Books are available to us in many different ways these days. Audio books have long been popular on cassette and CD and they are still published in that way. Titles are also available as digital downloads, making audio books more convenient than ever. Classic and contemporary novels are released and Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis is one of the most controversial books of the 20th century. Published in 1927, it was banned in some American cities and in Ireland for a time and its religious content shocked members of the clergy. Lewis received violent threats and caused more controversy by daring God to strike him dead.
Sinclair Lewis is a highly respected author and he was the first American recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. Elmer Gantry became a successful movie in 1960 with a fine performance from Burt Lancaster in the eponymous role, which won him his only Academy Award. Jean Simmons played his love interest and Arthur Kennedy and Shirley Jones also starred. In 2008, an opera adaptation toured America to critical acclaim.
Audio book versions of the novel are published by Blackstone Audiobooks in cassette and CD form, available from Amazon, and are unabridged. Amazon also offers a preloaded digital version with earbuds from the publisher, Playaway. Barnes & Noble sell the Blackstone versions as a CD, an MP3 on CD, and an MP3 book. These are also available from Simply Audiobooks, the Audio Book Store, and Audiobooks Online. The audio book lasts for 15.4 hours, so it’s good value. Blackstone commissioned Anthony Heald to read the book, an actor who has recorded more than 60 works for audio. He has appeared in the TV series, Boston Legal, and in the movie, X Men: The Last Stand.
The plot of Elmer Gantry involves a slick womanizer and alcoholic who becomes an evangelist preacher for his own ends. He finds he has a charismatic way of selling a message and he cynically exploits everyone he meets, including driving his girlfriend Lulu Baines to prostitution. The vain and self-serving Gantry becomes romantically involved with another evangelist, Sharon Falconer. Gantry’s brand of evangelism is the ‘you’re all going to burn in hell’ variety. Set in the 1920s in America, Lewis skillfully writes about religious hypocrisy. It is this depiction of religion that many people objected to.
| |
|
StarReviews Top 3
Audio Bookstores |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Lewis wrote 22 novels and short stories too and readers interested in Elmer Gantry will also be interested in his other works, some of which are also available as audio books. Audio Editions is another source to buy Elmer Gantry and other Lewis publications on offer include Free Air (read by Barrett Whitener), Dodsworth (read by Grove Gardner), It Can’t Happen Here (read by Christopher Hurt), and Main Street (read by Brian Emerson). Two versions of Babbitt, a satire on American business, appear on the site. One is a reading by Wolfram Kandinsky and the other is an exciting radio theatre production with a stellar cast. Edward Asner is in the lead and his co-stars include Ted Danson, Richard Dreyfuss, Stacy Keach, Amy Irving, Ed Begley Jr., Helen Hunt, and John Lithgow. The production is the work of LA Theatre Works and dates from 1989. Elmer Gantry and other works are also available from the Learn Out Loud educational site.
After listening to Elmer Gantry or other titles, listeners may be inspired to visit the Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home, where the author grew up in Sauk Centre in Minnesota. The house is on the US National Register of Historic Places and his hometown of Sauk Centre is the inspiration behind the town in his novel, Main Street.
There are many ways to access the world of Sinclair Lewis and audio books are an enjoyable way of discovering his work for the first time or to re-visit. He would, no doubt, be astonished by today’s technology!