1. Those 0dd little fascists: I was led here by HHhH, Laurent Binet’s superb novel about the rise and assassination of a Nazi. Whereas Binet’s SS boss is a cultured and fastidious butcher, this totalitarian is a folksy thug, broadcasting down-home values while his Minute Men bash the liberal softies. But, like Binet, Sinclair uses humour to show how such odd and opportunistic little people end up running our world, time and time again:
'He had been coaxing in supporters ever since the day when, at the age of four, he had captivated a neighbourhood comrade by giving him an ammonia pistol which later he thriftily stole back from the comrade's pocket. Buzz might not have learned, perhaps could not have learned, much from sociologists […] but they could have learned a great deal from Buzz.'
'He had been coaxing in supporters ever since the day when, at the age of four, he had captivated a neighbourhood comrade by giving him an ammonia pistol which later he thriftily stole back from the comrade's pocket. Buzz might not have learned, perhaps could not have learned, much from sociologists […] but they could have learned a great deal from Buzz.'
2. 'A downy town': It was the old-school start that grabbed me first, the ‘drowsy’ evocation of Fort Beulah and its clapboard houses. It’s that old and pillowy sort of world-building that invites you to relax into a novel. Of course, this serenity is an illusion—Lewis quickly turns the town into a prison for his liberally minded hero, Doremus Jessup. Having shot his son-in-law, the boss of the local Minute Men raids Jessup’s house and destroys his Dickens collection in an orgy of book-burning. Only months before, this man was Jessup’s domestic help. It’s a complete inversion of Jessup’s world. Brilliant storytelling.
3. You want sauce with your words?: Sinclair wrote It Can’t Happen Here in the 1930s but some of its satire feels very fresh. I particularly loved his way of poking fun at people who moan about ‘the youth of today’:
'the wishy-washy young people today—Going seventy miles an hour but not going anywhere—not enough imagination to want to go anywhere! Getting their music by turning a dial. Getting their phrases from the comic strips instead of from Shakespeare and the Bible'
This lazy rhetoric comes from none other than Doremus Jessup, early in the story—one of this novel's many delightful ironies.
3. You want sauce with your words?: Sinclair wrote It Can’t Happen Here in the 1930s but some of its satire feels very fresh. I particularly loved his way of poking fun at people who moan about ‘the youth of today’:
'the wishy-washy young people today—Going seventy miles an hour but not going anywhere—not enough imagination to want to go anywhere! Getting their music by turning a dial. Getting their phrases from the comic strips instead of from Shakespeare and the Bible'
This lazy rhetoric comes from none other than Doremus Jessup, early in the story—one of this novel's many delightful ironies.
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