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Ted's Reviews > Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott
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Reading Progress
April 25, 2017
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Started Reading
April 25, 2017
– Shelved
April 25, 2017
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12.0%
"On a hill by the Mississippi... a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky... A breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheatlands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty... she is credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth.
Main Street. The Story of Carol Kennicott"
Main Street. The Story of Carol Kennicott"
June 27, 2017
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24.0%
"She walked home. She reflected, "It was my fault. I was touchy. And I opposed them [town ladies] so much. Only - I can't! I can't be one of them if I must damn all the maids toiling in filthy kitchens, all the ragged hungry children. And these women are to be my arbiters, the rest of my life!"
She ignored Bea's call from the kitchen; she ran upstairs to the unfrequented guest-room; she wept in terror..."
She ignored Bea's call from the kitchen; she ran upstairs to the unfrequented guest-room; she wept in terror..."
August 1, 2017
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36.0%
"May. For two days there had been steady rain. Even in town the roads were a furrowed welter of mud, hideous to view, difficult to cross. Main Street was a black swamp from curb to curb; on other streets the grass parking beside the walks oozed gray water. It was prickly hot, the town barren under the bleak sky. Softened neither by snow nor by waving boughs the houses squatted and scowled, in their unkempt harshness."
September 5, 2017
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50.0%
"While on a winter ride in the country, Carol pressed into service at a farm amputation, as anesthetist. Later, taking shelter from a blizzard, Kennicott:
"Dave, the darn fool, sent me ether, instead of chloroform... and you know the ether fumes mighty inflammable, especially with that lamp right by the table. But I had to operate of course...
"You knew both you and I might have been blown up?"
"Sure, Didn't you?""
"Dave, the darn fool, sent me ether, instead of chloroform... and you know the ether fumes mighty inflammable, especially with that lamp right by the table. But I had to operate of course...
"You knew both you and I might have been blown up?"
"Sure, Didn't you?""
October 19, 2017
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62.0%
"Carol saw the fact that the prairie towns no more exist to serve the farmers than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unlike the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury a stately and permanent center, but only this ragged camp. It is a "parasitic Greek civilization" - minus the civilization."
October 23, 2017
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73.0%
"Under the stilly boughs and the black gauze of dusk the street was meshed in silence... It was a street beyond the end of the world, beyond the boundaries of hope. Though she should sit here forever, no brave procession, no one who was interesting, would be coming by. It was tediousness made tangible, a street builded of lassitude and of futility."
October 26, 2017
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84.0%
"[3 am]
A pitiful and tawdry love affair...A self-deceived little woman...a pretentious little man. No he is not...She pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that it should seem tawdry...then in a great desire of rebellion and unleashing of all her hatreds,The pettier and more tawdry it is,the more blame to Main Street. It shows how much I've been longing to escape - Any way out."
A pitiful and tawdry love affair...A self-deceived little woman...a pretentious little man. No he is not...She pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that it should seem tawdry...then in a great desire of rebellion and unleashing of all her hatreds,The pettier and more tawdry it is,the more blame to Main Street. It shows how much I've been longing to escape - Any way out."
October 30, 2017
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99.0%
"advice from a suffrage leader:
"you can keep on looking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and ask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that way. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become civilized in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having to wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist friends allow...""
"you can keep on looking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and ask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that way. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become civilized in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having to wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist friends allow...""
October 30, 2017
– Shelved as:
americana
October 30, 2017
– Shelved as:
lit-american
October 30, 2017
– Shelved as:
classics
October 30, 2017
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)
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Teresa wrote: "I had no idea that there was a subtitle until I saw it appended at the top of this page, Ted.I have to admit to trying his "Babbitt" and putting it down after not getting very far. I found it [sp..."
And what about that Upton Sinclair Lewis guy???
I was pretty enthusiastic about Main Street. But Arrowsmith? Less so. And his others? I don't have any of them, almost feel like I owe it to him cause we're from the same area. But I don't know.
There was that great movie made out of Elmer Gantry.
It's funny how a book like this one can make such an impression in its day, then kind of fade away. Some sociologist/book critic should do a study of that. I think there's more to it than certain types of popular fiction going in and out of style. What do you think?
Ha, yes! Let's call him (them) by that name. ;)Yes, the movie 'Elmer Gantry' is fantastic.
Without having read Sinclair Lewis, I can only guess at your question. But I'll use that 'other' Sinclair (Upton) as an example -- his novels had their heyday because they were crusading (and shocking, for the time), but he's not read much any longer either; perhaps because their literary merit is not as high as, say, Dickens' novels, many of which were considered crusading during their time as well. 'Literary merit' is subjective, I know, but what I mean is having other lasting qualities.
And, speaking of movies, I liked the one based on Upton (Sinclair)'s Oil! (There Will Be Blood) -- though it's another book I haven't read...
Teresa wrote: "Ha, yes! Let's call him (them) by that name. ;)Speaking of unread books, I have The Jungle. I've always had a view to reading it, but have never got to it yet. And I think I should try one more of Lewis' books.
I have to admit to trying his "Babbitt" and putting it down after not getting very far. I found it (view spoiler)[boring (hide spoiler)]. I also admit that after learning about Upton Sinclair in high school (I read his The Jungle on my own), I used to get the two authors confused...