Lewis - Critical Analysis

James Smith
Dr. Jane Doe
American Real. & Nat.
08 April 2006
Critical Review of Pugh’s “Baedekers, Babbittry, and Baudelaire” In his article “Baedekers, Babbittry, and Baudelaire” [Critical Essays on Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Martin Bucco. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986. 204-213], David G. Pugh, a New Historic critic, poses the question, “Babbitt: alive, readable? . . . or cold, boring, and very dead?” (205). Pugh also questions whether or not the contemporary reader can “experience” or only “cognitively recognize” Babbitt’s sense of “boredom” (212). Pugh argues that some literary allusions lose their original meaning through time, and because of this, the contemporary reader is unable to “experience” Babbitt. Pugh raises valid questions, but he makes the mistake of relying on examples from T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland and other works from the same author to prove his thesis. Pugh should have relied on the text of Babbitt more to illustrate allusions that are not common or have lost their original meaning through time. Pugh begins his essay by questioning whether or not the term “Babbittry” would stand the test of time. In 1975, when Pugh wrote this essay, those critics trying to capture readers’ interests in Babbitt proposed and “emphasized” Lewis’s “sociological imagination” and believed “Babbittry” would stand the test of time (205). Lewis pioneered writing techniques that are now used by social scientists. Proponents believe that Lewis’s sociological insights would interest to contemporary readers more than the readers of Lewis’s time because, today, people are more interested in drawing significance from daily events than people were in the 1920's. Pugh also wonders if “the surface incidents in Babbitt (or Main Street) provide enough cues and contexts to relate them to our habitual daily behavior” and if that is the case, then can we “[A]s readers,. . . recognize