Name: Sinclaire Lewis
Year Won: 1930
Read: It Can't Happen Here
Original Language: English
Reason: "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"
About: "It Can't Happen Here" follows "Buzz" Windrip, a demogauge who rises to power by promising massive reforms to everything and "traditional" values, while shepherding in totalitarianism. It's supposedly satirical, but not really funny.
What I liked: Boy does this feel timely! The similarlities between Buzz and Trump are unnerving and Lewis does a phenomenal job in showing just how someone can take advantage of "traditional" values, media, and people's willingness to be gulled to instate a totalitarian government.
What I Disliked: I found this to be a bit of a slog. There were a lot of characters, so I had to work to remember them all, and none felt particularly well developed or interesting to me. Also, it wasn't funny in the way Shaw's plays are. Possibly, too, it just felt too real for me to be able to enjoy at this precise moment in time.
Should it have won a Nobel: Maybe? The novel shows remarkable foresight, but compared to many of the others, I just didn't find it enjoyable. (One could argue whether that's important in a Great Book, but I think it is. You're more likely to have an effect if people *want* to hear your message than if they have to slog through a bunch of vaguely stereotypical Americans.)
Next up: John Galsworthy's "The Forsyte Saga". Unfortunately, my library did not have the poems of Erik Axel Karlfeldt
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