WeBuzz
Reader discussion: Babbitt
Public reader discussion about Babbitt in the WeRead Catalog by Sinclair Lewis.
Why do I almost never see Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt listed as one of the great American novels?
By Reader-Spectrum23
I just reread it for the second time—the last one was almost ten years ago when I was 25. After this run, I actually told myself I’ll pick it up again in another ten years, because I’m realizing how much stuff connected to my adult life that I had zero idea about the first time.
I also think it’s a really sharp look at middle America, and it still hits just as hard now, especially with everything going on socially and politically.
What I don’t get is why, even though Sinclair Lewis is usually treated like such a big deal, people mostly talk about his other books like *It Can’t Happen Here* or *Arrowsmith*. In my head, this one feels just as good as something like *The Great Gatsby*—the kind of book that belongs on the “best of the era” lists. So why does it get less attention? Maybe because the criticism is a little too on-the-nose?
Has anybody read The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt?
By mist_deviant74745
I read this ages ago and it still means a lot to me. It’s a pretty short fantasy book. Basically it’s about an orphan who gets taken in by the king’s scribe. The scribe puts together a dictionary and gives it to the king. The king likes it a lot except for the definition of delicious, since that’s the scribe’s favorite food. The king says delicious is roast beef, the queen says apple pie, the sergeant says beer, and the queen’s brother says walnuts. That starts a fight and the queen’s brother storms off, mad because he’s jealous of the king’s power. Then they send the orphan around to all the towns in the kingdom to find out what everyone thinks delicious means.
I read it when I was really young, probably because it was my mom’s, and I’ve always had a soft spot for it even though it’s a kids’ book. Does anyone else know this one?
How to read Babbitt
By blankit
I’m bringing this up because I tried it a year ago and didn’t finish it. I got to about page 100 and ended up pretty bummed, because it wasn’t even close to what I expected. I really like stuff like Appointment in Samarra, Revolutionary Road, and Sister Carrie—also those early/mid-1900s suburban American novels. This one just felt off somehow.
Now I’m not sure if it’s that Sinclair Lewis writes in a totally different way than I’m used to, or if I just came into it wrong. I’ve got Main Street and Babbitt sitting on my shelf—have you guys read either of those? And what do you think about Lewis in general? How should I approach him so it clicks?
What classic books were mandatory reading in your school when you were a teenager?
By oldOwl1998
Just to be clear, I mean the “classic” stuff you had to read for a compulsory literature class when you were a teenager (like high school/secondary school). Not anything from a uni course, and definitely not children’s books you read when you were little and still learning to read.
I’m asking because I’m really curious what different countries’ education systems pick as their kind of “canon” classics.
I’ll start: I’m from the UK, and for GCSE English Lit I had to do Macbeth, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and An Inspector Calls. In the UK it’s basically one Shakespeare play, one 19th-century book, and one post-1900 book for everyone.
Sinclair Lewis books?
By horsepatient
Anyone got good recs? I really enjoyed Main Street and Babbitt—his writing style is so good. Thanks!
Dramatised, multi cast audio book recommendations?
By bluewindow
Just finished 1984 with Andrew Garfield and Cynthia Erivo and I’m still like… WOW. I seriously loved it. Any other books like it that you’d recommend? 😊
Also totally down for newer stuff too, and even something a little less intense/serious haha.
It Can't Happen Here.
By CoastPlanet18
So, I got left alone in a bookshop by my girlfriend (which is definitely not something she’s supposed to do), and I ended up grabbing Sinclair Lewis’ *It Can’t Happen Here* just because it was on offer and a bunch of people kept saying it was weirdly accurate.
And wow… I’m only about 150 pages in, but it’s set in 1936 and basically in the “almost next” future, where a fascist government takes over the US. The whole thing is run by Buzz Windrip, this so-called “man of the people” who’s promising the disenfranchised a ton of money and prosperity. He comes off as a total fraud—like vulgar, not very smart, and just lying in a way that should be easy to spot—while there’s this bigger ultra-right mastermind behind him.
What’s freaking me out is how on-point it feels and how relevant it still is. It’s already gotten to the part where the new government gathers the press and tells them they need to check with the White House to get the real story.
Has anyone else read it? Curious what you all thought.
The rise, fall, and rise of Sinclair Lewis' reputation
By library_looks53
Sinclair Lewis has always been one of the more interesting authors to me, mostly because his whole career/reputation took such a weird turn. He was huge in the 1920s—like, one of the most popular writers then—and he even became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. But then after that, things pretty much slid downhill for him, both professionally and personally for years. Even though he kept writing and tackling social issues pretty boldly as late as 1947 (Kingsblood Royal), he never really got back to that earlier level of success. And he died in Rome in January 1951, pretty lonely and it sounds like the alcohol didn’t help.
After he died, he also got pushed down in literary circles as people like Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, and the others slowly started overshadowing him. Main Street and Babbitt stayed decent and well-known, but a lot of his other stuff basically fell out of the public eye.
Then suddenly in 2016 and 2017, It Can’t Happen Here (his 1935 book about a fascist takeover in America) started going crazy in sales. It even climbed to the top 5 on Amazon’s bestseller list. It probably isn’t his best writing-wise, but it feels way more relevant now than it used to, and it’s aged really well. Reading it, I couldn’t help thinking about what Lewis would think about “that orange someone.”
It’s just kind of wild how author reputations can swing around over time. So many people we treat like “history’s greatest” were ignored during their own lives. And Fitzgerald died in 1940 from a similar kind of situation as Lewis, convinced he’d be forgotten. It’s funny (in a way that makes you think) how Fitzgerald is now the poster child for the Roaring Twenties, while Lewis only really got a bump recently because of a book that was way past his peak.
Arizonasaurus babbitti, a Ctenosauriscidae Archosaur reconstructed by DefinetilyNotPedro on Deviant art.
By skyValley
The Triassic feels like it was right between two big mass extinctions, and life was just kind of throwing stuff at the wall to see what survived—like “I don’t know, why not?”
Review: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
By followsClock40
Okay but… if you could live forever in a world that’s kind of falling apart, would you actually want that? That’s the whole vibe of *Tuck Everlasting*.
I know Natalie Babbitt did other stuff too, but this one feels like her real win. It’s been around forever, lots of teachers seem to like it, it’s won awards, and somehow it’s been turned into movies and even a Broadway thing. The story starts in 1880 and it moves pretty straight from there: Winnie, who’s 10, finds a spring in the woods and before she even drinks it, the Tucks show up—Mrs. Tuck, plus Miles and Jesse. They take her home and basically tell her the water makes you immortal. They drank it like 87 years ago and they haven’t aged since. And the thing is, they don’t want more people to go through it. Immortality sounds cool, but for them it’s turned into a mess.
Then there’s this creepy guy in a yellow suit who hears about it and wants to get the spring for himself so he can sell it to rich people. I liked the friendship side with the Tucks a lot—it’s kind of sweet—but things get tense near the end because Winnie has to decide what she thinks is right. Like, is it actually a good thing to never grow up?
I looked at some reader Q&A stuff from the edition I read, and the author kind of says it’s not really a “here’s the moral” story. It’s more about dilemmas and hard choices. And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. In Winnie's place, what would you do? Would you drink? Would you warn everyone? Are you helping people or just making everything worse?
Also, the Tucks each feel like they represent different arguments for why immortality might be a curse or not. One of them is all about change being part of life, and how not aging goes against the natural order. Another is basically the opposite and wants Winnie to stay right where she is. I kept going back and forth in my head, like I’m sure there’s got to be something seriously wrong with “forever,” even if it sounds tempting at first.
I won’t say what Winnie chooses, but the ending is the kind of thing that sparks arguments after you finish it. It’s a fun story either way, but the extra weight makes it way better. I really loved it.
It Can't Happen Here By Sinclair Lewis: Still Relevant Today As It Was Back In 1935
By faintLynx
I just reread *It Can’t Happen Here* by Sinclair Lewis, and I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it. I’m not one of those super political people, but if you’ve read it, you’ll know how wild the parallels are with the US right now. It talks about stuff like messing with the media, suppressing people, and how militias start popping up all over the place, and it honestly feels like it could be lifted from today.
People always say America’s more split than it’s ever been, and the book basically runs with that too—but it gets way worse. What really blows my mind is that this was published in 1935, when everyone was already watching what was going on in places like Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan, yet it still feels like it has a lot of bite now.
I’d recommend it if you want a kind of alternate “what if” where America ends up even uglier than Nazi Germany. The similarities are honestly scary. In the book, things basically tip into a full-on fascist state, and compared to that it feels like we’re only barely dodging that path. I’m curious what others think, but I’m really not trying to pick fights—I just want to talk about what this book brings up about American society today.
Also, thanks for all the responses and the good conversations—there’s a ton for me to dig into now. I didn’t expect this thread to take off like it did, so thanks again for all the upvotes. I’ll come back after I’ve had a chance to read and check out what everyone suggested.
Is there a novelist that could be considered the “Faulkner of the Midwest”
By small_dragon_hill18
Faulkner always gets described as this great Southern novelist, so it made me wonder if there’s anyone who could kind of play that same role for the Midwest.
I’d also love recs for authors who write really lyrically about the Midwest, even if they’re not a direct match.
"Hobbit" as a culture
By Listens_Orbit6537
It kind of bugs me how people talk about hobbits like they’re their own separate “race,” like that’s just their species name. I feel like it makes more sense to treat hobbits as more of a culture within the larger halfling/halfling-like group.
Most folks who actually know about them call them “halflings” (except for the whole Rohan thing), and we also see close relatives who don’t live in the Shire—like Gollum and his people. “Hobbit” seems to be a term the Shire people use for all of their kind. The Rohirrim word is different too and basically means “hole-dweller,” so it wouldn’t neatly cover all the other halfling groups like the river folk.
So yeah, my guess is “hobbit” is really the culture that developed when they moved into the Shire (or maybe started from Bree), and “hobbits” are the members of that halfling race. What do you think?
What are your favorite full cast production audiobooks ?
By Bottle66
I’m currently listening to The Wizard of Oz narrated by Anne Hathaway and I’m actually loving it. It’s so good. I’m gonna want to find more audiobooks like this one—any recommendations for stuff with the same kind of vibe?
Sinclair Lewis warned us about Trump's 2nd Inauguration 90 years ago.
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It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
By StoryGolden1974
It Can’t Happen Here (1935) is basically about a made-up fascist takeover of the US, so it felt pretty on-the-nose for the era. I also found it way more grounded than a lot of dystopian stuff I’ve read, which I appreciated. I know it got loosely turned into that 1980s sci-fi miniseries V, too.
After I finish a book, I usually check SparkNotes/Shmoop and similar sites to see if I missed anything, and I *thought* this one would have something… but nope. So now I’m kind of stuck wanting more discussion about it.
Has anyone else read it?
Proper Names of Fictional Characters Adopted as Dictionary Terms
By Curious-Reader
I’ve been digging into Sinclair Lewis’s 1922 book *Babbitt*. The main character’s name ended up turning into words like “Babbitry”/“Babbitism,” and even just “Babbitt,” basically to mean a pretty materialistic, smug guy who just goes along with whatever his little social group expects. It made me wonder: are there many other cases where a fictional character’s name gets used in everyday-ish language to carry a whole personality/identity vibe?
I feel like this might not happen super often in newer lit (say, after 1800—could be totally wrong). One example I can think of is Bunbury from Wilde’s *The Importance of Being Earnest*—the whole made-up person used to dodge stuff. That one even got turned into “bunburying.” My rough test is whether it shows up as a dictionary entry like the OED (and both “Babbitt” and “Bunbury” are there, with definitions along those lines), but something like Fitzgerald’s Gatsby doesn’t really have the same dictionary treatment, even though “Gatsby-like” is a thing people would understand.
On the other hand, I’d probably not count something like “narcissism,” since most people use it without thinking about Narcissus at all.
So yeah—I'd love input from people who know more than I do. Any other examples you can think of, especially from more modern literature?
Edit: I guess “Scrooge” too, and maybe “Holmesian” though that one feels weaker.