ELMER GANTRY by SINCLAIR LEWIS

[no_hypocrisy]

If you haven't read it yet, read it now.

If you've read it, re-read it.

If you've seen the movie, don't stop there. Read the book itself. Well worth your time.

It is prescient. Elmer Gantry as a literary figure is the prototype of Donald Trump.

Someone you love to hate.

Dastardly. False prophet. Megalomaniac. Charlatan. Blasphemer. And gets away with it.

I first read it in 1986 and was immediately sucked into the story. So involved that I was literally talking to the book.

And if you've been stirred by Elmer Gantry, proceed to Lewis' Main Street. It sort of outlines how MAGAts have always been with us.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Available as free downloads online

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72609

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/sinclair-lewis/elmer-gantry

[rampartc]

2. burt lancaster was incredible as gantry

but, of course, hollywood lightened the brush.

andy griffith played a proto limbaugh radio azz in another film from the 1960s. i'm having a senior moment on the name.

the thing about the dictator "carrying the cross and waving the flag" is from lewis' "it can't happen here" what trump does to flags.... eeeeew.

[ms liberty]

3. A Face in the Crowd, 1957.

[rampartc]

4. i'm sorry ms lib

but that was not in the form of a question.

"what was a face in the crowd.?" thanks.

[PatSeg]

7. Oh yes

I can't imagine anyone but Burt Lancaster in that role. He was amazing.

I read the book last year and rewatched the movie afterwards.

[NanaCat]

5. I've always been aware of the issues Sinclair Lewis addressed

In that book. After all, I have first-hand experience with the Elmer Gantry types out there. A friend of mine and I had a famous televangelist proposition both of us for a three-way. At a bar. Did I mention that he was 50 and we were both 18? He got booted from his church eventually for his philandering ways.

Oh--and before that lovely encounter, a close friend's uncle was the minister of the biggest Methodist church in town...until it came out that he was having an affair with the church organist. And the church secretary. And--oh yeah--what got the ball rolling? The 16 year old parishioner he impregnated--one of our classmates, no less! I got to watch that Peyton Place episode unfold, up close and personal. Especially how the first reaction of that church was to blame those XXs for being sluts and foul temptresses, excommunicated all three, and even tried to run them out of town in shame. Oh their man of the lawd couldn't have done anything like that, he's too good, too holy for that! Well, until the tide turned, and he, too, got the boot.

By the way, despite leaving their flocks in disgrace, both ministers had new churches within a year, and their new churches became as big or bigger than the old ones. My televangelist even got booted from his new church after getting caught--again! And he got a whole new batch of cultists at his new church yet again! It never stopped with him!

So Elmer Gantry can't teach me anything about Christian hypocrisy, or the hypocrisies of the undeserving privileged, that I haven't known for over 45 years now.

[erronis]

8. Those xian cults love them some sinners!

Wow - sounds like you got exposed to more than I would ever want. Of course I stay away from those types.

[Timeflyer]

6. Reading it right now,--the main character is so repellent it's hard to keep reading.

Also read It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Wish I paid more attention about this American author earlier. Much more relevant IMHO to average people's lives than F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[Ishoutandscream2]

9. Great book. Big Lewis fan!

My favorite of his is Babbitt.

And yes, Main Street as well shows that they truly have been around us for a long time. Babbitt really shows their idiocy.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Loved Babbitt!