Once at a fancy restaurant, the special turned out to be a chicken dish. I said to the waiter, “Your chef used to be a writer”.“Yes, he did! How did you know?”“This is his pullet surprise.”
He was given the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 (the first American author so honored), and he didn’t decline that. Of course, the Nobel is given for “body of work” rather than for an individual piece, so that may be the difference…
“Red” Lewis was a fun writer, and if “Babbitt” (a satire against commercialism and small-city “boosterism”), “Elmer Gantry” (religious hypocrasy among Evangelicals), and “It Can’t Happen Here” (the rise of flag-draped, apple-pie American fascism) were published today, they’d probably cause as much of an uproar as…well, as they did in the 20’s and 30’s, when they were first published.
I suppose I’m imagining that Lewis would have had the audience today that we had then. Nothing against Margaret Atwood (I haven’t read “The Handmaid’s Tale”, although I know of it), but nowadays it’s nearly impossible for a novel to sell enough copies to make any sort of impact unless Oprah endorses it or it features teenage wizards and/or vampires.
(Actually, my first thought on reading this cartoon was to wonder whether Lewis, like Jonathan Franzen, would have declined to join Oprah’s Book Club.)
lewisbower over 13 years ago
Clyde 1, Barney 0.
runar over 13 years ago
Once at a fancy restaurant, the special turned out to be a chicken dish. I said to the waiter, “Your chef used to be a writer”.“Yes, he did! How did you know?”“This is his pullet surprise.”
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
He was given the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 (the first American author so honored), and he didn’t decline that. Of course, the Nobel is given for “body of work” rather than for an individual piece, so that may be the difference…
“Red” Lewis was a fun writer, and if “Babbitt” (a satire against commercialism and small-city “boosterism”), “Elmer Gantry” (religious hypocrasy among Evangelicals), and “It Can’t Happen Here” (the rise of flag-draped, apple-pie American fascism) were published today, they’d probably cause as much of an uproar as…well, as they did in the 20’s and 30’s, when they were first published.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
Obama hasn’t won a Nobel Prize for Literature.
fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago
I suppose I’m imagining that Lewis would have had the audience today that we had then. Nothing against Margaret Atwood (I haven’t read “The Handmaid’s Tale”, although I know of it), but nowadays it’s nearly impossible for a novel to sell enough copies to make any sort of impact unless Oprah endorses it or it features teenage wizards and/or vampires.
(Actually, my first thought on reading this cartoon was to wonder whether Lewis, like Jonathan Franzen, would have declined to join Oprah’s Book Club.)