Customer Reviews

Dodsworth

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No doubt, this one is for your 'must read' list. When you put it down, you will feel you've lost contact with some great characters, that you've really got inside a marriage, that you've seen life the way it can be.

Samuel Dodsworth is an automobile magnate in the early years of the business. When his company is bought-out, he's left free at age 50, to do whatever he wants. But he has a slick, steel-willed, glamorous socialite for a wife and she has ambitions of climbing. He had always been "too busy to be discontented, and he managed to believe that Fran loved him.""(p.11) Sam gets roped into an extended European tour. Turns out, he's just an escort and backdrop for her movie. He experiences rising discomfort as she worms her way into European high society (or what she takes to be such). The trip gives both of them the first chance in decades to find out who they are---the common motif in literature and life of travelling to discover yourself---and they realize that they don't have much in common. Their European experiences transform them. On a visit back to the States, Dodsworth finds that he has changed; he can't regard his old friends, their old routines and concerns, and their ways with the same equanimity. They have become provincial and empty in his eyes, but what has he become ? He slowly comes to the conclusion that he's cut loose from all the went before, but has no direction for the future. He takes up several possibilities, but is caught among the rocks of loving the wayward Fran, wanting to do something useful in the world, and needing love himself. It's a long haul, but he makes it. Lewis skillfully keeps the psychological tension going to the very last page. Great stuff ! As for Fran, you'll have to read the book.

DODSWORTH is a psychological study of the first order, sincere, unpretentious and so well-written. It is not a satire on the lines of "Main Street", "Babbitt" or "Elmer Gantry", but a serious novel in the full sense of the word. Samuel Dodsworth comes across as a solid man of conservative nature who may have once been in a rut, but learns to think far more than people ever give him credit for, particularly his wife. He becomes flexible and learns to live, while Fran only continues to consume and demand. The plot plays itself out amidst a background of constant discussion as to what makes an American, what makes a European and what are the differences ? While this theme fascinated Henry James and numbers of other writers, it seems a bit passé in this day of the Web, 7 hour flights across 'the pond', massive tourism, MBAs in Europe and great museums in America. Still, it's part of the ambiance of the 1920s when this novel was written. The slow dissolution of the marriage, the contradictions of personality, the existence of strengths and weaknesses, aggressive and passive roles in both husband and wife, the psychological disintegration and re-building of a man's self-image-these are the main themes of DODSWORTH. It's one of the great American novels.

"Dodsworth" harkens to a day when you took time to read books, to savor words, descriptions, phrases, conversations between people. This is not a fast beach read, but a book to enjoy at a slow pace matching the flow of the text. Conversations go on for pages, with characters speaking in paragraphs, not sentences of 4 or 5 words. The book is an exploration of the mood and mind of Dodsworth, a retired American industrialist, still very much in the prime of his life, who is cajoled into taking his wife on an open-ended trip to Europe. The wife, battling the on-coming middle age years, flirts outrageously, and this leads to romantic entanglements. Dodsworth is left to fend for himself, and returns home, where he longs for his wayward spouse. Returning to Europe, he finds little changed and they agree to divorce. After fumbling around the contintent, Dodsworth finds a woman to love, but then his wife is dumped by her latest paramour and Dodsworh is faced with the choice of returning to his mate of 20 plus years, or setting out on a new course. You can feel his pain in coming to his decision. This book is a terrific discourse on the Ugly American as well as the phony European royalty. Both sides are equally distasteful, but interesting none-the-less. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that Lewis seems to rush the ending. The resolution comes too quickly compared to the pace of the rest of the book. It's like the author thought, "Well, I've got almost 400 pages, so let's wrap it up." By the way, there is a very good movie made of the book featuring Walter Houston. It's available on video and very faithful to the book.

Sinclair Lewis's 1929 novel DODSWORTH has staying power. It remains widely read. It was made into a Broadway stage play and then a 1936 motion picture nominated for seven Academy Awards. Imagine Giancarlo Menotti or Leonard Bernstein turning DODSWORTH into an opera of Midwestern passion and rhetoric! Published the year before its author became America's first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, DODSWORTH repeats and intensifies a number of themes, at least one visible as early as 1912's HIKE AND THE AEROPLANE.

--The hero, automobile pioneer Samuel Dodsworth, wonders whether there a dimension to corporate life beyond sheer hard work and sticking to what one knows best. If so what is it? Travel? Leisure? The life of the mind? Good conversation? An absorbing hobby? A wife supportive of both his business and non-business quests?

--Is travel in the sense of sheer moving from here to there, from one place to another, out roughing it on the long trail, the ultimate solution? Must man move incessantly in order to be happy? In New York City, after some months in a more relaxed, contemplative Europe, Dodsworth saw Manhattan as "veritably the temple of a new divinity, the God of Speed." That God of Speed "demanded a belief that Going Somewhere, Going Quickly, Going Often, were in themselves holy and greatly to be striven for. A demanding God, this Speed, ... who once he had been offered a hundred miles an hour, straightway demanded a hundred and fifty" (Ch. 16).

--Midwestern Americans, makers of national greatness, at their best are regularly accused by Sinclair Lewis of being ordinary, conformist, risk avoiders. Without their Babbitry, their service clubs, their lodges and their main-line churches, American business leaders of the second magnitude are nothing, certainly not the legendary American pioneers of yesteryear! In some ways, Sam Dodsworth at 50 was therefore not a typical product of midwestern Zenith. He was "perfectly, the American Captain of Industry. ... (But) He was none of the things which most Europeans and many Americans expect in a leader of American industry. He was not a Babbitt, not a Rotarian, not an Elk, not a deacon. ... He knew, and thoroughly, the Babbitts and baseball fans, but only in business" (Ch.2). When Dodsworth opted for a few months of travel abroad before jumping back into the rat race, the man who bought out his company accused him of thinking that the purpose of life is loafing, whereas, "I tell you, Dodsworth, to me, work is a religion. ... Do big things" (Ch. 3). In London, even his wife Fran accused Dodworth (who had attended only one Rotary lunch in his life) of wanting to be "back in all the Rotarian joys of Zenith" (Ch. 11). Ross Ireland, a world traveler journalist told Dodsworth that one reason he loved America so passionately was that its "Elks and the Rotarians and the National Civic Federation are (not) any more grab-it-all than the English merchant" (Ch. 16). In discussing America's appeal to him with emerging lady friend Edith Cortwright, Sam Dodsworth ironically concluded that there are only two good reasons for American businessmen to travel abroad: to attend "a Rotary convention, or on a conducted tour where he's well insulated from furriners. Upsets him. Spoils his pleasure in his own greatness and knowledge!" (Ch. 31)

--Another recurring Sinclair Lewis riddle is the relation of husband to wife. Does a great American achiever really need a wife? If so, why? She dare not be his intellectual or entrepreneurial equal. She is permitted a few innocent distractions from running a household and raising children. Dancing and country clubbing are all right. Flirting with other men is frowned upon. And Dodsworth has absolutely no empathy for wife Fran as she frenetically reasserts her youth and her right not to be known as a grandmother. Above all, she has no right to carp at him, to put him in his place before his friends or hers.

DODSWORTH was written by Sinclair Lewis at the height of his powers. If Samuel Dodsworth is a brooding Prince Hamlet among American business leaders, he is a distinctly understated American Hamlet. Yes, Sam Dodsworth is more Socratic than a Babbitt or a Rotarian but less human than the troubled, seeking sinners of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.

-OOO-

I liked this book quite a bit. Lewis offers a view at a marriage failing fast. I liked the depth of the characters, from Samuel Dodsworth's wife, to their many friends and acquaintences. There are also many poignant statements regarding life that read like poetry. There were a few dry areas but over all the book was engaging. The historical aspects are also interesting as well. Of note, Lewis's later book, "Cass Timberlane", is quite similar in tone and scenario but has a much different ending. Dodsworth is worth reading.

Dodsworth is a 1920s industrialist who sells his car company for a fortune. Suddenly, in healthy middle age, he and his wife have nothing to do. They go to Europe and acquire culture.

The Dodsworths are intelligent, gentle people, not to be confused with the "Babbitt" stereotype of Lewis's own making. As such, DODSWORTH the novel becomes a kind of philosophical musing on Old Europe vs. Young America, art versus industry, craftsmanship versus mass production, and so on.

The argument is out of date, of course, but today's reader might hear echoes of DODSWORTH in today's more affluent retirees. I'm thinking of the folks who make enough to retire to Florida or Arizona while still in their fifties but haven't yet learned to "do" much more than drink and party. Wonder what Lewis would think of them?

The casual reader probably wouldn't want to pick up DODSWORTH until s/he has been thru BABBITT, MAIN STREET, and ARROWSMITH.

What do you think is the purpose of life? Loafing?
The title hero is a man of 51, a captain of mid-Western industry, who has just sold his car company to a larger competitor, whose kids are just about grown up, whose wife feels young and restless in her early 40. He agrees to go on a trip to Europe with her, rather than starting a management job with the new owner of his company immediately. That's about where their agreement ends.

He is thinking of a lazy tour before going back to work, but she has larger things in mind, a change of life, a `new challenge' (one of my favorite clichés in consultant speak), a social rise, maybe an ambassadorship... Her ambitions are not this. The marriage flounders under a heavy stress test.
The trip to Europe becomes a confrontation with reality: marital alienation, so long overlooked with the hectic social life at home; inability to enjoy leisure, to absorb different social settings, to feel at home away from home.

Travels involve confrontations with one's own self and with the truth. It is harder to escape into routine lies. New definitions are needed. The wife turns out to be an unbearable snob and worse. Lewis' sympathies are fully with him, who remains a decent half barbarian.
The other main theme, apart from couples in midlife, is `innocents abroad'. It is an update on Europe in the 1920s, and how Americans react to it. That has a huge autobiographical component, I bet.

Dodsworth is a good guy by Lewis standards. He is not detestable like Babbitt, nor obnoxious like Gantry, nor obsessed like Arrowsmith. He is not eccentric and has no outstanding features. He is a good American guy. He just doesn't get it.

The book is a pleasant and entertaining read. Lewis' insight in American society and in individual psychology is substantial. His style is funny and easygoing.
His style is based on the search for humor wherever he can find it. He has developed a technique which is amusing, but becomes a wee bit tedious after a while, because the pattern is so repetitive.
Some examples.
Example 1: his grey-threaded brown mustache was fully as eccentric and showy as a doormat.
Example 2: she was interested in every aspect of these leagues except perhaps the purpose for which they had been founded, and no Indiana politician was craftier at soaping enemies, advising friends, and building up a political machine to accomplish nothing in particular.
Example 3: he had a magnificent lack of scruples; he made up for his runtiness by barking at people.
Lewis was a very observant writer, with a lot to say, but little depth in saying it. He was more a journalist than a novelist.
Still, considering that the last review of this book here is several years old is also a bit sad.
P.S. nearly forgot to point to one of my favorite lines: the redneck foreign correspondent, who pretends to be lowbrow so as not to raise suspicion with his peers, but secretly prefers Conrad over Conan Doyle. Attaboy!

An underappreciated classic...one of the great novels of the 20th century. More so than Babbitt, which is justly recognized as such. The same is true of Arrowsmith. Babbitt is a brilliant satire of the early 20th century midwestern American bourgeois businessman (basically a portrait of a W.A.S.P.)---Dodsworth and Arrowsmith are, respectively, portraits of the American industrialist and scientist, and while they are naturalistic, "warts and all" portrayals, Lewis by and large portrays them as possessing a certain nobility, even heroism.

Dodsworth is also one of the great American fictional treatments of travel abroad, up there with those of Twain, and much better than, say, Updike's.

But mostly, Dodsworth is an examination of the disintegration of a marriage, and through the spouses that represent them, of American versus European culture. Lewis offers a lot of insight into these subjects, ranging in scope from the interpersonal to the intercontinental. I can't think of any other writers that have been able to do that better than he does here.

Grover Gardner's reading of this audio edition is excellent, and a great way to experience this wonderful novel.

I had just given up on The Corrections and the Franzen frenzy and was in dire need of a quality read. Accidentally I came across DODSWORTH and for two weeks I was in seventh heaven. I am in awe. Frequently I had to put the book down to catch my breath. What a writer ! Here it is easy to understand that the Nobel Committee awarded Lewis the prize for litteratur. I agree with most of the comments in the other 4 star reviews. Also that it was a very abrupt ending. It would have been interesting with just a few more pages about Edith and Sam. Maybe not a volume 2...but just a little more.

As a huge fan of "Babbitt" and especially "Main Street," I was happy to have come across an old edition of "Dodsworth" in a used bookstore. I tore into it eagerly but soon came up short. Neither satire like "Babbitt" nor as psychologically astute as "Main Street," the book reads like something from a middle school book club. The colloquialisms are corn-pone, far more prominent than in "Babbitt." Sam's reactions to his ocean voyages and to Europe are child-like, as are his inner responses to his wife's intolerable behaviors. The soap opera-ish inner monologues do not ring true, containing embarrassing proclamations about Great Europe and marital resolutions. Sam Dodsworth is painted as so naive, trusting, xenophobic and insecure that it is difficult to accept that he had an Ivy League education and was a master of business and industry.

The characterizations, in fact, strain credibility. How a man 50 years of age, president of an auto manufacturing company, can be so entirely innocent of the customs of the U.S. and the world outside his small city is baffling. He evidences no ability for making small talk, is ignorant of all current events and politics, is absent of even minor social charms with the rich-- all of these traits are overexaggerated for the purposes of the book. That Dodsworth and his wife have such a sudden disaffection and disenchantment ignores the certain difficulties of raising two children and navigating 20 years of maariage. It seems unlikely that Fran's pretentions emerge only on their trip. Certainly her preferences and choices in managing a family would have foreshadowed these problems.

A common criticism of Lewis's body of work is its uneveness. The depth and success of "Main Street" are contrasted with many of his later writings. I found "Dodsworth" too to read more like a novelization of an early screenplay, exaggerated and distorted for dramatic effect.

DODSWORTH IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF A FAILING MARRIAGE AND THE HUSBAND'S EMOTIONAL CRISIS AS HE FACES THIS FACT - AND THAT OF HIS RETIREMENT FROM INDUSTRY. SAM DODSWORTH IS A SELF MADE INDUSTRIALIST - SUCCESSFUL AND WEALTHY IN HIS HOME TOWN OF ZENITH, USA. ENCOURAGED BY HIS WIFE OF OVER 20 YEARS, HE RETIRES AND AGREES TO ACCOMPANY HER ON A LONG TOUR OF EUROPE - PERHAPS TO EVEN EVENTUALLY LIVE THERE. HIS WIFE, YOUNGER THAN HIM AND BORED BY THE PROVINCIALISM OF ZENITH, HER HUSBAND, AND THE LACK OF GLAMOUR AND ROMANCE IN HER LIFE, IS HOPING TO FIND A NEW EXCITING LIFE ABROAD. SHE IS SEEKING GLITZ AND HIGH-SOCIETY. IN EUROPE, SAM FACES AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS AS HIS MARRIAGE CRUMBLES, HIS WIFE LEAVES HIM FOR ANOTHER MAN, AND HE DISCOVERS HIS WIFE'S CONCEALED HOSTILITY TOWARDS HIM AS A BUMBLING, CRUDE, CLOD - A MAN LACKING THE CLASS AND STYLE OF THE SUAVE EUROPEAN MEN SHE MEETS AND ADMIRES. SAM ALSO, DUE TO HIS RETIREMENT, LOSES HIS IDENTITY AS A SUCCESSFUL, AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST. THE BOOK EXAMINES THIS MIDDLE-AGED MAN IN CRISIS, ATTEMPTING TO DISCOVER HOW HE WILL LIVE THE REST OF HIS LIFE. AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY, THE BOOK IS EXTREMELY INSIGHTFUL AND ABSORBING. HOWEVER, MUCH OF THE BOOK IS TAKEN UP WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF 'SIGHTS AND PLACES' ABROAD, AND IDLE CHIT-CHAT COMPARING EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS. THESE PARTS, I FOUND TO BE LESS INTERESTING, THAN THE STUDY OF SAM AND HOW HE WILL COPE WITH THE REST OF HIS LIFE.