[Becky Lindroos]

Yup -  but written in 1936 so Lewis would be limited in some ways including the bomb as well as the environment.   Life is much more dangerous for many more people now.  (But it was in the days of the Shrub, too.) 

 I’ve read about some post-WWII and post-WWII totalitarian tactics and strategies (Fascism by Madeleine Albright) and we’ll see how he does on those. This was written in 1935,  way prior to Pearl Harbor.  just after Hitler became Fuhrer.  I don’t know what I’m reading for - parallels to current times or historical interest.  

I read Lewis’ Main Street a few years ago.  It’ll be interesting if nothing else.   


Becky
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com

> On Oct 25, 2018, at 3:08 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I remember fifteen years ago, the LAST time It Can't Happen Here went
> through a cycle of current-events-spawned popularity. It even had the
> Dubya Bush / Buzz Windrip synchronistical nomenclature to help sell
> its ostensibly prophetic nature.
> 
> It's a pretty good novel, very "readable", but the lack of nuclear
> weapons in the mix means it can only go so far as a satire that can be
> shoehorned over the contemporary realpolitik.
> 
> Jerky
> On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 6:03 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Interesting as I’m just starting to read “It Can’t Happen Here” (“What Will Happen When America Has a Dictator?”)  by Sinclair Lewis - (1936).  A the time, the book was thought to be directed at Huey Long, a Mississippi populist, governor/senator who was assassinated as he was getting his campaign for president together.  Sinclair’s novel is a satire and really aimed at its own times,  but it resonates what with all the fictional Windrip does *after* he gains office.  (hush the critics, etc.)
>> 
>> "Keith Perry argues that the key weakness of the novel is not that he decks out U.S. politicians with sinister European touches, but that he finally conceives of fascism and totalitarianism in terms of traditional U.S. political models rather than seeing them as introducing a new kind of society and a new kind of regime.”
>> 
>> Also:
>> "A number of writers have compared the demagogue Buzz Windrip to Donald Trump. Michael Paulsonwrote in The New York Times that the Berkeley Repertory Theatre's rendition of the play aimed to provoke discussion about Trump's presidential candidacy.[2]”
>> 
>> 
>> And: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/books/review/classic-novel-that-predicted-trump-sinclar-lewis-it-cant-happen-here.html
>> 
>> or:
>> http://time.com/money/4573801/sinclair-lewis-it-cant-happen-here-amazon/
>> 
>> very curious -
>> 
>> Becky
>> https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com
>> 
>>> On Oct 25, 2018, at 2:37 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Nice.
>>> 
>>> And true.
>>> 
>>> J.
>>> On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 3:09 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> From Charles Pierce
>>>> https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a24174810/cnn-obama-clintons-bomb-donald-trump/
>>>> 
>>>> "The bomb has been as essential a part of American political history as
>>>> were the knife, and the pistol, the high-powered rifle, and the rope."
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>