The Man Who Knew Coolidge

by Sinclair Lewis

Book Overview

"Der Mann der den Pr?sidenten kannte" ist ein 1928 erschienener Roman des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Sinclair Lewis. Der Originaltitel lautet "The Man Who Knew Coolidge". Harry Sinclair Lewis... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0014KLM84
• Release Date: January 1928
• Publisher: Harcourt, Brace & Company
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Like SEINFELD, a very funny "story about absolutely nothing"

Remember the pitch that Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza made for their network 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 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 in 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-