Babbitt

About the book

George F. Babbitt sells real estate in the city of Zenith, where possessions, business associations, family arrangements, and approved opinions make a recognizable model of achievement. Lewis follows the language and habits through which that model continually reproduces itself. Babbitt's friendship with Paul Riesling and his own unease open questions he is not accustomed to asking, drawing him towards experiences that complicate his comfortable public identity. His departures from expectation reveal how much support depends on remaining legible to his social circle. The comedy is especially sharp where a ready-made phrase supplies the place of a thought. Yet the narrative also attends to the loneliness beneath that fluency, making conformity something sustained by the desire for reassurance as well as by calculation or fear.

• Conformity and status
• Dissatisfaction
• Business culture

Why read it

For a precise comic portrait of success whose familiar language both protects its central character and limits what he can imagine.

Novel · English text