Elmer Gantry
Sinclair Lewis’ world-famous satire of religious hypocrisy and the excesses of the Roaring ʼ20s.
Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be “invited” to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church—a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence—is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire.
With an introduction by Jason Stevens
Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be “invited” to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church—a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence—is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire.
With an introduction by Jason Stevens
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Community Reviews
Growing up with a devoutly Baptist mother, young Elmer Gantry had "got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason." In college his friends called him "hell-cat," because Gantry was much fonder of girls and booze and brawls than Baptists, or even Episcopalians.
But when he comes to a revival meeting run by a young friend, just to add a friendly face to the audience, Elmer accidentally gets "saved" -- and slowly discovers that his massive ego needs just might be met through becoming a minister of the church he tries to believe in throughout his life.
Elmer Gantry is a fascinating character: boorish, charlatan, womanizing, vulgar, selfish, yet with just enough humanity to keep readers watching his climb through the ranks of the church, waiting for his personal sins to entrap him, and fascinated by his ability to "save" himself, not from further sin, but from bad publicity. Gantry is summed up perfectly by the character of Sharon Falconer, a sultry, greedy, if slightly unbalanced evangelical star whom he tries to capture for his pleasure and also to ride her professional coattails. Early in their relationship, she tells him, "Do you know, I like you! You are so completely brazen, so completely unscrupulous, and so beatifically ignorant!"
Sinclair Lewis was well known for his socialism and atheism. As a junior at Yale he protests against compulsory chapel attendance, and Elmer Gantry is a nearly 450-page protest against most organized religion. Lewis paints nearly all the characters in this book who pledge allegiance to the church as either fairly mindless or simplistic, bombastic, and unlettered. When one of Elmer's friends from seminary later expresses doubts and goes to speak publicly on behalf of evolution, he is viciously attacked. Lewis either never met or only rarely met other Christians whom he found worthy of respect.
But Elmer Gantry, like all of Lewis' books, is an outstanding read -- if a bit longer than it needed to be -- and the title character will likely live on in the reader's memory because he is so colorful and so fascinatingly hypocritical.
But when he comes to a revival meeting run by a young friend, just to add a friendly face to the audience, Elmer accidentally gets "saved" -- and slowly discovers that his massive ego needs just might be met through becoming a minister of the church he tries to believe in throughout his life.
Elmer Gantry is a fascinating character: boorish, charlatan, womanizing, vulgar, selfish, yet with just enough humanity to keep readers watching his climb through the ranks of the church, waiting for his personal sins to entrap him, and fascinated by his ability to "save" himself, not from further sin, but from bad publicity. Gantry is summed up perfectly by the character of Sharon Falconer, a sultry, greedy, if slightly unbalanced evangelical star whom he tries to capture for his pleasure and also to ride her professional coattails. Early in their relationship, she tells him, "Do you know, I like you! You are so completely brazen, so completely unscrupulous, and so beatifically ignorant!"
Sinclair Lewis was well known for his socialism and atheism. As a junior at Yale he protests against compulsory chapel attendance, and Elmer Gantry is a nearly 450-page protest against most organized religion. Lewis paints nearly all the characters in this book who pledge allegiance to the church as either fairly mindless or simplistic, bombastic, and unlettered. When one of Elmer's friends from seminary later expresses doubts and goes to speak publicly on behalf of evolution, he is viciously attacked. Lewis either never met or only rarely met other Christians whom he found worthy of respect.
But Elmer Gantry, like all of Lewis' books, is an outstanding read -- if a bit longer than it needed to be -- and the title character will likely live on in the reader's memory because he is so colorful and so fascinatingly hypocritical.
Life imitating art, over and over again by way of Falwell, Bakker, Crouch, Haggard, Ephren Taylor, Eddie Long, on and on and on.
Was not expecting to enjoy this, but it was surprisingly fun in capturing what appears to be a universal portrayal (or uniquely American?) phenomenon of the scandal ridden charismatic preacher.
Was not expecting to enjoy this, but it was surprisingly fun in capturing what appears to be a universal portrayal (or uniquely American?) phenomenon of the scandal ridden charismatic preacher.
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