World So Wide [Paperback]

Sinclair Lewis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Woodhill Pr (June 1974)
• ISBN-10: 0532171136
• ISBN-13: 978-0532171133
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,334,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The rethinking and rebuilding of a man's life..., April 24, 2005

By 

Juan C Villamil (Bogota, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World so wide, a novel

WORLD SO WIDE is a pretty good book, and even though it's the first of Sinclair's novels I have read, it is understandable that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930.

The novel regards the life and times of Hayden Chart, a typical American living in Colorado during the post WWII years. Chart's seemingly perfect life is suddenly shattered by the death of his wife in an automobile accident, for which cannot help but feel guilty.

When his wife passes away, Chart decides to run away to Europe, in an effort to reconstruct his life. He winds up in Florence, where most of the novel takes place. He has realized that all that he is, is a good architect, and apart from that his life is very empty. He had thought of himself as a well cultured person, only to realize that on the contrary, he is quite ignorant. His circle of friends in Colorado consists of a group of superficial characters, from which he must run away. He makes up his mind to become a european history scholar, which he sees as a way to live a better life.

In his process to relive his life, he meets Olivia, a cold hearted Italian history professor, with whom he falls deeply in love with.

While in Italy, he develops a relationship with the American colony, which is also filled with a set of pretty superficial characters.

The plot flows with much ease, and the 200+ pages are both involving and easy to read.

Chart, Olivia, and a few of the secondary characters are extremely well developed, humanized and extremely believable characters.

I would not consider the book to be a page turner, but none the less, it is definitely a novel worth reading.

Chart's effort to rebuild his life, his being exposed to real love for the first time, and his effort to survive in a new world, quite different from his own, provide for a few hours of entertainment. He never becomes a historian, but he is able to turn his life around.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Across a wide world from Colorado to Italy, June 2, 2005

By 

T. Patrick Killough "All about Patrick" (Black Mountain, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World so wide: A novel / by Sinclair Lewis (Hardcover)

Sinclair Lewis died in Florence, Italy January 10, 1951. His last novel, published shortly after his death, is set in Florence and portrays a segment, generally unlovely, of Florence's expatriate communities, mainly American.

WORLD TOO WIDE is the story of young, recently widowed ex-Army major and architect Hayden Chart. He strives mightily to find personal meaning in Florence. Beautiful fellow American Dr Olivia Lomond is a budding scholar who tempts him to make his mind grow in appreciation of art and history. But earthy, honest Roxanna Eldritch,home town girl and reporter sent to Europe to cover the 1950 Holy Year in Rome, improbably wins Chart's heart in the end.

Apart from its utility as a tourist guide to Florence, WORLD TOO WIDE is Sinclair Lewis's last chance to skewer pretentiousness and hypocrisy. His instrument for ferreting out lies among the expatriates is red-headed American reporter Roxanna (Roxy) Eldritch. She had been a friend of Hayden's recently deceased wife back in their native Newlife, Colorado. Towards novel's end Roxy punctures the facades of two expatriates.

First is young, proto-fascist pseudo-intellectual American Lorenzo Lundsgard who is preparing a series of lectures supported by films and shoddy research designed to prove that history teaches that great men have always ruled the world through their innate gifts of leadership. Roxy's contacts as a journalist allow her to confront him with his lies about his real Christian name, Oley. He had, moreover, been married twice and was twice messily divorced, despite his claims never to have wed. Lundsgard is a favorite of and financially dependent on the next phony that Roxanna skewers.

With Lorenzo, Roxy was just warming up for Sir Henry Belfont, an English gentleman's English gentleman, a snob with infinite contempt for all things American. Roxy's sources have revealed Sir Henry's true past: he was born in Ohio; his grandfather had made a fortune selling shoddy goods to both sides in the Civil War; Lundsgard never saw England until age 14, later bought a seat in Parliament and a title. The enraged Belfont turns on Lundsgard, cuts off his funding for research, lectures and documentary films and, somehow, some way, drives our hero Hayden Chart definitively into the arms of the spunky, honest, all American Roxy Eldritch. Lundsgard then inexplicably lands a cushy foreign service job in South America and Olivia Lomond seems disposed to go there with him at the curtain.

In 1914 Sinclair Lewis's first novel OUR MR. WRENN began outside the Nickelorion movie house in New York City. 1951's WORLD TOO WIDE, Lewis's final novel, endedwith the hero and his new bride happily in a bar in Ravenna, Italy. The world of SInclair Lewis was not often deep but it was always wide. He traveled through it ever restless to end in drink, dissipation and loneliness. R.I.P.
-OOO-

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars World So Wide, May 18, 2001

By 

Robert Murphy (Tiffin, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World So Wide (Paperback)

World So Wide is about a man named Hayden Chart from Colorado. His wife was killed in an automobile accident. He takes a trip to Italy for the year. While there he meets a woman named Olivia Lomond, Hayden falls in love with her, but another man starts to take Olivia away form him. Hayden trys very hard through out the book to blend in with the Italian society by learning their language and culture.

As you read through the book it has very well developed characters, a well developed plot, and it shows you what Italy's culture is like and how they react to tourist. Thought the book it had parts that jump around a little bit and get confusing at times but other than that it is a very good book and flows very nicely.