Supposedly a book about hypocrisy, but I think it was intended to bash Christianity in general.

I could not stomach much of it - if this was bashing any of the other religions, it would not be this highly regarded, imo.

It is surprising that the novels of Sinclair Lewis are not seen more in publication of classics, as such they now really are. Elmer Gantry should be read as a classic. The novel is a bit long drawn, and might be more accessible with notes. The introduction to the edition of Signet Classics is well worth reading. Readers with little experience of preachers as in the US might find the novel difficult to understand, even if the purport of the novel is extended to politicians.

Reading Elmer Gantry was not very rewardingf, and quite a bit of a struggle. I think the theme and main idea still comes out clearly, but to modern readers the novel is probably a bit too long-winded. However, I am glad I read it. ( )

Yes - horrifying and scabrously grotesque in all the expected ways, at times the broad force of Lewis's satire rubbing up against the limitations of his philosophical arguments (or are they his? It's never clear how seriously one is meant to take Frank Shallard, often a pitiable figure at sea in Gantry's world, but similarly blinkered in his intellectual development by a lack of sincere peers). A late-stage invocation of the KKK brings the themes of Gantry's college years back to the fore, where the only thing more valuable than education was educating the right attractive white men.

Unexpectedly also a chronicle of male adulthood and the struggles of reconciling one's own yearning for maturity with the demands of adult relationships. Disastrous and abhorrent as Gantry's behavior within his marriage to Cleo Benham may be, I close with this passage which was ickily familiar to me:

"It is possible that the presence of the elder Benhams, preventing too close a communion with Cleo, kept Elmer from understanding what it meant that he should not greatly have longed to embrace her. He translated his lack of urgency into virtue; and went about assuring himself that he was indeed a reformed and perfect character...and so went home and hung about the kitchen, chattering with little Jane Clark in pastoral jokiness.

Even when he was alone with Cleo, when she drove him in the proud Benham motor for calls in the country, even while he volubly telling himself how handsome she was, he was never quite natural with her." (p. 281) ( )

Elmer Gantry had a golden tongue that could reach into the hearts of the blackest sinners. He also had rather a wandering eye for a well turned ankle.

A rather interesting tale of fraudulent "evangelical" preachers, an ilk which abounded a century ago, and which still persists today.

4½* were that possible, i.e. most excellent. ( )

Very good, with a surprising ending.
( )