January 16, 2003
WE'RE WITH REVEREND MONDAY:
From George Babbitt to Warren Schmidt (George Will, Jan. 16, 2003, Jewish World Review)In the novel on which "About Schmidt" is loosely based, Schmidt retires from a Manhattan law firm to Long Island affluence. So why (other than the fact that director Alexander Payne is from Omaha) turn Schmidt into a stereotypical midwesterner whose taciturnity is presumably symptomatic not of still waters running deep but only of a low emotional metabolism?Because it is still very modern to suppose that people like Schmidt who do not "share their feelings" have none. And because it is very traditional to disparage life in the Midwest's small towns, such as Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio" (1919). [...]
Some critics insist that the portraits of Winesburg, Gopher Prairie, Zenith and Schmidt's Omaha are "really" sympathetic.
Count me among those at least so far as Babbitt is concerned. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 16, 2003 10:27 PM
Comments
Finally, I encounter someone else who got Babbitt.
The notion of emotionally bland midwesterners has quite a hurdle to get over in Edgar Lee Masters, too.
I think they have Winesburg, Ohio all wrong. It is a bittersweet but very affectionate account of farming life in the midwest around 1900. Have I misunderstood Will?
Posted by: JT at January 17, 2003 3:39 PMI'm not big on Winesburg, either.
Posted by: oj at January 18, 2003 9:42 AM