Main Street

ISBN-13: 9781499763973 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 404 str.

Sinclair Lewis

Opis

Main Streetis ansatirical novel byNobel Prize winning author "Sinclair Lewis."

Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis ofSaint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart.

When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town's physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it.

She speaks with its members about progressive changes, joins women's clubs, distributes literature, and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie's inhabitants. Despite her friendly but ineffective efforts, she is constantly derided by the leading cliques.

She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class. These companions are taken from her one by one.

In her unhappiness, Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington, D.C., but she eventually returns. Nevertheless, Carol does not feel defeated:
"I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith. (Chapter 39)"

Main Streetwas initially awarded the1921 "Pulitzer Prizeforliterature," but was rejected by theBoard of Trustees, who overturned the jury's decision. The prize went, instead, toEdith WhartonforThe Age of Innocence. In 1926 Lewis refused the Pulitzer when he was awarded it forArrowsmith.

In 1930, Lewis was the first American ever awarded the "Nobel Prize for Literature." While a Nobel Prize is awarded to the author not the work, and itself does not cite a particular work for which he was chosen, Main Streetwas Lewis' best-known work and enormously popular at the time. In the Nobel committee's presentation speech, both Main StreetandArrowsmithwere cited.The prize was awarded..".for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters.""