed for the movie. The book was quite good. For most of it, you can’t help but like Elmer, who wants to be a good person, but is a bit of a conniving asshole ultimately. Just when it looks like his peccadilloes might catch up with him, he lands on his feet, a paragon of the evangelist community. Sinclair Lewis clearly did his research. Lots of early 20th century slang that I had to look up. Also–I was confused for a while because things were happening in the state of Winnemac; I kept thinking this was reservation land somewhere or something. Turns out Lewis used an imagined US state to avoid the complaints he received for writing about a real town in the book, Main Street.
gretchenw1976's review against another edition
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really like this book! It made me laugh out loud! I can’t tell if Rev Gantry is a psychopath or a sociopath. I put my money on the latter! Definitely a narcissist. This book takes a good look at what I believe religion and it’s representatives are really like, hence it’s controversy when it was first published! It has def triggered my interest in some different things..
jelina's review against another edition
4.0
Cynical, irreverent traced with sincerity and piety swirled in soliloquies of LOVE and Righteousness
sushai's review against another edition
5.0
Would like to see this book as an alternative beside every hotel bible.
blackoxford's review against another edition
5.0
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.