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Heaven's My Destination
Drawing on such unique sources as the author’s unpublished letters, business records, and obscure family recollections, Tappan Wilder’s Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this hilarious tale about goodness in a fallen world.
Meet George Marvin Brush—Don Quixote come to Main Street in the Great Depression, and one of Thornton Wilder’s most memorable characters. George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois—and into the soul of America itself.
Meet George Marvin Brush—Don Quixote come to Main Street in the Great Depression, and one of Thornton Wilder’s most memorable characters. George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois—and into the soul of America itself.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1935
26 people are currently reading
453 people want to read
About the author
Thornton Wilder
222 books508 followersThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
February 10, 2019
An amusing and not too well known tale of one of literature's innocents; George Marvin Brush. It is set in the depression era of the 1930s. The novel might be said to be picaresque and there is a touch of the tilting at windmills about it (Brush is only a very little like Don Quixote and there is no Sancho Panza).
Brush is a travelling textbook salesman, who has his own particular brand of Christianity, which he tries to share. The novel has been described as a satire on fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity; but I am less sure about that. Brush uses Ghandi's philosophy; not a fundamentalist trait, and the voluntary poverty theory is not typical either. Brush has developed his own particular philosophy by borrowing lots of different elements of belief.
The novel takes place over a year (age 23 to 24 for Brush). Brush has adventures in banks, trains, brothels, courts, guest houses, cafes and shops. He seems to bring out the worst in people. When he withdraws his money from the bank, he refuses to take the interest due, explaining to the bank manager that it is immoral to give interest. He is, at the same time exasperating, delightful and baffling.
The point of the book becomes more obvious when you realise the comparitor for the book is Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress and Christian's journey. I suspect that this would have been more obvious at the time, but Pilgrim's Progress is less well known these days. However, Bunyan is one of the authors I was brought up with (Remember that racy little tome "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners") and there are clear parallels with Brush's journey. The conclusions to be drawn are different, but the meaning is in the journey and the theme of growth. It might appear that Brush has learnt little, but towards the end of the book Brush pays to put a girl through college. When he meets her, she is reading a book by Darwin; Brush at the beginning of the book would have been appalled by her reading matter and stayed away from her. Like Christian, George has suffered temptation and despair and has grown. It is commentary on the America of the 1930s, but it is also great fun, with an almost deathbed scene, a marraige, a few fights, a small amount of drunkeness and lots of travel.
Brush is a travelling textbook salesman, who has his own particular brand of Christianity, which he tries to share. The novel has been described as a satire on fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity; but I am less sure about that. Brush uses Ghandi's philosophy; not a fundamentalist trait, and the voluntary poverty theory is not typical either. Brush has developed his own particular philosophy by borrowing lots of different elements of belief.
The novel takes place over a year (age 23 to 24 for Brush). Brush has adventures in banks, trains, brothels, courts, guest houses, cafes and shops. He seems to bring out the worst in people. When he withdraws his money from the bank, he refuses to take the interest due, explaining to the bank manager that it is immoral to give interest. He is, at the same time exasperating, delightful and baffling.
The point of the book becomes more obvious when you realise the comparitor for the book is Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress and Christian's journey. I suspect that this would have been more obvious at the time, but Pilgrim's Progress is less well known these days. However, Bunyan is one of the authors I was brought up with (Remember that racy little tome "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners") and there are clear parallels with Brush's journey. The conclusions to be drawn are different, but the meaning is in the journey and the theme of growth. It might appear that Brush has learnt little, but towards the end of the book Brush pays to put a girl through college. When he meets her, she is reading a book by Darwin; Brush at the beginning of the book would have been appalled by her reading matter and stayed away from her. Like Christian, George has suffered temptation and despair and has grown. It is commentary on the America of the 1930s, but it is also great fun, with an almost deathbed scene, a marraige, a few fights, a small amount of drunkeness and lots of travel.
August 21, 2022
Браш - человек с невероятной, до идиотизма, честностью. Его принципы основываются на теориях, почерпнутых у Ганди, учения ахимсы - непричинения вреда живому, Толстого - непротивления злу насилием и ряда других теорий. Все его идеи идеалистичны и возвышенно благородны, но они очень сильно оторваны от общепринятой обывательской системы ценностей. Он вообразил себя мессией, он взял на себя роль активно вмешиваюшегося в жизни людей проповедника. Он буквально прилипает как банный лист к людям, которые гонят его, не хотят с ним иметь дел, и естественно, получает либо отпор, либо имеет проблемы с органами правопорядка. Его трижды арестовывали "по недоразумению". Но весь вопрос в том, что он со своей гипертрофированной честностью и набожностью, не нужен обществу. Дело даже не в них, а в том, что он считает себя вправе непрошенно влезать в чужие судьбы, разговоры и дела с прямодушной простотой, а может и самомнением.
Все его считают чокнутым, а он в свою очередь считает весь мир сошедшим с ума, а себя единственным "нормальным". Естественно, зачастую такое вмешательство встречало бурный отпор.
Постоянное неприятие не обескураживает его. Он с упорством продолжает биться головой о стену.
Он действительно очень упорный человек, найдя наконец свою Роберту, но его искания закончились разочарованием и уходом от веры. Лично мне книга была интересна с точки зрения отношения людей к Великой депрессии. Любопытно, что очень многие фактически отрицали ее и запрещали в своем присутствии произносить это слово.
Все его считают чокнутым, а он в свою очередь считает весь мир сошедшим с ума, а себя единственным "нормальным". Естественно, зачастую такое вмешательство встречало бурный отпор.
Постоянное неприятие не обескураживает его. Он с упорством продолжает биться головой о стену.
Он действительно очень упорный человек, найдя наконец свою Роберту, но его искания закончились разочарованием и уходом от веры. Лично мне книга была интересна с точки зрения отношения людей к Великой депрессии. Любопытно, что очень многие фактически отрицали ее и запрещали в своем присутствии произносить это слово.
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November 8, 2019I have always had trouble with Wilder and disliked his books. But for "Heaven's My Destination," the author honestly came out and declared it autobiographical and that it was intended as satire. (The New Yorker article below on Wilder provides some essential background for understanding the author and his work).
Whether it was intentional or not, I see both "The Bridge Over San Luis Rey" and "Our Town" also as satires.
San Luis Rey presents a classic theological dilemma known as the theodicy problem. Can God be all powerful (sovereign) and totally benevolent at the same time? (skeptic Sam Harris aptly describes the problem in the video clip below). The attempt by Brother Juniper to investigate whether the casualties of the bridge collapse in the novel deserved to die is an exercise in futility and, at the end to proclaim it as mystery is a classic cop-out that avoids the inherent contradiction of the problem. I really can't see how Wilder could be serious here.
Based on personal experience, I also have a problem with "Our Town" I was born, and lived until age 7, in a small mill town in northern New Hampshire. My dad was the only town doctor and my mother the full time administrator of his practice. Fortunately, my father's mid-life crisis got us out of there and to the SF Bay Area. But I continued to hear stories of the small town from both my parents and my older siblings. One of them told me: "it's a nice place to be FROM." It certainly wasn't Mayberry, but rather more like Twin Peaks or something out of a Shirley Jackson story.
The staging of Our Town often placed the story and characters beyond what Wilder intended. There's tragedy in the story, which is often over-looked; instead, it was usually staged as a saccharine fairy-tale. This interpretation was reinforced by the 1940 film version, starring William Holden.
In Wilder's own "Some Suggestions for the Director,” he writes, “It is important to maintain a continual dryness of tone—the New England understatement of sentiment, of surprise, of tragedy.” It's the classic New England stiff upper lip that sweeps issues under the rug and fosters emotional distance.
Nevertheless, many readers of the early 20th century took both San Luis Rey and Our Town straight up, which made those books into bestsellers. This was not the case with "Heaven's My Destination," as many readers felt their Puritan piety was being mocked, which was likely true given Wilder's belated rebellion against his harsh Calvinist father (discussed in the New Yorker piece).
-----------------
Expanded commentary on San Luis Rey
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
--------------------
New Yorker article on Wilder....
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
==================
Sam Harris....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HthQ6...
Whether it was intentional or not, I see both "The Bridge Over San Luis Rey" and "Our Town" also as satires.
San Luis Rey presents a classic theological dilemma known as the theodicy problem. Can God be all powerful (sovereign) and totally benevolent at the same time? (skeptic Sam Harris aptly describes the problem in the video clip below). The attempt by Brother Juniper to investigate whether the casualties of the bridge collapse in the novel deserved to die is an exercise in futility and, at the end to proclaim it as mystery is a classic cop-out that avoids the inherent contradiction of the problem. I really can't see how Wilder could be serious here.
Based on personal experience, I also have a problem with "Our Town" I was born, and lived until age 7, in a small mill town in northern New Hampshire. My dad was the only town doctor and my mother the full time administrator of his practice. Fortunately, my father's mid-life crisis got us out of there and to the SF Bay Area. But I continued to hear stories of the small town from both my parents and my older siblings. One of them told me: "it's a nice place to be FROM." It certainly wasn't Mayberry, but rather more like Twin Peaks or something out of a Shirley Jackson story.
The staging of Our Town often placed the story and characters beyond what Wilder intended. There's tragedy in the story, which is often over-looked; instead, it was usually staged as a saccharine fairy-tale. This interpretation was reinforced by the 1940 film version, starring William Holden.
In Wilder's own "Some Suggestions for the Director,” he writes, “It is important to maintain a continual dryness of tone—the New England understatement of sentiment, of surprise, of tragedy.” It's the classic New England stiff upper lip that sweeps issues under the rug and fosters emotional distance.
Nevertheless, many readers of the early 20th century took both San Luis Rey and Our Town straight up, which made those books into bestsellers. This was not the case with "Heaven's My Destination," as many readers felt their Puritan piety was being mocked, which was likely true given Wilder's belated rebellion against his harsh Calvinist father (discussed in the New Yorker piece).
-----------------
Expanded commentary on San Luis Rey
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
--------------------
New Yorker article on Wilder....
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
==================
Sam Harris....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HthQ6...
May 19, 2023
Poor George Marvin Brush; he just can't seem to help himself... it seems. But then he doesn't think he's the one that needs help. 23-years-old and newly converted, he's got energy to spare and the Lord on his side: so, all people have to do is *listen* to him - do what he kindly tells them to do and not do - and they'll be fine... even if *he* isn't fine himself.
That last part he would firmly deny:
He's actually very good at his job - he knows how to be a good salesman; how to be the best when it comes to having well-earned confidence in a good product. But, more privately, he's not all that good with people. ~ esp. when they won't do as he tells them.
Sometimes he reminds himself that he has the advantage over others:
It is. ~ esp. when, for example, George is whisked away for an evening, unaware that he has been tricked into visiting a brothel (as opposed to just a nice place with some nice, attractive 'daughters' and their 'mother'). After all, we're in a more naive era: it's the late '30s - and it's all people can do if they barely muster smiles in the middle of the Depression.
In this novel, most of the characters surrounding George are funnier than he is himself. (The poor guy takes himself way too seriously. He's a target of ridicule, though he's to be pitied: a believer with a superficial understanding of what he believes.) Employing the kind of humor I'd associate with William Saroyan or Kurt Vonnegut, this is undoubtedly Thornton Wilder at his most whimsical.
~ and it's certainly a work that should be better known and appreciated - mainly since it hasn't really aged. There's a timelessness to this tale. Most books from the Depression era - i.e., 'The Grapes of Wrath', 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?', 'Miss Lonelyhearts' & 'The Day of the Locust' - primarily serve to depress. 'But 'Heaven's My Destination' is an indirectly optimistic book about the foibles of the human spirit and the human heart.
That last part he would firmly deny:
"I'm the happiest man I've ever met. Sometimes it looks like everyone's unhappy except me."That's George all over: the cock-eyed evangelist; in tow with his how-to morality; making his way as a textbook salesman - back-and-forth, back-and-forth - through 'the southern territory'.
He's actually very good at his job - he knows how to be a good salesman; how to be the best when it comes to having well-earned confidence in a good product. But, more privately, he's not all that good with people. ~ esp. when they won't do as he tells them.
Sometimes he reminds himself that he has the advantage over others:
"... human nature isn't raised up yet to what we hope it's going to be. ... Sometime the day's coming when there aren't going to be any quarrels, because in my opinion the world's getting better and better."In the meantime... George has 'arrived' - so it can be challenging for him to wait for 'the unenlightened' to catch up:
"I didn't put myself through college for four years and go through a difficult religious conversion in order to have the same ideas as other people have."Are you getting the idea yet that this is a comedy?
It is. ~ esp. when, for example, George is whisked away for an evening, unaware that he has been tricked into visiting a brothel (as opposed to just a nice place with some nice, attractive 'daughters' and their 'mother'). After all, we're in a more naive era: it's the late '30s - and it's all people can do if they barely muster smiles in the middle of the Depression.
In this novel, most of the characters surrounding George are funnier than he is himself. (The poor guy takes himself way too seriously. He's a target of ridicule, though he's to be pitied: a believer with a superficial understanding of what he believes.) Employing the kind of humor I'd associate with William Saroyan or Kurt Vonnegut, this is undoubtedly Thornton Wilder at his most whimsical.
~ and it's certainly a work that should be better known and appreciated - mainly since it hasn't really aged. There's a timelessness to this tale. Most books from the Depression era - i.e., 'The Grapes of Wrath', 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?', 'Miss Lonelyhearts' & 'The Day of the Locust' - primarily serve to depress. 'But 'Heaven's My Destination' is an indirectly optimistic book about the foibles of the human spirit and the human heart.
July 1, 2024
This was such a good book. It was funny, nostalgic, quirky and you couldn’t help but love the main character George Brush, whose name everyone got wrong.
George Brush is a 23 year old encyclopedia salesman who travels the country by rail learning from his many humorous experience’s and the characters he meets. George is a newly saved Christian whose morals and his ‘theories’ come from his faith in humanity and how he sees his world, while everyone he meets is downright confused.
Written in the 1930’s about a young man who is thriving during the depression, you can’t help but love the character of George Brush.
George Brush is a 23 year old encyclopedia salesman who travels the country by rail learning from his many humorous experience’s and the characters he meets. George is a newly saved Christian whose morals and his ‘theories’ come from his faith in humanity and how he sees his world, while everyone he meets is downright confused.
Written in the 1930’s about a young man who is thriving during the depression, you can’t help but love the character of George Brush.
November 15, 2019
This is a truly odd novel. Imagine Candide crossed with Sinclair Lewis's Lowell Schmaltz and with some of the bizarre occurrences of Nathanael West's A Cool Million. George Brush is a successful textbook salesman who is perfectly pure--no smoking, no drinking, no sex (except for one incident with a farmer's daughter that he keeps trying to rectify)--and tells everyone else about it. His actions are so far from the norm that he keeps being arrested; for closing his bank account and refusing to take the interest, taking a 24-hour vow of silence and his communication during this period leads to his being suspected of molesting a girl, and giving money in a store to a bank robber because Brush thinks the robber will then feel guilty. He aggravates people so much that they try to get him drunk and in trouble, and he quotes Gandhi to judges he meets. Brush loses his faith after multiple adventures, but by the end he's back telling others his ideas, even if they don't want to listen. It's not clear at all what Wilder was up to, but it's enjoyable in a weird way, perhaps like Brush himself.
August 7, 2011
4 1/2 stars. More so than any author I know, Wilder has the ability to find the universal in the specific, the humor in the sadness, and the sadness in the humor. This book about the birth, death, and resurrection of one man's religious convictions contains some of the greatest laughs I've ever encountered in literature and some truly painful pathos (Although, no pathos is the world of Wilder could ever top Esteban's experiences in "Bridge of San Luis Rey.") What's so amazing is how fair Wilder is to his characters and his diligent patience in letting each of the cartoons become three-dimensional human beings. If I miss the poetry of his grander, foreign novels a little, if I miss the epigrams that defined his earlier works, I'm still glad to have known George Brush and to have shared such a remarkably joyful, painful, and human experience with him.
August 19, 2020
Bija interesanti iepazīties ar līdz šim nelasītu autoru, stāstījums viegli lasāms un dzīvelīgs. Ieskatījos jauna pacifista, nabadzības teorijas piekritēja, ahisma un Gandija ideju piekritēja galvā un sapratu, ka būt labam un jaunam nemaz nav viegli. Mūžvecie ētikas jautājumi.
Kopumā varu teikt, ka stāsts bija ieinteresējošs, bet man ne līdz galam interesants. Iespējams grāmatas apjoms bija par mazu, lai es līdz galam iemīļotu Brašu, iespējams stāstījums vienā brīdī kļuva vienveidīgs... Bet katrā ziņā priecājos, ka izlasīju, dažkārt bija tiešām komiski.
Kopumā varu teikt, ka stāsts bija ieinteresējošs, bet man ne līdz galam interesants. Iespējams grāmatas apjoms bija par mazu, lai es līdz galam iemīļotu Brašu, iespējams stāstījums vienā brīdī kļuva vienveidīgs... Bet katrā ziņā priecājos, ka izlasīju, dažkārt bija tiešām komiski.
July 29, 2021
The picaresque story of traveling salesman George Brush in Depression-era America—a comic, but also bittersweet portrait of a young man wrestling with faith, morals, and life.
May 21, 2022
A really gorgeous and heart-warming book about a new-found Christian who is yet to open his mind to others beliefs and ways of life. This leads him into many scrapes and rather hilarious adventures and eventually makes him face his own flaws and grow from what he was. I loved the ending and the development of George Brush throughout the novel was inspiring and beautiful to see through the incredible penmanship of my favourite author! I am also so pleased to have this as a first edition just adding to the character of the story. Definitely one of my favourite books
May 15, 2025
Daintily drawn satire from the mid 1930s that seems to prefigure black humorists like Terry Southern and Kurt Vonnegut.
December 28, 2024
Don Quixote in the Depression as an evangelical textbook salesman is an A+ premise. Cute and funny.
May 1, 2016
It was a surprise
AND a pleasure
just to see how the majority of Americans in this book
ABSOLUTELY loathed, hated and reviled
its Bible-bashing, fundamentalist hero.
But of course Thornton Wilder
didn't,
and he wouldn't let us, either.
George Brush (just a little too close to "George Bush" for me,)
is a likeable hero
and by the end of the book he has...
well, read it.
Having ONLY read Wilder's MARVELLOUS "The Bridge Of San Luis Rey"
6 TIMES !!!!
I really thought it about time to extend my repertoire
and so picked up TWO at the second hand bookshop.
This one and "The Cabala".
...a Wise Fool is always,
as is Don Quixote,
an admirable creature to behold
and to ride with.
One suffers with George,
admires,
even learns from.
A competent and enjoyable novel.
THAT sounds damning but...
you'll just have to read it for yourself!!
March 9, 2013
A quick read (I mislaid my copy for a long while). Parts were funny and parts were exasperating. I'm not exactly sure what it is Wilder was trying to say about this particular brand of evangelicalism. The central character, George Brush, a travelling salesman with very particular religious views (an amalgam of a particular interpretation of the Bible and Gandhi) is odd yet sincere. His ethics seem to rile people no end and he is often arrested for the situations which arise from this conflict. On the whole he seems to be portrayed sympathetically and yet it is clear that most people think he is some sort of lunatic. I am left, really, not knowing quite what to think. Somewhat of a curate's egg, perhaps, or maybe it requires a re-read.
February 22, 2022
Thornton Wilder conceived of this novel as the story of “A Baptist Don Quixote.” Overall, he manages to pull that off. The story alternates between humor and pathos, and at all times you just want to grab the main character, slap him, and yell, “Get a clue”! It is a tale of a 24-year-old naif, a college graduate who did not study deeply but who did become “saved” while at a camp meeting. He now moves through the world trying to live by idealized standards, standards that no one adheres to. Set during the Depression, he is making an excellent living as a traveling school textbook representative. He becomes a sort of reverse picaresque hero, one where he is not a rogue—while everyone else certainly is. He reads every textbook that he is supposed to sell, and he therefore adds to his surface education and dedication to high ideals. This adds more conflict to his already episodically befuddled life. Basically, imagine yourself in your most naïve moments in your youth. The theme presents the true education that YOUTH gets pounded into its thick skull.
This is a good story, but the ending was a little too loose and non-developed. I couldn’t help but feel that it was a chapter too short. In addition, there are times when the story just dragged for me. It did not hold my attention enough to read right through it. At about half-way through, I wound up setting it aside for a couple of weeks while I read something else.
This is a good story, but the ending was a little too loose and non-developed. I couldn’t help but feel that it was a chapter too short. In addition, there are times when the story just dragged for me. It did not hold my attention enough to read right through it. At about half-way through, I wound up setting it aside for a couple of weeks while I read something else.
October 9, 2019
Read this back in 1997 and noted...
Interesting portrayal of someone trying to live by Christian principles, with a bit of Mahatma Gandhi thrown in. As always there’s that Wilder wit and irony, and it now pictures a world long gone – so pre-war as to be pre-historic, almost, like some out of date 1930s movie. However Wilder’s insight and writing skills haven’t dated.
Interesting portrayal of someone trying to live by Christian principles, with a bit of Mahatma Gandhi thrown in. As always there’s that Wilder wit and irony, and it now pictures a world long gone – so pre-war as to be pre-historic, almost, like some out of date 1930s movie. However Wilder’s insight and writing skills haven’t dated.
June 16, 2021
I would dearly loved to have given this book a fourth or fifth star. The quixotic character of George Brush did not manage to convince me at all, I found him weak and strange, just as I found all the characters in this book strange. At times, I felt I was reading a fairy tale, though I read Wilder's background reasons for writing the book and understand that the language is basically a sign of the times in which it was written.
I did not feel that the Great Depression really came through during the story. The characters were mostly quite vague, though the language is good throughout. It would probably be best to reread the book, but I don't think I would have the patience.
Still, three stars for this normally very good writer.
I did not feel that the Great Depression really came through during the story. The characters were mostly quite vague, though the language is good throughout. It would probably be best to reread the book, but I don't think I would have the patience.
Still, three stars for this normally very good writer.
October 23, 2017
Idealistic Idiot Inevitably Invites Irritation
Wilder's lighthearted spoof of religion and do-gooders is an easy read and will keep you amused throughout. George Brush, the main character, is a mix of Protestant morals and Gandhian behavior with a huge amount of plain old naivete thrown in. He is entirely innocent of how the world works. He doesn't know that ideals are not often translated into action so he constantly irks everyone he comes into contact with. His insistence on the truth alienates almost all. He manages to do good sometimes, but at other times his efforts go off the rails because he just can't understand why people don't live up to religious standards of love and charity. Most people feel that he's crazy, even though he earns a fair living as a traveling textbook salesman. He doesn't smoke, drink or date pretty girls. He once had sex with a girl and decided that they were already married and would be together for the rest of their lives. The only problem was that he couldn't remember her name or where she lived. He has a fine singing voice and makes friends through it, only to lose them by his unfailing tendency to be the "fine, upstanding, godfearing, American boy". It's a satire after all. He tells bankers that their system is immoral, he gives money to bank robbers, and winds up in jail more than once. He reads the Encyclopedia Britannica at every chance he gets. No doubt he is a one of that group of vivid, "religious" characters in American literature along with Arthur Dimmesdale, Elmer Gantry, Owen Muir, or Clyde Griffiths. Wilder made fun of the hypocrisies of American society, but provides an entertaining read as well. Maybe there is a strand here of wishing that human nature might be better than it is.
Wilder's lighthearted spoof of religion and do-gooders is an easy read and will keep you amused throughout. George Brush, the main character, is a mix of Protestant morals and Gandhian behavior with a huge amount of plain old naivete thrown in. He is entirely innocent of how the world works. He doesn't know that ideals are not often translated into action so he constantly irks everyone he comes into contact with. His insistence on the truth alienates almost all. He manages to do good sometimes, but at other times his efforts go off the rails because he just can't understand why people don't live up to religious standards of love and charity. Most people feel that he's crazy, even though he earns a fair living as a traveling textbook salesman. He doesn't smoke, drink or date pretty girls. He once had sex with a girl and decided that they were already married and would be together for the rest of their lives. The only problem was that he couldn't remember her name or where she lived. He has a fine singing voice and makes friends through it, only to lose them by his unfailing tendency to be the "fine, upstanding, godfearing, American boy". It's a satire after all. He tells bankers that their system is immoral, he gives money to bank robbers, and winds up in jail more than once. He reads the Encyclopedia Britannica at every chance he gets. No doubt he is a one of that group of vivid, "religious" characters in American literature along with Arthur Dimmesdale, Elmer Gantry, Owen Muir, or Clyde Griffiths. Wilder made fun of the hypocrisies of American society, but provides an entertaining read as well. Maybe there is a strand here of wishing that human nature might be better than it is.
November 29, 2017
I had a theory before I read "Heaven's My Destination." From the synopsis on the back cover, I was expecting an "Elmer Gantry" redux. Alas, this is not that kind of novel. While the protagonist, George Brush, is indeed a meticulously moral fellow, he's not that much of a Bible-thumper compared to the Rev. Gantry. As several other reviewers point out, Brush is also heavily indebted to Gandhi for his weltanschauung but his strict opposition to alcohol, tobacco and war make him more like an idealistic social gospel-type than a "fighting fundamentalist." The novel is very episodic and I didn't find it nearly as funny as many other reviewers have.
May 28, 2019
George Brush, the main character, is a Holy Fool, but unlike most Holy Fools, he is both Holy and a Fool: Wilder is able to be true to both sides of the equation. The guy doesn't fit in the real world, but that doesn't mean that the foolishness of George Brush is wiser than the wisdom of men. It just means he is a stumbling mess.
He's in the proud American tradition of largehearted, enthusiastic, emotional clumsiness and anti intellectualism.
This book is so funny I was giggling aloud in a public place, as well as being quirky and gentle and sad at just the right tone. A profound statement, or at least meditation, on modern Christianity.
He's in the proud American tradition of largehearted, enthusiastic, emotional clumsiness and anti intellectualism.
This book is so funny I was giggling aloud in a public place, as well as being quirky and gentle and sad at just the right tone. A profound statement, or at least meditation, on modern Christianity.
January 23, 2015
Thornton Wilder's funniest work, and one of my favorite books ever. I've read it 3 or 4 times now, and get more out of it each time. It carries a lot of personal meaning for me, and was a major influence on my own novel.
June 22, 2020
At first I HATED and loathed the protagonist, until I saw more and more of myself in him! "To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." That did not relieve my irritation much, maybe made me less vehement.
June 17, 2008
Loved it. Don Quijote meets the Bible Belt.
August 16, 2020
God I loved this. Fascinating character study. Brilliant writing.
October 13, 2021
George Brush, traveling book salesman and purveyor of morality, is a quiet revolutionary: he’s a pacifist, believing in Gandhi’s concepts of voluntary poverty, fasting, ahimsa (compassion), and doing no harm. He’s also a socialist, saying that everyone ought to be hit by the Depression equally. He gives money to thieves because they need it, believes in the equality of races, and the brotherhood of man. He quotes the Sermon on the Mount, and following Tolstoy, says that Government often commits crimes when punishing crime. “I think the world’s in such a bad way that we’ve all got to start thinking all over again,” he says, “I think all the ideas that are going around now are wrong. I’m trying to begin all over again at the beginning.”
On the other hand, he’s also a reactionary: girls shouldn’t be allowed to laugh too loud, move their hands and eyes too much, or smoke and drink. He doesn’t believe in the concept of banks, working on the Sabbath, divorce, or evolution.
Both aspects of his character draw scorn, mockery, and derision from those he comes across. While Brush is pious and stubbornly happy in his convictions, the reaction from others is incredulous and often ends in morally wrong behavior, such as locking him up for withdrawing his money, or beating him because of his views. “Get to be one of the fellas”, they say, “leave other people’s lives alone”, and “Run around with the women. You’re healthy, aintya? Enjoy life, see? You’re going to be dead a long time, believe me.”
What was Wilder saying with this character? The book was popular and controversial when it was published in 1934. Christians saw in Brush Christ-like beliefs and the courage of the early martyrs. Others saw farcical comedy in his naiveté, which could be read as critical of these idealistic and somewhat fundamentalist views. Was it Wilder who is being ambiguous, or are we just reading it that way, possibly because this is a fundamentally ambiguous aspect of the human condition?
Perhaps the most telling line is this interchange:
“’I see,’ said the judge. ‘Your ideas aren’t the same as most people’s, are they?’
‘No,’ said Brush. ‘I didn’t put myself through college for four years and go through a difficult religious conversion in order to have the same ideas as other people have.’”
I think Wilder was simply representing the early phase of life for a thinking person – which is often searching, strong-willed, and idealistic.
As his nephew Tappan Wilder mentions, the first epigraph:
George Brush is my name;
America’s my nation.
Ludington’s my dwelling-place
And Heaven’s my destination.
Which mirrors James Joyce, in ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’:
Stephen Dedalus is my name.
Ireland is my nation.
Clongowes is my dwelling place
And heaven my expectation.
The second epigraph “Of all forms of genius, goodness has the longest awkward age”, comes from Wilder’s novel ‘The Woman of Andros’, and is also meaningful. Brush is not necessarily right or wrong, he’s simply young, ‘awkward’, and full of paradoxes. He’s also not without faults – with women, with crises of faith, and with thoughts of suicide.
In the end, his views begin evolving, as most people’s do in life. He meets Burkin, a more intelligent man, who tells him somewhat harshly “You’ve got the gaseous ideas of a sick girl. It has nothing to do with life. You live in a foggy, unreal, narcotic dream.” Wilder describes it further: “Burkin plunged into primitive man and the jungle; he came down through the nature myths; he hung the earth in astronomical time. He then exposed the pretensions of subjective religious experience; the absurdity of conflicting prayers, man’s egotistic terror before extinction. At last he said: ‘If you’d read more I could show you the absurdity of the scholastic proofs of the existence of God and I could show you how the dependency complex begins.”
It’s the beginning of the disillusionment of the ideal. Brush has deeper qualms about his faith, and puts a student of evolution into college. One could read it as a sign of ‘reverse conversion’, or a continuation of his almost naïve open-mindedness. While the ending of the novel feels a bit forced, which I found later that Wilder later regretted, one gets the sense that as Brush matures, he will keep some elements of his idealism, and remain a paradox to those around him.
On the other hand, he’s also a reactionary: girls shouldn’t be allowed to laugh too loud, move their hands and eyes too much, or smoke and drink. He doesn’t believe in the concept of banks, working on the Sabbath, divorce, or evolution.
Both aspects of his character draw scorn, mockery, and derision from those he comes across. While Brush is pious and stubbornly happy in his convictions, the reaction from others is incredulous and often ends in morally wrong behavior, such as locking him up for withdrawing his money, or beating him because of his views. “Get to be one of the fellas”, they say, “leave other people’s lives alone”, and “Run around with the women. You’re healthy, aintya? Enjoy life, see? You’re going to be dead a long time, believe me.”
What was Wilder saying with this character? The book was popular and controversial when it was published in 1934. Christians saw in Brush Christ-like beliefs and the courage of the early martyrs. Others saw farcical comedy in his naiveté, which could be read as critical of these idealistic and somewhat fundamentalist views. Was it Wilder who is being ambiguous, or are we just reading it that way, possibly because this is a fundamentally ambiguous aspect of the human condition?
Perhaps the most telling line is this interchange:
“’I see,’ said the judge. ‘Your ideas aren’t the same as most people’s, are they?’
‘No,’ said Brush. ‘I didn’t put myself through college for four years and go through a difficult religious conversion in order to have the same ideas as other people have.’”
I think Wilder was simply representing the early phase of life for a thinking person – which is often searching, strong-willed, and idealistic.
As his nephew Tappan Wilder mentions, the first epigraph:
George Brush is my name;
America’s my nation.
Ludington’s my dwelling-place
And Heaven’s my destination.
Which mirrors James Joyce, in ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’:
Stephen Dedalus is my name.
Ireland is my nation.
Clongowes is my dwelling place
And heaven my expectation.
The second epigraph “Of all forms of genius, goodness has the longest awkward age”, comes from Wilder’s novel ‘The Woman of Andros’, and is also meaningful. Brush is not necessarily right or wrong, he’s simply young, ‘awkward’, and full of paradoxes. He’s also not without faults – with women, with crises of faith, and with thoughts of suicide.
In the end, his views begin evolving, as most people’s do in life. He meets Burkin, a more intelligent man, who tells him somewhat harshly “You’ve got the gaseous ideas of a sick girl. It has nothing to do with life. You live in a foggy, unreal, narcotic dream.” Wilder describes it further: “Burkin plunged into primitive man and the jungle; he came down through the nature myths; he hung the earth in astronomical time. He then exposed the pretensions of subjective religious experience; the absurdity of conflicting prayers, man’s egotistic terror before extinction. At last he said: ‘If you’d read more I could show you the absurdity of the scholastic proofs of the existence of God and I could show you how the dependency complex begins.”
It’s the beginning of the disillusionment of the ideal. Brush has deeper qualms about his faith, and puts a student of evolution into college. One could read it as a sign of ‘reverse conversion’, or a continuation of his almost naïve open-mindedness. While the ending of the novel feels a bit forced, which I found later that Wilder later regretted, one gets the sense that as Brush matures, he will keep some elements of his idealism, and remain a paradox to those around him.
March 10, 2021
This has to be one of the oddest stories I ever read. My copy is hard cover with dust jacket and a named First Edition, published in 1935 by Harper and Brothers which I've had for many years and finally got round to reading.
I don't know whether that was a good thing or a waste of time. It is the story of George Marvin Brush, who is trying to live a Christian life while telling his story to everyone he sees....these people get so annoyed at him. George is a traveling textbook salesman who is very good at his job and gets periodic increases in pay even though it is the Great Depression era of the 1930s.
He has a dream of the "American Family" and longs for this....mother, father, 6 children living a perfect, happy life.
He knows he is 'different'; often called 'crazy' but he is actually very brilliant....his favourite leisure reading is the Encyclopedia Britannica. He annoys people wherever he goes, he is always on the lookout for the perfect girl to marry, he ends up in court a few times, he gives money away to whomever needs it, he takes on a 4-year old child when the father dies, he gives a robber more money instead of hiding it, he lives in a brothel but doesn't realize that it is not the beautiful home he thinks it is, he quotes Mahatma Ghandi and he marries a girl that he has only met a couple of times because he has wronged her....this all takes place between his 23rd and 24th birthday. Many people tried to get him drunk (he doesn't drink), getting him to smoke which he also doesn't do. He even got beaten so badly by 4 of his 'friends' that he was hospitalized.
I know I won't bother reading anymore of Wilder's work.
I don't know whether that was a good thing or a waste of time. It is the story of George Marvin Brush, who is trying to live a Christian life while telling his story to everyone he sees....these people get so annoyed at him. George is a traveling textbook salesman who is very good at his job and gets periodic increases in pay even though it is the Great Depression era of the 1930s.
He has a dream of the "American Family" and longs for this....mother, father, 6 children living a perfect, happy life.
He knows he is 'different'; often called 'crazy' but he is actually very brilliant....his favourite leisure reading is the Encyclopedia Britannica. He annoys people wherever he goes, he is always on the lookout for the perfect girl to marry, he ends up in court a few times, he gives money away to whomever needs it, he takes on a 4-year old child when the father dies, he gives a robber more money instead of hiding it, he lives in a brothel but doesn't realize that it is not the beautiful home he thinks it is, he quotes Mahatma Ghandi and he marries a girl that he has only met a couple of times because he has wronged her....this all takes place between his 23rd and 24th birthday. Many people tried to get him drunk (he doesn't drink), getting him to smoke which he also doesn't do. He even got beaten so badly by 4 of his 'friends' that he was hospitalized.
I know I won't bother reading anymore of Wilder's work.
June 13, 2020
Even though this book is by my favorite author, I knew very little about it. I was surprised to find it humorous and written in a similar style to Don Quixote, a Picaresque novel in which the hero, a traveling salesman, goes from one incident to the next. The book is also a bit of a coming-of-age story, in which the main character, George Brush, goes through his 23rd year. The crux of the book, however, is that George Brush is a fundamentalist Christian, which may seem off-putting, and sometimes it is, but the book is about how he tries to live by his ideas and ideals in a world that rejects those ideas and ideals. That friction leads to the philosophical nature of the book, which is what I'm more used to in a Wilder novel. George challenges himself to think through his ideas, even if he's stubborn about them. He also has an intellectual curiosity and commits himself to non-violence and studies the teachings of Gandhi. Though he's fundamentalist, Wilder writes him more like an everyman, and we see in him our own tendencies to hold fast to our ideas of the world to the point that they become the basis for judgements; we see our own contradictions and faults as humans. I felt challenged as a reader because I both agreed and disagreed with him at various points. There are also some great supporting characters who serve to challenge George's beliefs, and his relationship with Roberta, and by extension her sister, is a lot more complex than it first seems. The book is under 200 pages, and makes for a swift yet thoughtful read.
May 7, 2023
An American picaresque, frequently laugh-out-loud funny, featuring George Brush, a dottily idealistic (or should that be "idealistically dotty"?) holy fool type, a combination of fundamentalist Christian and Mohandas Gandhi, as he makes his way through the world, selling textbooks, preaching his gospel, and seeking to right his one great wrong. One aspect of the novel's picaresque nature is the sequence of scenes that don't really add up to more than their individual parts: the whole Jessie Mayhew business had me scratching my head, as it was one big courtship-that-wasn't-a-courtship while George was on a search for the woman he'd wronged and was obsessed with marrying. And this being Wilder, it does verge uncomfortably on the hokey at times, perhaps no more so than in the courtroom scene: if anything, I couldn't help thinking that this was the Greatest Movie Nobody Ever Thought to Have Jimmy Stewart Make.
The ending -- the loss and (moderated?) regaining of faith -- does have me scratching my head a bit. I do get the 180-degree turn back toward the Path of Righteousness: having spent all his life doing random acts of kindness, the turning point hinges on the first time anyone had done a Random Act of Kindness to him. I do have to wonder about the degree to which he "loosens up" at the very end. On the one hand, there's that girl with the Darwin book. On the other hand, while courting the woman he was determined to marry, he mentioned that the scars from the ice cap expansion in Kansas City were 800,000 years old -- a notion utterly anathema to any deeply religious 1930s American Christian (and for that matter not that much less anathema today). Was Wilder trying to tell us that his George had always "had it in him" to become a bit flexible with his dogmas without losing a firm grip on his oddly charming (or is that "charmingly odd"?) ethics?
The ending -- the loss and (moderated?) regaining of faith -- does have me scratching my head a bit. I do get the 180-degree turn back toward the Path of Righteousness: having spent all his life doing random acts of kindness, the turning point hinges on the first time anyone had done a Random Act of Kindness to him. I do have to wonder about the degree to which he "loosens up" at the very end. On the one hand, there's that girl with the Darwin book. On the other hand, while courting the woman he was determined to marry, he mentioned that the scars from the ice cap expansion in Kansas City were 800,000 years old -- a notion utterly anathema to any deeply religious 1930s American Christian (and for that matter not that much less anathema today). Was Wilder trying to tell us that his George had always "had it in him" to become a bit flexible with his dogmas without losing a firm grip on his oddly charming (or is that "charmingly odd"?) ethics?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2019
The protagonist, George Brush, can be viewed as a moral hero who refuses to compromise his Christian way of life (as he understands it) one tittle, or as a kind of holy fool continually commiting faux pas which sometimes result in criminal prosecution. (He more than a little reminds one of Dostoevsky's Prince Myshkin in The Idiot.) The novel is well worth reading for Wilder's superb depiction of Brush's antics that inspire both hilarity and awed admiration, as well as considerable suspense as to his fate. The nature of that fate depends, I believe, on . . .
March 8, 2021
It a quick sort of amusing read. A picaresque novel, regarding George Brush, a sort of quasi-idealistic idiot. At first, I believed it was a sort of more humorous Sinclair Lewis satire; and then it just kept on...The main character is a bit all over the place, religious, philosophical, moral, but always lacking in common sense. He sins, and apparently believes a mish-mash of philosophical ideas, yet lives a rather routine life as a travelling salesman. I am not really sure what the point of the novel is--The Idiot by Dostoevsky has a point and a realistic christ-like character, as does Sinclair Lewis in his many satirical novels. George Brush is not really a realistic character, and doesnt seem to have any deeper meaning or even satirical point. Its a real disappointment, from an excellent writer who wrote classics, and also failures.
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