Arrowsmith

This classic is the story of Martin Arrowsmith. It follows him from his days before medical school to his days of a middle aged research scientist. But, it is much more than a chronology of events. Martin Arrowsmith grows and matures in a most believable way, and Lewis drafts this story with skill, drama, humor and excitement. In Lewis’s hands, this is as much satire of the medical profession as it is about the characters within it.Clearly, according to Sinclair Lewis, most of the “doctors” in the field are in it for pecuniary gain. He acknowledges there may be some who are interested in the health of the patients, but most see their patients as a source of income, nothing more. At the same time, he admires the researchers who he alternately imbues the characteristic of integrity, and also abject ignorance, depending on the character. In other words, Lewis does not see that the medical profession is any different from any other profession or group of people for that matter. There are idiots, there are geniuses, there are men of integrity and there are charlatans and fools. So there is no need to hold them up on a pedestal, for if you do, you will be sorely disappointed, eventually.In the chapters leading to the climax, Arrowsmith finds himself on an island in the West Indies riddled with bubonic plague. To be sure, there are other doctors and scientists already on the island, and they all have the same goal and that is to drive the plague out and cure everyone who has it. Some doctors assume authority they do not have to accomplish the goal. They use their authority to steal property, quarantine the populace, and burn down whole villages in their quest. That their intention is good and worthy is beside the point. They had no authority or right to do what they did, but they did have the power to do so. Having the power, they wielded it like a club and woe to anyone who stands in their way.Even the idealistic Arrowsmith gets caught up in the power, experimenting on the native populace by inoculating half the natives with the phage that will prevent the plague, and withholding it from the other half so they could be used as a control group. In spite of the growing evidence that the phage is effective in combating the plague, he continues to condemn half the populace to a slow, painful and grisly death, all’s to satisfy his need for certainty that the phage is working, and its just not a coincidence that the vaccinated people survive.As I read this at the tail end of the coronavirus epidemic, I am struck by how little the world has changed since the time Lewis wrote this book. People still clamor to follow the science, they listen to Fauci, they listen to the WHO and the CDC, even when the evidence grows and accumulates that nearly all of their advice has been wrong. For the past two years as I write this, the efforts to counter the effects of the virus have turned out to be worse than the virus. Yet the “science” continues to ejaculate advice without the slightest hint of humility or hubris.But I digress.After returning home, Arrowsmith devotes himself to pure research, but life has other plans for him. That is to say that all of his associates, from the Director of McGurk Institute to his second wife keep trying their best to control him and mold him into something else. How Arrowsmith responds to their attempts is what sets this book apart.All in all, this is a wonderful book. It is timeless, (no wonder it’s s a classic) and should be read by anyone with a glancing interest in the human condition.

I read Arrowsmith as a high school student, probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It was for some years one of my very favorite books -- certainly I would have rated it five stars, if we were rating books that way in the 60s. I have not re-read it in many years, and have no real desire to do so. In retrospect the things that made it a favorite when I was a teenager are things I would dislike now. At that time I knew that I wanted to become a scientist, and I had very little concrete idea of what a scientist actually does.In Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis (Paul de Kruif also deserves credit/blame for Arrowsmith, as it was from him that Lewis got his ideas about how science worked) presents his protagonist, Martin Arrowsmith, as a hero scientist. Furthermore, he is the kind of hero all scientists like to imagine themselves to be.Scientists, like artists and politicians and businesspeople, like to think of themselves as rebels, subversives -- people who speak truth to power and whose job is to think new things that no one has thought before. Take it from me -- even the most hidebound conservative establishment professor of science is, in his/her own mind, a pirate. That is Martin Arrowsmith and his mentor Gottlieb. There is of course some truth in this picture of the scientist (and artist and politician and businessperson), but it is not the whole picture.Cementing Martin's status as a scientific Marty Stu, there is a love story in Arrowsmith. It was appealing to me as a teenager -- one of those love stories that features an attractive person gazing adoringly up at our hero for no really apparent reason.Aside from the obvious, the problem with these portrayals of scientist heroes is that they are inaccurate and damaging. Despite the silly academic classification system in which the sciences are contrasted with the humanities, science is a humanity -- a uniquely human intellectual pursuit conducted in converse with other humans. Science is teamwork. Martin and Gottlieb would not have been good scientists.

It's Sinclair Lewis so I expected an unforgettable read and in that I was disappointed. I found the story interesting but I actually didn't like the main character and that might have dampened my enthusiasm for the whole book. I read Les Miserables and Gone With the Wind twice - certainly wouldn't read Arrowsmith again.

Great read!

Fantastic and Uber thought provoking, and I am not intelligent enough to say why, or how. I do know gold,tho, when I experience it.

Ok I found it drab and a laborious read but it has been appreciated all over the world so there must be Something I missed

Da una lettura anni '60, forse per difetto di memoria, ricordavo Main Street interessante per conoscere gli americani ma leggermente soporifico. Arrowsmith risulta invece anche carico di humor, oltre che un prezioso reperto dell'Inglese che fu. Da non trascurare la trama che si svolge in ambito epidemico e biofarmaceutico....

It’s long and sometimes irritating especially in its transliteration of the hero’s accent but the descriptions of plague and attempts to control it in the middle of the book are extraordinarily pertinent to the times we live in.