AMERICAN LITERATURE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 450, 16 December 1930, Page 7

AMERICAN LITERATURE

AUTHOR’S MINOR POSITION. UNIV ESITI ES DERID ED. STOCKHOLM, Dec. 14. Mr Sinclair Lewis, in accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, delivered an hour’s address upon American civilisation which he described as honest but indiscreet, and a little impolite. “The business lords.” he said, “ruled United States, The author and artist docs not count in the country producing eight-storied buildings, millions of motor cars, and thousands of millions of bushels of wheat.” He derided the United States universities and said that the prominence given to the college footballer was nearly equal to that extended to Mr Henry Ford, Colonel Lindbergh, and President H >ovcr. He scoffed at American art and literature, pointing out that the popular novel must assert that all Americans are tall men, handsome, rich and honest, and powerful golfers. He added that Americans revered writers who chant in chorus that the people are as simple and pastoral as they were in iB6O. “The American author is obsessed by a feeling that what he creates does not matter as his readers expect him to be a. clown. American professors like their literature clear, cold, pure, and very dead.” However, Mr Lewis concluded on a more optimistic note announcing that 1 the United States of America was emerging from its “safe, sane, and dull provincialism. ’ ’