"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis, our May 2017 Group Read

[Irene]

And, these are often the voters who claim they are pursuing a pro-life, pro-family values agenda. What is pro-life about assault? What family values does assault promote? If someone thinks that a reporter is not being fair, a neighbor is not respecting property lines, a teacher is being disrespectful, etc., are we now saying that we have the right to assault that person? Vigilanty justice? Isn't that what we have civil suits for? I would understand if it were a minority who stood by him after the assault, but it was the majority. What have we come to as a country?

[Sheila , Supporting Chick]

We have come to a very sad and disheartening place, where blind party loyalty has nothing to do with the party's supposed values.

We have a President who in his speech to the Saudi's told them we were not there to lecture, that we were not there to tell them how to live, or to preach about their human rights abuses, yet then in his speech days later to our allies at NATO he lectured them about how much money they should be paying and how they were not contributing. Our President is nice to the autocrats, and condemns our democratic allies.

[Irene]

It is all about the money for him.

[Irene]

I am not sure what I am doing tomorrow, so I am going to begin the discussion of the final set of chapters today.

So, what are your thoughts as the book ends? What was your feelings as you closed the book?

This feels like a warning to a complacent America. But, up until after the election, there was little talk about this book. Further, my afterward said that there were several other books written at the time with a similar premise. What power does literature have to shape society if we have given these books so little attention? The situation in this book deteriorated quickly despite the actions of those who resisted. If we do not recognize the dictator before s/he gains power, it is difficult to stop the situation afterward, according to this novel. Do you agree? What hope is there for those suffering from buyers' remorse?

Why does Lewis portray Emma so unfavorably?

Ultimately, Lewis tells us that a Communist or Fascist dictator could arise in the US as easily as in Europe? Do you agree? How vulnerable are we to this?

[Sheila , Supporting Chick]

My feelings are that this was a little unrealistic, yet scarily could easily be close to realistic in some societies, or if our society degrades a bit more.

Real life change seems so much more gradual, more subtle, yet sometimes just as frightening. Our society is changing. Yet it seems like the most "change" is being done by those who say they are opposed to change, by those in power who want to take us back to the "good old days", to the days of cheap coal energy, to the days of "religious morality" (which wasn't always what it seemed), to the days of white male patriarchy.

[Irene]

I think that because Lewis is a satirist, his employment of humor allowed him to get away with a scenario that moved a bit quickly for reality. And, yet, other than the speed, I am not certain that anything else was not realistic considering the rise of dictators on the right and left from Chili to Germany and everything in between in the last century. Using Jessip, a small town patriarch as his POV, also truncated the resistance. We see little of the anger and attempts to counter Windrip's moves. Yet, because we do encounter an entire network when Jessip finally joins an organized resistance movement, we can presume that people were not as accepting and passive as at times it appeared.

What amazes me is that we, as a population, continue to want the leader that promises us bread and circuses at no cost. Populist politicians who blame all problems on the outsider and ensure us that solutions are easy as long as we target the "other", continue to win large numbers of votes. You would think that having seen so much of this type of leader doing so much damage and destroying so many lives in the past 100 years, we would be skeptical of this type of personality and stump speech, but we continue to fall for it.

What can we do? How to we stop this from happening here?

[Irene]

Are there any final thoughts or comments on this book?

Thank you all for reading it with me. It was one of those books that I have been seeing mentioned quite a bit lately and I wanted to understand what was being referenced. I appreciate each of your thoughts.

[Sheila , Supporting Chick]

I had already purchased a copy of this to read due to hearing about it, even before it was nominated, so I am glad it was picked and that I got to read it with this group!

It was not really what I was expecting. The beginning related most to our current events. I just hope our current situation never becomes what the USA became in this book.

[Irene]

I suspect that that hope is echoed by all. Of course, I think that Lewis is saying that the people of Germany and Russia would have said the same thing 10 years before their citizens were subject to mass arrests, torture, exicutions or confinement to consentration camps.

[Jennifer W]

I'm still chipping away at it. Sometimes it feels too real, and I need some escapist reading instead.