(Brief Thought by F. Sheikh before the short introduction to Sinclair’s 1935 Novel.
Azeem Farooki has shared short introduction of a 1935 novel “ It Can Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis and eerily main character of the novel, who is running for President, is a photocopy of Donald Trump.
Few months ago Dr. Shoeb Amin wrote a Book review of “ American Nations” by Colin Woodard. This book basically narrates that North America is inhabited by 11 nations with distinct character and culture that goes beyond State’s boundaries and that character has not changed over centuries despite the influx of new immigrants. This led to conflicts and civil war.We have not fully resolved these conflicts. These conflicts are coming to forefront with full energy. The Author of the book suggests that if disintegration can happen in Russia, it can happen here also. Current situation in Catalonia Spain, which has its own distinct culture, also tells us how unthinkable can become a reality.
This brings us to a novel by Omar El Akkad “American War” written in 2017 but the events take place in the future 2074 when polarized America has sunk into second Civil War. The novel is written through the eyes of six-year-old, Sarat Chestnut who lives in Louisiana when Southern States, (Alabama. Georgia and Mississippi) declare independence. The oil has been banned due to extreme global warming. The Middle East has gotten its act together and has formed new united country “ The Bouazizi Union” which is helping Southern States to gain independence. Sarat Chestnut grows up and becomes a suicidal bomber for the cause of Southern independent State. All this scenario looks preposterous now, but if you have read “ American Nations” by Colin Woodard, it is worth reading riveting novel“ American War” by Omar El Akkad, who was born in Cairo, Egypt, and worked as a journalist for The Globe and The Mail. He covered war in Afghanistan, Guantanamo bay and Arab Spring. He received National Newspaper award in 2006. He lives now in Portland, Oregon.)
Sinclair Lewis’s – 1935 novel
It’s an election year, in a time of economic uncertainty. Running for president is a ranting populist type who has a bestselling book that is part biography, and part shameless boasting. He promises to “make America a proud, rich land again,” rails against blacks, Jews, and Mexicans, and makes it a point of criticizing the press, whose editors he accuses of “plotting how they can put over their lies, and advance their own positions.”
No, this is not a description of 2016, and the candidate is not [http://www..thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/cheats/2016/11/09/ap-donald-trump-wins-presidency.html]Donald Trump—although you can be excused for thinking so. This is, instead, a character named Berzelius Windrip in Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, a cautionary tale about how fascism comes to America. Although published over 80 years ago, Lewis’s novel seems especially relevant in the age of Trump. So relevant, in fact, that it recently became Amazon’s number one bestseller in the Classic American Literature category.
“The thing most resonant about the novel is it identified the conditions that were operative in 1935, and operative in the summer of 2016,” says Susan Medak, managing director of the Berkeley Repertory Theater, which staged a theatrical version of Lewis’s book in September. “What we wanted to share with the audience was there were high stakes in the election,” she adds. “[Trump’s] message of real hatred and bigotry spoke to this particular time again. The issue of gender is even in the original novel. The issues of freedom of the press were powerful. It took little effort to draw those parallels.”
posted by f.sheikh