Sinclair Lewis

THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE (1928)

Two Reviews by Patrick Killough

A.  Review for http://www.barnesandnoble.com

      T Patrick Killough (patrick@thekilloughs.com) is struck by Lewis's kind of humor,
June 4, 2005,

REVIEW TITLE: A burlesque ode to Mencken's 'boobus Americanus'

BOOK RATING:  Three Stars * * *


      THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE is like no other novel of Sinclair Lewis's. In format it is a chatty, tongue in cheek series of six monologues by one Lowell T. Schmaltz. Like Lewis's realtor George BABBITT and Rev. Dr. ELMER GANTRY, Schmaltz is a small businessman of the mythical midwestern American city of Zenith in the state of Winnemac. Office supplies are his trade. He is an ardent Kiwanian, much sought after as a speaker about his business trips and other excursions.

Schmaltz's claim to fame is that he was, VERY briefly, an acquaintance of President Calvin Coolidge in their college days at Amherst. In Part I of the monologues, he windily regales, with many digressions, this and other claims to fellow businessmen in a train's Pullman sleeper car. He tells how not long ago he took his wife and two children to call on Silent Cal in the White House. The Schmalzes got as far as the President's outer office and had all their questions answered by an aide. Is the President a good fisherman? Does he belong to a service club, and on and on. Suddenly and with apology, the family learned that the President could not see them: the British ambassador was calling.

In Part II Lowell Schmaltz is playing cards. He keeps putting off resuming play in order to tell a joke. After many asides, he finally begins the joke then forgets the punch line.

Part III finds our hero calling on a cousin to seek a loan for his business. Obviously, the cousin has stung Schmaltz by giving unsolicited advice: don't talk so much; don't tell so many lies about your past. Much of the monologue is about wife Mame and her cat Minnie and Lowell's dog Jackie.

In Part IV Lowell tells Mame about his call on the cousin. Exaggerates. Fibs. Protests his marital fideiity.

The title of Part V is 'Travel is So Broadening.' Our monologist begins by thanking his hosts Mr and Mrs George Babbitt for a fine fried chicken dinner they had just enjoyed. Lowell Schmaltz advises George Babbitt how to prepare for a long drive out to Yellowstone National Park. This includes details about recommended wardrobe, car chains, cook stoves. (A note to the reader says that the publishers have edited out 37 other articles recommended traveler to traveler.)

THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE ends (Part VI) with 'The Basic and Fundamental Ideals of Christian American Citizenship." This reproduces Mr. Schmalz's remarks to the Men's Club of his Pilgrim Congregational Church. He is pleased to see Rev. Dr. Elmer Gantry in the audience, visiting from New York. Today is America's New Era. Had he lived today, Lincoln would be president of U.S. Steel or of the Wrigley Gum Company. Poe would write for RED BOOK. Hawthorne would churn out ads for the newest model Hupmobile.

The two ideals of the New Era are Service and Practicalness (Practicality if you prefer). Rotarians and Kiwanians have made us realize that Service is a religion. A pleasant salesman can make up for shoddy merchandise. That's 'service!' As for gift giving at Christmas, what is holier than Practicalness? Forget books, etchings and smoking-jackets. Be practical. Give tire chains, radiator shutters and anti-freeze mixtures! Give electric trains so a child can just watch rather than have to amuse himself actively. And let me tell you of my recent call on President Coolidge. Our visit was brief but he answered my questions about U.S. policy in several areas. The motto of Lowell Schmaltz is 'Read widely, think scientifically, speak briefly, and sell the goods!'

Two years after THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE, William Faulkner published AS I LAY DYING. Monologue versus Polylogue. One voice versus many voices. Life versus death. Surface instead of depth. Two novels so close in time could not be more different.

      Also recommended: Sinclair Lewis, BABBITT, FREE AIR, ELMER GANTRY. James M. Hutchisson, THE RISE OF SINCLAIR LEWIS, 1920-1930. Martin Light, THE QUIXOTIC VISION OF SINCLAIR LEWIS.

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B. Review for http://www.amazon.com

Your Review of
The Man Who Knew Coolidge: Being the Soul of Lowell Schmaltz, Constructive and Nordic Citizen by Sinclair Lewis

BOOK RATING:  Four Stars * * * *

TITLE OF REVIEW: Like SEINFELD, a very funny "story about absolutely nothing"
 June 4, 2005

Reviewer: T. Patrick Killough (Black Mountain, NC United States)
 
Remember the pitch that Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza made to the network considering their proposed TV show SEINFELD? Sinclair Lewis's 1928 novel THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE is equally a story "about nothing at all." Or perhaps it is about H. L. Mencken's "boobus americanus." One cannot fail to notice that the novel's hero Lowell T. Schmaltz is an air head. Or that he talks too much about things of little salience to anything. Schmaltz moves in the same circles as Lewis's unforgettable realtor George Babbitt but lacks any of Babbitt's humanizing touches. And yet, and yet Schmaltz is recognizable as representing millions of ordinary, bumbling American Dagwoods. That is, if you can imagine an utterly self-absorbed humorless Dagwood Bumstead.

Critics tell us that Sinclair Lewis was briefly tired of writing increasingly well researched, carefully plotted novels like MAIN STREET and BABBITT. He wanted some time off and for a lark, and to please his pal Mencken, he dashed off in THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE the kind of manic monologues that Lewis himself was likely to launch at parties on the slightest provocation. The result is shaggy dog humor, deliberate low-brow nonsense and is weirdly effective. Plot there is none unless, in its six parts, there is steadily unraveled Lowell T. Schmalz's claim to any slightest sort of credibility when invoking his college day acquaintance with future President Calvin Coolidge.

Yet notable quips, asides and observations abound.

Examples:

PART I "The Man Who Knew Coolidge"

--Behind every great surgeon, lawyer, banker or department-store owner there stands..."the office-supply man! ...Just take filing-cabinets alone!"

--George F. Babbitt and I, "we're as different as Moses and Gene Tunney."

--"I've always felt the Catholics were too tolerant toward drinking and smoking and so aren't, you might say, really hardly typically American at all."

--"...every truck had on it a great big red sign, "Free Outing for the Unfortunate Kiddies, provided Free by Zenith Kiwanis Club."

PART III "You Know How Women Are"

--"I guess that in the vacuum cleaner America has added to the world its own mystery, that'll last when the columns of the Acropolis have crumbled to mere dust!"

PART VI "The Basic and Fundamental Ideals of American Citizenship"

--"it is thinkers like Dr. (Elmer) Gantry... who finally determine our philosophy ... and our ethics..."

--"Rotarians and Kiwanians" have insisted on "the religion of Service."

Imagine L'il Abner Yokum in the big city. Fancy an Archie Bunker who never lets anyone else talk. Or an Al Bundy who reads books. Then think back to a world of 1928 and you have their archetype, Lowell T. Schmaltz, THE MAN WHO KNEW COOLIDGE. The book is a hoot.

-OOO-

Black Mountain, NC
06/04/2005

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