A Book Report

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935)

As sometimes happens, my attention was drawn to this novel while reading an off-the-wall other book, a pre-WWII mystery that has nothing to do with the story I'm bringing you. Sometimes, fate just intervenes..

In brief, the story is one of a fascist take-over of the United States, in 1935, through the election of a smooth-talking demagogue appealing to the greater population's desire for stability and a better life; none of which he delivers once in power. It's also the story of an Everyman figure, Doremus Jessup, a small-town newspaper editor, and his transformation from bystander to dedicated partisan.

The story, despite echoing the likes of Huey Long and Father Coughlin, is strangely prescient for today's United States. The author has been dead for 71 years. The book was published 88 years ago. The times and the world when the story was written are long-gone and irrevocably changed. But the tale the book tells is eerily relevant to our current world.

Lewis didn't write the first novel about a fascist takeover of the U.S. Two other novels, referenced below, preceded his. A play was written. It was revived in 2014. MGM bought the screen rights, but never made the movie for fear of political repercussions.

Here are a few quotes from the book to whet your appetite.

Ch 9

"Doremus Jessup, so inconspicuous an observer, watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boeotia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected and in his 'ideas' almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store."

Ch 19

"The tyranny of this dictatorship isn't primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It's the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups, who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest."

Ch 20

"Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn 'reasonable' and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to stop and speak, and one quarter are killed, and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive."

Ch 25

"There is no greater compliment to the Jews than the fact that the degree of their unpopularity is always the scientific measure of the cruelty and silliness of the regime under which they live …"

Don't take my word for it. This book portrays a very scary and very real look at a possible future United States. Do your own homework.

I recommend that anyone who is concerned with the direction of our nation read, at the least, the supersummary document that I've provided a link to. Additionally, I've provided a link to a New York Times essay on the book and the Amazon link to hardbound, paperback, and digital versions.

Other books from the same era:

A Cool Million, Nathaniel West, 1934

Those Who Perish, Edward Dahlberg, 1934

References:

https://www.supersummary.com/it-cant-happen-here/summary/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review/classic-novel-that-predicted-trump-sinclar-lewis-it-cant-happen-here.html

https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Happen-Here-Signet-Classics-ebook/dp/B00DGZKU88

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Friday, 29 March 2024