DOCSLIB.ORG

I Used to Speak in Tongues: Spirituality and Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
I Used to Speak in Tongues: Spirituality and Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives I Used to Speak in Tongues: Spirituality and Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives by Andrew Connolly A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2015, Andrew Connolly Abstract This dissertation examines Pentecostal deconversion narratives in memoirs by Kim Barnes and Dennis Covington, in novels and short stories by Lee Smith, and in promotional interviews with Katy Perry and Megan Fox. They feature protagonists who grow out of Pentecostalism. In most cases, they are young girls who are raised in Pentecostal homes and leave their homes and religions at the same time. In place of Pentecostalism, the protagonists adopt a spirituality that is either liberal or neoliberal. Liberal spirituality encourages experimentation and assimilation of various religious practices and beliefs as long as they complement classic liberal values like individualism, freedom, rationality, pluralism, etc. Neoliberal spirituality is very similar, but it redefines the classic liberal values with a market sensibility so that freedom becomes freedom in the market, and rationality becomes self-interested rationality based on cost/benefit analysis. In most cases, these protagonists’ spiritualties fall somewhere on a continuum between liberal and neoliberal extremes. The narratives privilege these spiritualties as more modern, more empowering, and more in keeping with contemporary American values. They also help position the authors as people who are educated, modern, and liberal in their approach to religion. By contrast, the conservative theology and ecstatic religious practices of Pentecostals are represented as oppressive, narrow minded, dogmatic, and most of all, irrational. By extension, Pentecostals themselves are underdeveloped, uneducated, and anachronistic. In fact, while conservative Protestants as a whole occupy an “othered” position in relation to both liberal and neoliberal spirituality, Pentecostalism becomes the epitome of “bad religion” because it embraces ecstatic experiences. ii These narratives serve three compatible purposes: 1) they promote and celebrate liberal and neoliberal approaches to religion; 2) they help establish and solidify a religious/spiritual identity for the author, and by extension, membership within a religious/spiritual community (although it is an amorphous, undefined community); and 3) they provide access to a large “spiritual but not religious” audience, which embraces consumerism. To accomplish all three of these aims, the narratives use Pentecostalism and Pentecostals as a foil, a caricatured other onto which they project exaggerated negative traits. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Franny Nudelman for her supervision of this project. She was enthusiastic and encouraging throughout. She challenged me in productive ways that dramatically improved the final product. I am also grateful to Dr. Travis DeCook for his guidance and his quick, helpful feedback. I also appreciate the positive reinforcement of Dr. Robert Holton. I also wish to thank Dr. Matthew Hedstrom and Dr. James Opp for agreeing to act as external examiners and making the time to participate in the defence. I would also like to thank Dr. Grant Williams, Dr. Brian Johnson, Dr. Paul Keen, Dr. Pius Adesanmi, and Dr. Percy Walton for their professional advice and encouragement throughout this process. I am indebted to Dr. Franny Nudelman, Dr. Travis DeCook, Dr. Grant Williams, Dr, Paul Keen, and Dr. Percy Walton for employing me as a research assistant on various projects. I am also indebted to the Carleton University Graduate Students’ Association and Mike’s Place for employing me as a trivia host and as a softball commissioner, providing me with additional income. I owe a large debt of gratitude to Dr. Grant Williams, Margaret Haines, Neil Wilson, and the rest of the Carleton Creative Writing Camps board of directors for hiring me as a camp director, providing me with income I needed to finish my degree and invaluable experience. I am especially thankful to my colleagues Chris Vanderwees and Chris Doody. Not only did they both read through every page of my dissertation and provide valuable feedback, they have both spent countless hours listening to me talk about my research and my academic career. They have provided helpful solutions, and more importantly, iv entertaining diversions when I needed them. I am also thankful to Chris Johnson for being the final proof-reader of this project. This dissertation would not be possible without my partner Chelsea Houde. She read through portions of my dissertation and offered important suggestions. She patiently listened to me at my most anxious, my most frustrated, and my most irritated. Meanwhile, she has endured my stress and my mess. Throughout it all, she has given me more than I could have imagined. I dedicate this dissertation to David and Rebecca Connolly, my parents, who have been my strongest supporters throughout my academic career. v Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. vi Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Deconversion Narratives ............................................................................................................. 8 Pentecostal ................................................................................................................................. 20 Liberal and Neoliberal Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives ................................................... 26 Chapter One Winning America: Neoliberal Spirituality and the Legacy of Liberal Protestantism ..................................................................................................... 30 The “Wins” and “Losses” of Liberal Protestantism .................................................................. 31 Conservative Protestants and “Bad” Religion ........................................................................... 36 The Literary Postsecular ............................................................................................................ 40 Neo-Liberal Spirituality and the “New Age” ............................................................................ 48 Promoting the Spiritual Self ...................................................................................................... 59 Conclusion: Markets, Audiences, and Neoliberal Community ................................................. 65 Chapter Two I Put Away Childish Things: Kim Barnes and the Coming-of-Age Deconversion Narrative .......................................................................................................................... 68 Coming-of-Age Deconversion Narratives ................................................................................. 70 The Full Spectrum of Feminine Colour ..................................................................................... 80 Sex Outside the Church ............................................................................................................. 89 “Both Reason to Rebel and the Means to Do It” ..................................................................... 100 vi Writing in Tongues .................................................................................................................. 105 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 112 Chapter Three She May Be Hot, but She is Also Really Crazy: Celebrity Pentecostal Deconversion Narratives ......................................................... 115 Spiritual Competence and Celebrity Studies ........................................................................... 117 From Angel Eggs to Worshiping the Hamburgler: Katy Perry’s Deconversion Narrative ..... 124 Her Whole Body Filled with Electric Current: Megan Fox’s Deconversion Narrative .......... 133 Conclusion: Literary Celebrities and Author-Commodities .................................................... 143 Chapter Four In But Not Of: The Conversion and Deconversion of a Reporter in Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain ............................................................... 146 “He Was Also a Friend”: Participant-Observers in Appalachia .............................................. 150 “I was One of Them” ............................................................................................................... 165 Conclusion: Neoliberal Snake-Handling ................................................................................. 174 Chapter Five Not Real Good at Modern Life: Appalachian Pentecostals in the Works of Lee Smith............................................................................................ 177 Richard and the Stench of Pentecostals ................................................................................... 182 Karen and Pentecostalism as Childhood Interest....................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter VOLUME TWENTY, NUMBER ONE FALL 2011
    The SINCLAIR LEWIS SOCIETY NEWSLETTER VOLUME TWENTY, NUMBER ONE FALL 2011 LANCELOT TODD: A CASE FOR FICTIONAL INDEPENDENCE Samuel J. Rogal Illinois Valley Community College In a neat package of a single paragraph containing a summarization of Lewis’s Lancelot Todd, Mark Schorer de- termined that Lewis’s pre-1920s version of the present-day public relations agent run wild represented a relatively simple “ANOTHER PERFECT DAY”: WEATHER, instrument of his creator’s satire and farce. Schorer labeled MOOD, AND LANDSCAPE IN SINCLAIR Todd “a suave immoralist” and “swindler” who threads his LEWIS’S MINNESOTA DIARY way through a series of short stories with plots that hold no “real interest” and whose principal fictional function focuses Frederick Betz upon Lewis’s preparations for the larger worlds of George Southern Illinois University–Carbondale Babbitt and Elmer Gantry (Schorer 239). Although few critical commentators of twenty-first-century American fiction seem- Sinclair Lewis’s Minnesota Diary, 1942–46, superbly ingly have possessed the stamina or willingness to challenge introduced and edited by George Killough, “offers an inside Schorer’s generalized characterization of Todd, there lies suf- view of a very public person,” a “strangely quiet and factual” ficient evidence in the stories themselves to allow for at least diarist, who “keeps meticulous notes on weather, writes ap- a defense of Todd as a character who might somehow stand preciative descriptions of scenery, mentions hundreds of people independent of the likes of Babbitt and Gantry. he is meeting, and chronicles exploratory trips around Min- Lancelot Todd appears in seven Lewis stories published nesota” (15).
    [Show full text]
  • SINCLAIR LEWIS' Fiction
    MR, FLANAGAN, who is professoT of American literature in. the University of Illinois, here brings to a total of fifteen his mafor contributions to this magazine. The article's appearance appropriately coincides with the seventy-fifth anniversary of Lewis' birth and the fortieth of the publication of Main Street. The MINNESOTA Backgrounds of SINCLAIR LEWIS' Fiction JOHN T. FLANAGAN SINCLAIR. LEWIS 'was once questioned his picture of Gopher Prairie and Minne­ about the autobiographical elements in sota and the entire Middle W^est became Main Street by a friend 'whose apartment both durable and to a large extent accurate. he 'was temporarily sharing. The novelist A satirist is of course prone to exaggeration. remarked to Charles Breasted that Dr. 'Will Over-emphasis and distortion are his stock Kennicott, the appealing country physician in trade. But despite this tilting of the in his first best seller, 'was a portrait of his balance, his understanding of places and father; and he admitted that Carol, the doc­ events and people must be reliable, other­ tor's 'wife, 'was in many respects indistin­ wise he risks losing touch with reality com­ guishable from himself. Both "Red" Lewis pletely, Lewis was born in Minnesota, he and Carol Kennicott were always groping spent the first seventeen years of his life in for something beyond attainment, always the state, and he returned on frequent visits, dissatisfied, always restless, and although which sometimes involved extensive stays both were frequently scornful of their im­ in Minneapolis, St, Paul, or Duluth, A num­ mediate surroundings they nevertheless ber of his early short stories and six of his lacked any clear vision of what could or twenty-two novels are localized wholly or should be done.
    [Show full text]
  • 669031 Bk Salerni
    669032-33 bk Aldridge US 27/4/11 12:51 Page 48 AMERICAN OPERA CLASSICS ROBERT ALDRIDGE Elmer Gantry Libretto by Herschel Garfein Phares • Risley • Rideout • Kelley • Buck Florentine Opera Chorus • Florentine Opera Company Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra • William Boggs 2 CDs 8.669032-33 48 669032-33 bk Aldridge US 27/4/11 12:51 Page 2 Robert Livingston ALDRIDGE (b. 1954) Elmer Gantry (2007) An Opera in Two Acts Libretto by Herschel Garfein based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis Elmer Gantry . Keith Phares Sharon Falconer . Patricia Risley Frank Shallard . Vale Rideout Eddie Fislinger . Frank Kelley Lulu Baines . Heather Buck Reverend Arthur Baines . Matthew Lau T.J. Rigg . Jamie Offenbach Mrs. Baines . Julia Elise Hardin Revival Singer . William Johnson Binch/Bully/Worker #1 . Aaron Blankfield Keely Family Singers . .Sarah Lewis Jones / Linda S. Ehlers / Paul Helm / Nathan Krueger Reporter . Peter C. Voigt Revival Worker/Worker #2 . Scott Johnson Ice Cream Vendor . Matthew Richardson Child . Katie Koester Man #1 . James Barany Woman #1 . Tracy Wildt Woman #2 . Kristin Ngchee Tour Guide . Margaret Wendt Women’s Chorus Leader . Julie Alonzo-Calteaux Florentine Opera Chorus Chorus-master: Scott Stewart Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra • William Boggs 8.669032-33 2 47 8.669032-33 669032-33 bk Aldridge US 27/4/11 12:51 Page 46 Director: John Hoomes • Producer/General Director: William Florescu Musical Preparation: Jamie Johns • Off-Stage Piano: Anne Van Deusen Producer and editor: Blanton Alspaugh (Soundmirror.com) Recording engineers: John Newton and Byeong-Joon Hwang Mixing/mastering engineer: Jesse Lewis Production Sponsors: Donald and Donna Baumgartner Keith Phares’s performance generously sponsored by the Marie Z.
    [Show full text]
  • Bruxy Cavey and the Meeting House Megachurch: a Dramaturgical Model of Charismatic Leadership Performing “Evangelicalism for People Not Into Evangelicalism”
    Bruxy Cavey and The Meeting House Megachurch: A Dramaturgical Model of Charismatic Leadership Performing “Evangelicalism for People Not Into Evangelicalism” by Peter Schuurman A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2016 © Peter Schuurman 2016 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ! ii ! Abstract Megachurch pastors—as local and international celebrities—have been a growing phenomenon since the 1960s, when megachurches began to proliferate across North America. Why are these leaders and their large congregations so popular in an age of increasing “religious nones”? Commentators in both popular and academic literature often resort to characterizing the leadership with stereotypes of manipulative opportunists along the lines of Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry (1927) or narrow characterizations of savvy entrepreneurs who thrive in a competitive religious economy. Similarly, writers assume megachurch attendees are a passive audience, or even dupes. This dissertation challenges the Elmer Gantry stereotype and the religious economic perspectives by examining one particular megachurch pastor named Bruxy Cavey in the context of his “irreligious” megachurch community called
    [Show full text]
  • Spiritual Mapping and Spiritual Warfare - Muthee and the "Transformations" Franchise
    Palin's Churches and the Third Wave Series Spiritual Mapping and Spiritual Warfare - Muthee and The "Transformations" Franchise By The New Apostolic Reformation Research Team Introduction A video starring Thomas Muthee as a prayer warrior and witch hunter was released in 1999. "Transformations" was the first in a series of videos that would soon become the heart of the Transformations franchise, a network of prayer warriors, ministries, organizations, and businesses, brought together for the purpose of promoting Christian theocracies. They share the goal of bringing their own communities and nations into the "Kingdom." These videos would play a major role in the teaching and promotion of spiritual mapping and spiritual warfare. Following is the story of those videos and how the Transformations brand has propelled the development of an emerging international belief system, the New Apostolic Reformation, and how it is bringing that movement into your community and your government. Overview The Transformations videos are advertised as having been viewed by 200 million people in 70 languages. A star of the videos is none other than Thomas Muthee - the same man whose anointing of Sarah Palin has become an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. But the videos are important for far more reasons than Palin and Muthee. Muthee's words, just prior to anointing Palin, on invading and infiltrating society and government are not aberrations. They reveal the disturbing ideology of a growing and powerful religio-political movement in the U.S. and around the world. An international explosion in "taking communities" through spiritual warfare and expulsion of demons, from individuals and from entire geographic areas, has impacted denominations around the globe.
    [Show full text]
  • Département De Langue Et De Littérature Allemandes
    1 DESCRIPTION DES COURS (24 février 2016) DÉPARTEMENT DE LANGUE ET DE LITTÉRATURE ANGLAISES ANNÉE ACADÉMIQUE 2015-2016 (sous réserve de modification) Comme il y a parfois des changements d’horaire ou de salles en cours d’année, vous êtes invité-e-s à contrôler régulièrement l’horaire et la salle pour les enseignements qui vous intéressent, ainsi que d’éventuelles annulations, en consultant la version officielle du programme des cours 2015-2016 sur le site de la Faculté (dès fin août 2015) : http://www.unige.ch/lettres > Enseignements > Programme des cours > Programme des cours en ligne 2015-2016 A = semestre d’automne CR = cours TP = travaux pratiques P = semestre de printemps CS = cours-séminaire CP = complément d’enseignement AN = toute l’année SE = séminaire RE = séminaire de recherche *********** Baccalauréat universitaire (Bachelor of Arts, BA) BA1 : Littérature anglaise 3E040 1-2h/Année de CR, Introduction aux études littéraires 32E0108 CR Introduction to the Study of Literature L. Erne, po A Ma 10-12 B 111 32E0108 CR Introduction to the Study of Literature E. Kukorelly, ce P Ma 10-12 B 111 This course is designed to introduce students to the terminology and skills required for the study of literature at the university level. It is organised into four half-semesters, each of which is devoted to the study of a genre: poetry and drama (taught by Professor Erne in the Autumn semester) and fiction and nonfiction prose (taught by Professor Madsen in the Spring semester). Among the texts we will study are Shakespeare's Hamlet, a selection of poetry from the sixteenth century to the present, and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
    [Show full text]
  • Portrayal of Society in the Novels of Sinclair Lewi
    International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research ISSN: 2455-2070 Impact Factor: RJIF 5.22 www.socialsciencejournal.in Volume 4; Issue 6; November 2018; Page No. 58-61 Portrayal of society in the novels of Sinclair Lewi Neha Garg Research Scholar, Sighania University, Rajasthan, India Abstract Lewis is a critic of his times. He depicts life and society as he sees them. Lewis does not believe in false idealisation of things. Instead, he expresses the sickness and misery of the American Society Lewis has been often called the “Dickens of America”. The peculiar mixture of radicalism and orthodoxy in dickens’ political and social views was much like Lewis’s. Not unlike Dickens, Lewis was always highly critical of American prolities. Keywords: Sinclair Lewi, radicalism and orthodoxy, political and social Introduction condition in American life. Influenced by William James, he Most modern writers portray the tragic experience of the is essentially a pragmatist. According to James, a pragmatist American machine-age. They are disillusioned and sad. The ‘turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal modern generation, they maintain, is a lost generation devoid solution, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended of human values. It is uprooted and betrayed. In such horrible absolutes and origins. He turns towards facts, towards action conditions, the camera eye is a great necessity to make the and towards power [5]. The secret of Lewis’ art is his living the people realize their bad ways of life and save themselves from life of his characters. His emphasis is on creating living dehumanization.
    [Show full text]
  • 3026 1 Something RD So Wanted to Do That, When He Couldn't Find Funding/Studio, He Personally Funded It & Was Its Producer A
    3026 THE GIFT OF EARS is more important than ELLIOTT TN1NKSNEETS THE GIFT OF TONGUES 300 L. Eliz . Dr. , Cralgville MA 02636 A meditation on Robt.Duvall's (1997) film "The Apostle" Phone /rax 608.775.0008 11.11.00 in light of our church's film-group discussion of it last evening Noncommercial reproduction permitted 1 Something RD so wanted to do that, when he couldn't find funding/studio, he personally funded it & was its producer as well as its director. And to get the authentic feel of Pentecostalism, he spent months experiencing P. churches. The protagonist says, when asking an ailing black preacher for his vacant church-building (so a church could be called into being), "I have a holiness background." (In America, the Holiness movment preceded by three generations the Pentecostal movement [1913-]. I am a graduate of a college of the former movement, & at NYTheol.Seminary had many stu- dents who were pastors in the latter movement. The film did not seem at all foreign to me, though it did to many in the film-group last evening.) 2 The STORY: A Holiness-Pentecostal-Evangelical preacher (since age 12) is estranged from his wife, gets fired from his church, strikes (with a child's baseball bat) & accidentally kills his wife's lover, runs, successfully revives an interracial church (supporting himself as a cook & an auto-mechanic), &--after a worship in which, at the "altar call," his (apparent) successor-to-be & inheritor of his Bible is convert- ed--is apprehended "for first-degree murder." In Sinclair Lewis' ELMER GANTRY, we know from the start that the preacher is a fraud.
    [Show full text]
  • Christianity Today Movies
    Brainwashed in the Blood? - Christianity Today Movies http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/brainwashed.html Home > Movies > Commentaries E-mail this page Bookmark this page Brainwashed in the Blood? enter here Printer version As a Pentecostal, I'm not too thrilled with the way kids from my RSS Feeds denomination are depicted in Jesus Camp. Matter of fact, this new documentary ticks me off—for a number of reasons. By Rich Tatum | posted 09/20/06 MOVIE DISCUSSION GUIDES • Our Top Rated Movies • Most Redeeming of Jesus Camp, what an Related: '06 • Critics' Choice 2006 experience. Heidi Ewing • Our interview with the • Readers' Choice 2006 and Rachel Grady's filmmakers • Other Best-Of Lists • Our Top 10 Lists investigation into the hidden world of one Pentecostal kids' camp simultaneously delighted me, fascinated me, and embarrassed me. As a Pentecostal myself, I love this Amazing Grace New This Week film. And I hate it. • Amazing Grace Only $5.95 • The Astronaut Farmer It angers me. • The Number 23 Download Now The premise for the documentary, • More Discussion Guides Also in Theaters now playing in limited theaters, is • Babel • More Movie Courses • Because I Said So simple: follow three pre-teens • Blood Diamond from Missouri heading to a • Breach summer camp in Devils Lake, • Bridge to Terabithia North Dakota. Document their • Dreamgirls • Epic Movie experiences there, and follow up • Eragon on the aftermath. Simple enough. • Factory Girl • Ghost Rider But the devil, as they say, is in the Search by Name • God Grew Tired of Us details. Or, in this case, the future enter name • Hannibal Rising Evangelical Army of God is in the Or use: • The Last King of Advanced Search to Scotland details.
    [Show full text]
  • Sinclair Lewis
    SATIRE OF CHARACTERIZATION IN THE FICTION OF SINCLAIR LEWIS by SUE SIMPSON PARK, B.A. , M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Technological College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Chairman of the Committee &l^ 1? }n^ci./A^.Q^ Accepted <^ Dean of the Gradu^e SiChool May, 196( (\^ '.-O'p go I 9U I am deeply indebted to Professor Everett A. Gillis for his direction of this dissertation and to the other members of my committee, Professors J. T. McCullen, Jr., and William E. Oden, for their helpful criticism. I would like to express my gratitude, too, to my husband and my daughter, without whose help and encouragement this work would never have been completed. LL CONTENTS I. SINCLAIR LEWIS AND DRAMATIC SATIRE 1 II. THE WORLD OF THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY 33 III. THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS TASK 68 IV. THE ARTIST IN THE AMERICAN MILIEU 99 V. THE DOMESTIC SCENE: WIVES AND MARRIAGE ... 117 VI. THE AMERICAN PRIEST 152 NOTES ^76 BIBLIOGRAPHY 131 ILL CHAPTER I SINCLAIR LEWIS AND DRAMATIC SATIRE In 1930 Sinclair Lewis was probably the most famous American novelist of the time; and that fame without doubt rested, as much as on anything else, on the devastating satire of the American scene contained in his fictional portrayal of the inhabitants of the Gopher Prairies and the Zeniths of the United States. As a satirist, Lewis perhaps ranks with the best--somewhere not far below the great masters of satire, such as Swift and Voltaire.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF of R. Goldstein Article
    The View from Summit Avenue: Inspiration Point for Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street ralph l. goldstein n a fine June morning in 1903, eighteen- stay, he cranked out more stories to pay the Oyear-old Harry Sinclair Lewis emerged bills while imagining scenes including the view from the Clarendon Hotel at Sixth and Waba- from the cliff that ultimately found a place in sha Streets and walked to Central High School Main Street, the novel published in 1920 that to take the last of the examinations that might would succeed beyond Lewis’s most optimistic qualify him to enter Yale University. He’d trav- expectations in gaining the nation’s a/ention. eled to Saint Paul and taken the exams the pre- That groundbreaking work, along with Babbi!, vious year, passing only eleven of thirteen. In Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and Dodsworth, 1903, he passed them all. In the late a.ernoons brought him the renown that led in 1930 to following the testing that was conducted over being the first American to win the Nobel Prize three days, the 6'1" redheaded boy from Sauk for Literature and continues to secure his place Centre strolled through the capital city in his in the world literary canon. Footloose through- ill-fi/ing clothes. He noted in his diary that he out much of his adult life, Lewis nevertheless “went up to look at the magnificent white mar- regarded his home state as a lodestar, providing ble Capitol, which is being built,”¹ marveled at inspiration for his writing and a comforting the residences on Summit Avenue and the grand place to return.
    [Show full text]
  • Harry Sinclair Lewis Was Born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, on Feb. 7, 1885, the Youngest of Three Brothers. Harry Was a Strange-L
    Harry Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, on Feb. 7, 1885, the youngest of three brothers. Harry was a strange-looking kid, with red hair and very bad skin. He didn’t apply himself to his schoolwork and was indifferent about his grades, which were near the bottom of the class. Very early on, he started to write and kept a journal. He was always able to concentrate and do two things at once and one of those things was always reading. Harry soon finished all his father’s books and then sought out the public library. A town legend arose that he had read every book on its shelves by the time he went to college. He developed a precocious vocabulary. Boys at his schools taunted him, saying he must have swallowed the whole dictionary. He was something of a know-it-all. In his high school annual he wrote a tribute to Sauk Centre called “The Long Arm of the Small Town.” It ends, “It was a good time, and a good place for a good preparation for life.” In 1902 he entered Oberlin Academy but soon dropped out and moved to Yale. His pet expression at the Academy was, “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” His career at Yale was undistinguished, except for his contributions to the Yale Literary Magazine. He was an outsider from the beginning, and a bit of an aloof student. Once he turned to his editor and said, “Say, what is this Tap Day anyway?” Of course, Tap Day was the day juniors were chosen by the secret societies that dominated the social structure.
    [Show full text]