Babbitt

Not especially known for its prose style, Sinclair Lewis's art is often based on accumulation; he adds detail to detail until a larger picture sharpens. This classic novel portrays middle-aged George Babbitt and his irreconcilable urges to conform to social standards and to satisfy his deeper inner restlessness. Lewis delineates and satirizes Babbitt's bourgeois nature with small and large data, such as his booster button, his slang ("tux" for "dinner jacket"), his jingoism, his hypochondria, his naive politics, his worries about his clothes. Such a style makes George Guidall's measured narration a bit inappropriate--Guidall's deliberate approach sometimes lingers needlessly over individual sentences that do not repay such scrutiny. The many conversational scenes come off as more lively and are much better. Overall, this is a serviceable reading, but the paradigm for Babbitt on cassette remains the multi-voiced, unabridged performance by L.A. Theatre Works. G.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

BABBITT is generally regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest novels, yet it is also considered by many to be "inaccessible." With that knowledge in hand, Wolfram Kandinsky manages to give life to Nobel Prize winner Lewis's story about George F. Babbitt, a successful businessman who is a failure as a parent, a husband, and a lover. Kandinsky's reading is generally well done, although at times his relaxed pace allows the story to drag, making it easier for the reader to lose focus. Most of the time, however, Kandinsky hits his target with remarkable power and demonstrates why the name BABBITT has become an entry in the American vernacular. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

This 1922 satire of the conservative, conformist, striving bourgeois is read with voices for each character by a large roster of narrators. The impressive cast is headed by Ed Asner, a splendid Babbitt as he strikes just the right notes of bluster and pathetic confusion. The spirited narration is varied in its delivery; a passage might have one reader or be traded off line-by-line or even split up within sentences, a technique occasionally obtrusive but more often engaging and lively. What was, it seems, originally a broadcast remains divided into many episodes--the frequent, repetitive beginnings and endings, and some faulty sound editing that leaves jarring silences, detract from the program. Nonetheless, this intelligent, vigorous production brings this classic alive for the contemporary listener. W.M. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine