Book review by James T. Farrell from American Socialist Monthly, vol. 5, no. 7, October 1936
IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE
by Sinclair Lewis, New York City,
Doubleday Doran & Co., 458 pp., $2.50.
I think that as a novelist, Sinclair Lewis has been on the downgrade ever since he wrote Arrowsmith. Mantrap was as feeble as the best of Rupert Hughes, Fannie Hurst, or Kathleen Norris. Elmer Gantry was a valuable and cutting work of social satire, but it depended too much on caricature and too little upon characterization. The Man Who Knows Coolidge was an amusing footnote on human conduct, padded to fill the space lengths of a short novel. With all the water run out of it, it might have made an excellent short story in the Ring Lardner genre. In Dodsworth, Lewis gave his hand away. His entire literary career reveals that its talents lay predominantly along the line of social satire. When the bite was absent from his writing, and the edge of his sarcasm was dulled, he was unable to compensate for these with understanding characterization; the novel was weak. Ann Vickers is describable as something of a public scandal. Any serious American writer—let alone a Nobel prize winner—should be ashamed of himself for writing as badly as did Lewis in the first hundred pages of that book. There were flashes of the earlier Lewis, particularly of his descriptions of the Copperhead Gap Penitentiary, but Lewis so muffed the ball in the depiction of his heroine that Ann Vickers must go down as a pretty inferior article. This novel afforded Lewis the splendid opportunity of adding significantly to the portrait gallery of American literature; his chance was that of presenting a devastating picture of that type of lady social reformer who still plagues the land. He could have given us the Madame Perkinses of America once and for all. However, the character slipped through the author’s fingers and vanished, leaving behind, merely the imprint of a little goo in his palm. In Work of Art Lewis managed successfully to negate the spirit and the satire of his finest book, Babbitt. His theme was that the babbitt was the real artist and his particular hero was as colorless, as dreary, as deadly as Governor Landon speaking in the news reel. In order to establish contrast within his plot structure, he created a stooge bohemian poet, and poured feeble scorn upon his head. This treatment was so weak that one whole side of the story fell apart. Technically, the story was as cheap as its theme was obvious.
It Can’t Happen Here is Lewis’ most provocative novel since Elmer Gantry. It has introduced the issue of fascism into American literature, and inasmuch as Lewis sells widely, it has called this issue to the attention of a large audience of book readers. The jacket of this novel states: “What Sinclair Lewis had to say about Small Towns in Main Street—About Business Men in Babbitt—About Science in Arrowsmith—About Wives in Dodsworth—he has at last said about American Politics and a world bound for war in… It Can’t Happen Here.” There is some justice to the blurb writers’ assertion. The only question is: how does he do it, both in terms of literature and also in terms of an understanding of American politics and of the potentially fascist forces within the framework of American society?
I shall not attempt to summarize the story of It Can’t Happen Here at this late date. Suffice it to state that it is the picture of what might happen in the America of 1936 under the control of a fascist dictatorship. The hero of the novel, Doremus Jessup, is a foil for the expression of Lewis’ own views, and through him Lewis registers his own protest and indignation against fascism.
One of the most notable features of It Can’t Happen Here is that the quality of the characterizations in the earlier Lewis novels is missing. The level of insight into human beings is that of Ann Vickers and Work of Art, rather than that of Babbitt. Thus, Jessup’s mistress, Lorinda Pike, is a mere stick of wood alongside of the poignantly human Leora Arrowsmith. Similarly, his other Vermonters are heavy, often stereotyped. When he comes to depicting communists he is at his worst. He makes them merely concrete and walking objections to the theory of social fascism. This is no way to depict even minor characters. His American Mussolini, Buzz Windrip, is recognizably American, as is his edition of Hanfstaengel, Dr. Macgoblin. He has a good American Socialist Monthly portrait of a D.A.R. type, Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch. For the rest, his characters are so carelessly drawn that there is little conviction to them. Just as his insight has become conventionalized, so has his satire and his sarcasm become shoddy. Thus, his criticisms of the communists with reference to “St. Lenin.” Fascism can happen here. And in this novel, Sinclair Lewis is earnestly striving to tell us that it can happen here. But the sloppiness of his craftsmanship, and the limitations of the insight he brings to bear in his characterizations become almost counter arguments to his thesis.
Of more importance is Lewis’ conceptions of politics, and of fascism. His description of the rise of American fascism is a mechanical transposition of what happened in Germany, with perhaps one or two Italian footnotes. We have here, Brown Books of the terrors of Nazi concentration camps, an Americanized version of Mein Kampf, even such an incidental feature of fascism as homosexuality amongst the German leaders. There are serious gaps and omissions in Lewis’ description of the course of a possible American fascism. It happens over night, and inexplicably. Buzz Windrip is inaugurated, and he blossoms out as a White House Hitler. There is no indication of the financial powers behind Windrip, and his ally, Bishop Prang. There is no claim indicative of the role played by the petty bourgeoisie, and by its political representatives. Lewis even left a few gaps in his mechanical transpositions. He brings in Buzz Windrip, without introducing any American Brunings, or Factas, or Giolittis. In other words, he ushers fascism into his narrative without establishing any of the preconditions for the rise of fascism. There is no breakdown of the democratic bourgeois regime. There is no indication of the rise of a militant working class movement which would throw the bourgeoisie into a fright, and force it to bring in a dictator. When fascism happens, there are reasons for it. Lewis has fascism happen almost without reasons. In order to defend his omissions it cannot be argued that he was writing a novel, and not a political treatise. He uses space to present the fascist platform of Windrip, and he has descriptions of the histories of his fascist leaders. If he goes into such detail, we are justified in asking, where is your establishment of the preconditions of fascism? Where have you given us the reasons why it can happen, and the pattern of how it can happen? In failing to include such features of fascism into his narrative, Lewis deprived his novel of an initial plausibility.
The same criticism is true of his conclusion. The revolt against fascism at the end of the book is almost as inexplicable as is its rise. A large area of the middle west is broken off. There is civil war. There are no class alignments behind this civil war. The leader is a Republican politician, Trowbridge, whom Windrip had defeated in the 1936 presidential campaign. Trowbridge is fighting for the ideal of “a universal partnership in which the state must own all resources so large that they affect all members of the state and in which the worst crimes won’t be murder or kidnapping but taking advantage of the state.”
In this novel, Lewis is arguing and pleading for a liberal America, and his hero expresses the faith of a liberal American. I will not argue with Mr. Lewis for choosing such a theme, and for defending such an attitude. Such an argument would have to be made on my grounds. I would rather criticize Lewis on his own grounds. Within his own point of view, he does not do himself justice. Recently, a narrative of personal experience under Italian fascism has come out in this country, Road to Exile by Emilio Lussu (Covici Friede). Lussu was a liberal member of the Italian parliament during the days when Mussolini was preparing to march on Rome in a sleeping car. Lussu reveals his liberal position in this book and he writes a moving and convincing story. The narrative tells us as much about the rise of Italian fascism as any book on the subject with which I am familiar. However, it does no injustice to the pattern of events with which he is dealing. It creates no strain on the reader’s sense of plausibility. The reason for the lapses in this book are not just liberalism quo liberalism.
I think that one of the reasons is this: Sinclair Lewis has always seemed to have thought within the orbit of common sense. The basis from which he has levelled his cutting satire upon American institutions, and American types has been that of common sense. Common sense provided him with sufficient resources to attack the Babbitts and the Main Streeters. The subject matter of a novel such as It Can’t Happen Here would force him to depend upon more than merely common sense. For this novel, he obviously enlarged his information with Brown Books of Nazi Germany, and the like. He did not extend his theoretical equipment. He tried to write a book on fascism with a fund of information, a background of common sense, and the faith of a liberal. It is no wonder that his book is distorted by serious omissions in the pattern of events on the one hand, and by ignorance on the other when he fails to distinguish between fascism and communism in passing comments which he offers. He became indignant. He felt through some of the horrors of fascism. He has never thought through the material he mechanically transposed from Germany to America. In consequence, It Can’t Happen Here is superficial. It suffers both as literature and as politics.
At this date, it is not necessary to assert the right of a novelist to produce books with a message and a point of view. In criticizing Sinclair Lewis here, we need not distinguish between this novel and his earlier ones. Behind them, we can find the same implicit point of view as the one which he presents now more explicitly. The fact that he has a message is no defense for his stereotyped characterizations. The defense that his book is a novel is no defense for his bad politics, and his damaging inability to grasp the theoretical meanings of fascism. There are too many instances of novels of this same category, which stand up both as good literature and as sound politics. As examples, I might cite Ignazio Silone’s Fontamara and Theodor Plivier’s The Kaiser Goes; The Generals Remain. Plivier, in treating of the German Revolution in 1918, did not sacrifice the literary values of his book because he was treating of revolutionary politics. He did not sacrifice the political soundness of his book because he was writing a novel.
What is lacking in Lewis’ book is both his insight into his characters, and his comprehension of politics. In consequence, the book is a jumbled up and mechanical picture of the possible rise of American fascism. One of the lessons which it might teach is—don’t trust your gardener. Shad Ladue, the Jessup gardener, is the most objectionable character in the book. He becomes a Vermont storm troop leader. Hence, the lesson.
It Can’t Happen Here registers an honest and well-intentioned but rubber-stamped protest against fascism. It becomes a slogan that reads: We Don’t Want Fascism! It contains little else of value. It lacks power as a novel, and it is without the political insight which its theme demands.