Americans Behaving Badly (but not too badly) in Florence (Italy)

Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. He was the first author from the Americas to receive the Nobel prize for literature. He died in 1951 and World So Wide his last novel was published posthumously later that year. I have not previously read anything by Lewis and probably reading a final novel in a successful career is not likely to find him at his best, however I enjoyed this read well enough.

Hayden Chart a 35 year old architect from Colorado drives his car off the road late at night after a party. He survives the wreck but his wife Caprice is killed. Whilst recovering in hospital he reflects on his life which has become a mad scramble to make money and being child free he decides to head out to Europe on a years sabbatical. His interest in architecture and Italian art leads him to Florence where he finds a room in a pension run by an American woman. He meets professor Olivia Lomond an American making her living as a researcher in renaissance history, she seems obsessed by her work and Hayden at first struggles to make contact with her, but slowly they fall in Love. When another American Lorenzo Lusgard bursts into the ex-pats community with his quarter-back (American football) good looks and brash charm, Olivia is swept off her feet. Roxanna another American from Colorado and old friend of Hayden arrives on the scene after having been fired from her job as a journalist in Paris. She soon joins the ex-pat community that now appears to circle around the dynamic Lorenzo Lusgard who is putting together a teaching programme to popularise the Italian Renaissance for the folks back home.

The fussing and fighting between the four protagonists seems to take place in a vacuum with Florence providing a beautiful backdrop. Sinclair Lewis had a reputation for light satire on his fellow American's fight to gain success in a capitalist society and this is evident in this depiction of Americans in Europe. His central character Hayden Chart is a steady going kind man who is at times overwhelmed by his compatriots. Some strong female characters holding their own in a professional capacity adds to the idea of a novel ahead of its time, but this is not the case: my impression from this book is that he is still writing from a between the wars perspective, which is a period when he had his greatest success as a novelist. There is a little too much potted history but Lewis comes into his own when describing a few days out in Venice which he captures brilliantly 3.5 stars. ( )

Hayden Chart, arquitecto, hombre de bien, viudo deprimido intentando reponerse de la muerte accidental de su insoportable esposa en un accidente de tránsito, producto de su propia impericia al conducir, norteamericano promedio nativo de New Life, Colorado, es el personaje central de la novela póstuma de Sinclair Lewis, el primer Premio Nóbel estadounidense, Este Inmenso Mundo, quien luego de una larga convalecencia, experimentó la necesidad de "renunciar a sus sólidas ideas americanas, a sus ladrillos y su madera, para vivir entre las viejas piedras de los dioses paganos europeos".

An attempt by Sinclair Lewis to revisit his success and the Italian locale of "Dodsworth". He fails on both counts, but it is a decent effort, with another standard Sinclair lewis love story thrown in. ( )

Novel about Hayden Chart, architect of New Life, Colorado, whose wife was killed in an automobile accident, and of his trip abroad for a sabbatical year. In a chilly and uncomfortable pension, in Florence, from which he carries on his excursions ino the culture of medieval Italy, Hayden is atracted to the cold beauty of Olivia Lomond, scholar and authority on all things Italian before the sixteenth century. But for the life of pure research is complicated for Hayden by pert little Roxy from back home and by Lorenzo Lundsgard, who wants to package Florentine culture for American consumption.