American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

A favorite of Lovecraft fans, "Pickman's Model", ties directly to DREAM-QUEST and was written around time, but is a great tale in which we see Lovecraft trying new narrative techniques. And in good Lovecraft fashion we get a look at the underground architecture of decaying city.    

In part two of my review of ELMER GANTRY by Sinclair Lewis we follow Gantry as he got pushed out of his ministry due to drunkenness, but finds his way back into evangelical Christianity through the popularity of revival-style worship.

My review of Lovecraft's "Strange High House in the Mist" allows us to return to Kingsport in preparation for our upcoming "Dream Quest".

Elmer Gantry is a student at a religious university who far from lives the religious life, but find himself on the career path of a Baptist preacher. Sinclair Lewis' novel ELMER GANTRY is a great look at the culture wars of the 1920s.

The "Silver Key" is Lovecraft's greatest Randolph Carter story with an enduring theme of childhood saving us from the banality of modern life. Carter's quest for meaning, set years after the events of DREAMQUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH has lessons for the importance of childhood.

The final of my review of ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis. It ends on a rather high note where science triumphs over the distractions of American capitalism.

In the second half of my review of THE CALL OF CTHULHU I explore some of the most important passages in all of Lovecraft's writings: the interview with the cultist Castro. The cost of wordily freedom maybe high, but for many marginalized people it is worth paying.

Part four of ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis explores Martin Arrowsmith's career as it moves into hard science, war, and eventually a devastating plague in the West Indies. As always the contradictions between science and politics follows him.

The first of two episodes in which I look at the famous story by H. P. Lovecraft, THE CALL OF CTHULHU. Great story due to its nested narrative and global scope.

Martin Arrowsmith, bored with being a small-town doctor moves into the field of public health, finding the politics of science even worse than the personal politics of private practice. I look at this as well as other things in this part of my review of ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis.