Arrowsmith (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

by Sinclair Lewis (Author), E. L. Doctorow (Afterword) "The driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen..." (more)
Key Phrases: measured merriment, medic school, full director, Max Gottlieb, New York, Angus Duer (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
As the son and grandson of physicians, Sinclair Lewis had a store of experiences and imparted knowledge to draw upon for Arrowsmith.Published in 1925, after three years of anticipation, the book follows the life of Martin Arrowsmith, a rather ordinary fellow who gets his first taste of medicine at 14 as an assistant to the drunken physician in his home town. It is Leora Tozer who makes Martin's life extraordinary. With vitality and love, she urges him beyond the confines of the mundane to risk answering his true calling as a scientist and researcher. Not even her tragic death can extinguish her spirit or her impact on Martin's life. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Published from 1925 through 1929, these represent some of Lewis's most noted works. His novels can be deceiving, as the simplicity of the style belies the seriousness of his subject.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics; Revised edition (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451526910
• ISBN-13: 978-0451526915
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #289,735 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At last: Sinclair Lewis writes a hero, January 17, 2007

By	Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Sinclair Lewis is the bookend to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both were born in Minnesota. Fitzgerald went to Princeton, Lewis to Yale. Both wrote their best books in the 1920s. Both drank, had women trouble, and turned bitter.

But Fitzgerald is everyone's favorite author --- even the high school kids who are clueless about metaphors swoon over "The Great Gatsby." You need an appreciation of satire to love Lewis; nobody does, and he goes unread.

It's understandable. What would you rather read --- a romantic tale about a poor boy's rise and violent death on the glittering shores of Long Island (Gatsby) or a withering take on narrow-minded life in the midwest (Main Street)? Who's more interesting --- a criminal who went to Oxford (Jay Gatsby) or a blowhard whose ambition is total conformity to soul-deadening values (George Babbitt)?

And yet. If you ask who describes America better, the more necessary writer is Sinclair Lewis. Main Street and Babbitt made his name, and most readers stop there. They shouldn't --- my wife, who once attended a one-room schoolhouse in Minnesota --- recently read "Main Street," and found it a very close description of life in our chic Manhattan neighborhood. Dodsworth --- later made into a toweringly great movie --- is as fine a love story as Fitzgerald ever dreamed up, and a lot more realistic one, at that. It Can't Happen Here is a powerful political drama with a subject that's not as far-fetched as you might think: how fascism comes to America.

And then there's Arrowsmith, which has an actual hero. Set in the midwest, it doesn't lack for satire; as Lewis depicts it, happiness in a small town seems to havbe the shelf life of about a year. And for a writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (and refused it), Lewis can write some dreadful dialogue. But the heroism thing --- that's compelling, and if you can move sprightly through the first half of the book, you'll find yourself getting excited and turning pages quickly for the right reason.

The hero is Martin Arrowsmith. We meet him in 1897, in the midwest town of Elk Mills ("a dowdy red-brick village, smelling of apples"), where he is the 14-year-old helper of the local doctor. Martin is prone to hero worship --- he sees magic in the old man's love of puttering in a lab. That ignites a dream in Martin, and so, seven years later, he's in medical school. There he falls under the spell of bacteriology professor Max Gottlieb: "tall, lean, aloof" --- and a Jew.

Gottlieb's love of science is pure; in an environment where many students and faculty think only of money, he alone seems to have ideals. Martin blossoms. But he's still a rube. He falls for a snooty graduate student in English and proposes marriage; later, he meets Leora, a nursing student, and proposes to her as well. His inept solution: to bring them together over lunch. Leora loves him more. They marry.

Leora's family is important --- in their tiny town of Wheatsylvania, North Dakota. But don't call them cultured: They lived in a house "that has a large phonograph but no books." Money talks, though. They bankroll Martin's first practice, and he settles into the life of a country doctor.

The novel is about the impossibility of "settling" --- as Martin climbs the medical ladder, he can't ignore research, his first love. He has a knack for it, and, to his delight, he's invited to join Gottlieb at a prestigious New York research institute. And now the novel kicks into high gear --- the plague has broken out in the Caribbean, and the vaccine that Arrowsmith has been working on might just be the cure.

Let me not spoil the thrill of these pages by revealing too much. Let's just say: success always comes at a price. And success doesn't always bring people what they most want. "Arrowsmith" is a book about the forces that fight to dominate us. As Lewis has it, that fight never ends.

"Arrowsmith" is smart about the world of research, and drug companies, and the modest ambitions of many men and women in white coats. It is also about the love of knowledge and the desire to heal; it gets the blood pumping. My brother --- one of our best AIDS researchers --- tells me that "Arrowsmith" is the book that made him decide to study medicine. Long before page 450, I could see why.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece of Medical Literature - Idealism at Risk, August 28, 2002

By	Juliana LHeureux "Maine Writer" (Topsham, Maine United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Author Sinclair Lewis had some exposure to the medical profession early in his life through his father, who was a country doctor. Yet, even with some personal exposure, it's amazing how much of the idealism and cynicism, evident in modern physician practice, Lewis portrays in his 1926 pulitizer prize winning book, "Arrowsmith". Martin Arrowsmith, M.D. is a fictional idealist who is a human being before all else, but trying to bring science to the practice of Medicine. Actually, the story seems almost autobiographical due to the personal intensity and human fraility of the complex main character. As a registered nurse, reading Arrowsmith brings flashbacks of the past, like the cliches "deja vu all over again", or worse, "the more things change, the more they stay the same". Medicine for financial- profit, patient care challenges, personality conflicts, political shenanigans, professional competition, and overutilization of medical technology are some of the common problems Arrowsmith faces as he pursues a career in medicine after barely struggling through the politics of medical school in the mythical town of Wheatsylvania, Midwest, USA, in the early 20th century. This is not another novel about how physicians affect people's lives, but a masterpiece about the nuances of the medical profession as mysterious and suspect,of physicians who are heros and villans. Most surprising are the humerous vignettes sprinkled throughout the plot like bits and pieces of old Jack Benny radio show skits. When Martin Arrowsmith must decide if he is to fulfill his promise to marry Madeline Fox or betray her for his soul mate Leora Tozer, the genious writer Lewis creates such humor in the ensuing restaurant scene, that should be frought with melodrama, but, instead, is absolutely delightful reading. Similar humor engulfs the life portrayed of Arrowsmith's employer, Pickerbaugh, and his fleet of daughters named after flowers, like the saucy Orchid. Arrowsmith is simply a joy to read, especially for people who have a flair for some classic literature without getting too deep into concentrated philosophic thought. Simply put, Arrowsmith today, were he to practice in modern medicine, would probably be no better or worse off than he was in 1908 through circa 1920, when the novel takes place. Arrowsmith is a classic American novel and an entertaining story.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Did Martin choose correctly?, June 24, 1999

By	R. D. Allison ([e-mail]) (Gainesville, Florida, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Arrowsmith (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

This book won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Lewis also won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of Martin Arrowsmith, a medical researcher who, while attending a mid-western medical school, is influenced by an aged bacteriologist. Arrowsmith marries a nurse, who will encourage his career in research, and tries his hand at private practice. However, he fails in that endeavor. After a number of positions he joins a research institute in New York where he discovers a new microorganism but is "scooped." He travels to the West Indies to try his "bacteriophage" on an epidemic. After his wife and colleague die, he starts administering the serum indiscriminately, destroying the results of his experiment. He returns to New York and marries a rich widow. However, social life interferes with his research and his search for truth. He quits the Institute and establishes a lab in Vermont with Terry Wickett, an uncouth but conscientious chemist. The model for Terry Wickett was Dr. John Howard Northrup (1891-1987), who will later win the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Apparently, the model for Martin Arrowsmith was provided by the microbiologist and writer Paul de Kruif, whose book "Microbe Hunters" became very popular. The novel also contrasts the idealism of the research scientist, who unfortunately looses touch with those that care for him, and the apparent avarice of the medical profession.