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Overview
Reviewed by Ernest Sutherland Bates of "The Saturday Review of Literature"; June - 1926:
"SINCLAIR LEWIS continues to be the most surprising of American authors. First there was the surprise of "Main Street;" then the surprise that he could do the same thing again and do it better in "Babbitt" and "Arrowsmith;" now there is the surprise that he can do an entirely different thing equally well. But this time consternation is mingled with the surprise. Mr. Lewis has taught his public to accept him as a brutal realist, a scourge of society, a thorn in the side of otherwise complacent America. And now in "Mantrap" he has done nothing less than write a highly romantic rapid fire novel whose interest lies solely in plot, atmosphere, and characterization. With blithe enthusiasm he has thrown himself among the "Saturday Evening Posters" and shown that he can be a super Poster when he wills. Those who feel that Mr. Lewis the teacher has no right to such a truant holiday may be consoled by the prospect that another season will find him back at his pedagogical desk. Those on the other hand, who relish a story for the story's sake will not be deterred by memories of Mr. Lewis's past or forecasts of his future from enjoying "Mantrap" in the meantime.
One may in cold - blooded afterthought suspect that the plot came first , the characters second , to Mr. Lewis's mind, and that in composing he had one if not both eyes fixed upon the movies, but in the actual reading nothing of this is felt. If the requirements of the plot first brought the characters into being, Mr. Lewis at any rate realized them fully in his imagination before he began to write or as he wrote . Of course , in dealing with this writer one has to look sharply: he is so a great master of lifelike conversation — in the reviewer's judgment the greatest living — that even when his people are utter mannikins they talk like human beings. And in "Mantrap" it is difficult to extricate them from the romantic background of the Canadian Northwest - a Canadian Northwest which is all that the Canadian Northwest should be, ablaze with forest fires, full of shouting rapids and black lakes, rich in possibilities of death by murder, drowning, and starvation.
In the swiftly moving incidents of Mr. Lewis's tale, in such an atmosphere, even mediocre characterization would have sufficed to hold the reader's interest, but the author's own artistic conscience has demanded careful workmanship. As a result, the four main characters will withstand close analysis. As always with Mr. Lewis, they approximate the type, thus gaining in representative value what they lose in depth. Woodbury, the salesman whose "loud sudden laughter had all the horror of gears jammed by an unskilled driver," is almost intolerably life like, but after he has been squeezed dry of satire he is unceremoniously abandoned in the Canadian wilds where, one feels, the author would like to maroon all of his tribe. Joe, the trapper, is rather too Cooper-like to be entirely convincing, although perhaps both Cooper and Mr. Lewis have merely depicted accurately the same person. Ralph, the unheroic hero of the story, is more individualized than the others; the timid city man in the wilds, the high-minded gentleman in love with his friend's wife, have been done often enough before separately, but in Ralph they are combined, enriched with complex derivative traits, and studied with a most subtle psychology. The triumph of characterization, however, is Alverna, wife of Joe and mistress of Ralph. In her we have a nympholept, done not in the manner of Michael Arlen and Iris March but in the manner of Sinclair Lewis and life. This vulgar, slangy manicurist who cannot "keep her hooks off any he-male that blows into town" has her moments of pathos and beauty. One can understand why Ralph yields to her seductions and also why her husband pursues them to save his friend from one whom he knows to be "sweet but rotten." The ending is certainly the right ending for a book which is throughout remarkably right in accomplishing what it attempts.
"SINCLAIR LEWIS continues to be the most surprising of American authors. First there was the surprise of "Main Street;" then the surprise that he could do the same thing again and do it better in "Babbitt" and "Arrowsmith;" now there is the surprise that he can do an entirely different thing equally well. But this time consternation is mingled with the surprise. Mr. Lewis has taught his public to accept him as a brutal realist, a scourge of society, a thorn in the side of otherwise complacent America. And now in "Mantrap" he has done nothing less than write a highly romantic rapid fire novel whose interest lies solely in plot, atmosphere, and characterization. With blithe enthusiasm he has thrown himself among the "Saturday Evening Posters" and shown that he can be a super Poster when he wills. Those who feel that Mr. Lewis the teacher has no right to such a truant holiday may be consoled by the prospect that another season will find him back at his pedagogical desk. Those on the other hand, who relish a story for the story's sake will not be deterred by memories of Mr. Lewis's past or forecasts of his future from enjoying "Mantrap" in the meantime.
One may in cold - blooded afterthought suspect that the plot came first , the characters second , to Mr. Lewis's mind, and that in composing he had one if not both eyes fixed upon the movies, but in the actual reading nothing of this is felt. If the requirements of the plot first brought the characters into being, Mr. Lewis at any rate realized them fully in his imagination before he began to write or as he wrote . Of course , in dealing with this writer one has to look sharply: he is so a great master of lifelike conversation — in the reviewer's judgment the greatest living — that even when his people are utter mannikins they talk like human beings. And in "Mantrap" it is difficult to extricate them from the romantic background of the Canadian Northwest - a Canadian Northwest which is all that the Canadian Northwest should be, ablaze with forest fires, full of shouting rapids and black lakes, rich in possibilities of death by murder, drowning, and starvation.
In the swiftly moving incidents of Mr. Lewis's tale, in such an atmosphere, even mediocre characterization would have sufficed to hold the reader's interest, but the author's own artistic conscience has demanded careful workmanship. As a result, the four main characters will withstand close analysis. As always with Mr. Lewis, they approximate the type, thus gaining in representative value what they lose in depth. Woodbury, the salesman whose "loud sudden laughter had all the horror of gears jammed by an unskilled driver," is almost intolerably life like, but after he has been squeezed dry of satire he is unceremoniously abandoned in the Canadian wilds where, one feels, the author would like to maroon all of his tribe. Joe, the trapper, is rather too Cooper-like to be entirely convincing, although perhaps both Cooper and Mr. Lewis have merely depicted accurately the same person. Ralph, the unheroic hero of the story, is more individualized than the others; the timid city man in the wilds, the high-minded gentleman in love with his friend's wife, have been done often enough before separately, but in Ralph they are combined, enriched with complex derivative traits, and studied with a most subtle psychology. The triumph of characterization, however, is Alverna, wife of Joe and mistress of Ralph. In her we have a nympholept, done not in the manner of Michael Arlen and Iris March but in the manner of Sinclair Lewis and life. This vulgar, slangy manicurist who cannot "keep her hooks off any he-male that blows into town" has her moments of pathos and beauty. One can understand why Ralph yields to her seductions and also why her husband pursues them to save his friend from one whom he knows to be "sweet but rotten." The ending is certainly the right ending for a book which is throughout remarkably right in accomplishing what it attempts.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9798823139922 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Barnes & Noble Press |
| Publication date: | 10/30/2022 |
| Pages: | 90 |
| Sales rank: | 1,051,804 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.19(d) |
About the Author
Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." He is best known for his novels "Main Street" (1920), "Babbitt" (1922), "Arrowsmith" (1925), "Elmer Gantry" (1927), "Dodsworth" (1929), and "It Can't Happen Here" (1935).
His works are known for their critical views of American capitalism and materialism in the interwar period. He is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade ... it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."
His works are known for their critical views of American capitalism and materialism in the interwar period. He is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade ... it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds."
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