The book traces the life of Martin Arrowsmith from his college days as a medical student through various careers ending with Martin in his mid-40's. The main themes of the book seem to be about the pursuit of money vs. the pursuit of science and about the character flaws of many research scientists and medical practitioners.

What's good about the book is that the plot is pretty interesting. I kept wanting to know what would happen next and how it would all turn out. Unfortunately, the ending wasn't so great. I end up agreeing with another reviewer that after the part on St. Hubert's island (about 3/4 of the way through) the rest is pretty dull--at least in comparison.

The main problem with the book is that the characters are one-dimensional, especially the female supporting characters. The main character, Martin, is too cold, heartless, and selfish to really get behind even though I don't think Lewis intended it. He marries two women during the course of the book. With the first one, Leora, I felt like she didn't really have any motivation for why she was such a boring little dishrag. With the second one, I didn't understand what the point of introducing her so late in the book was since she didn't really seem to motivate any real purpose or action, other than Martin's continued heartlessness in leaving her and their son. However, since she was pretty much just a rich society type with no real personality or apparent goodness, I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for her and the kid was like a non-entity so I didn't get too worked up about him either. I could go on, but that's the main problem with the book --- no characters that I could care about.

I read below that several reviewers didn't appreciate this story even though it won a Pulitzer Prize. It may be true that some parts of the story are alittle drawn out. The "cure" for that is to perhaps "skip ahead" when the book is slow. But, the "good parts" are very "good" in that the themes are important subjects such as the evils of "materialism", the evils of "making money" at all costs, specifically the "bad" practice of doctors who are "in it just for the money", the importance of science and doing science to obtain "truth"----not for fame or monetary gain. See, these and other topics in the book are IMPORTANT TOPICS for our society and our culture. Thus, the book is deserving of it's Pulitzer Prize even though it may be a longish book. There is wit and humor in this book which make it easier to read and enjoy than if these qualities didn't exist. But, if you don't expect the book to be totally fascinating on every page, I think you'll enjoy the book and you'll eventually see the relevance and importance of this classic book. Just skip a few pages now and then and you'll be fine. I "read" this book as a book on tape. Email:boland7214@aol.

Lewis, in Arrowsmith, drew on his family's medical connections (his father, grandfather, older brother and an uncle were all physicians); his boyhood home in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, also served as his father's office, so he must have seen plenty of medicine in action. As others have described, we see the career of a man from boyhood to his early forties, as he transforms from general practitioner to research bacteriologist. Observations:
1). the character types described in medical school (students and faculty), small city medical practice and research facility
are uncannily true to form (my experience as physician), more so than can be attributed solely to hearing about it from one's relatives or informants (in Lewis's case, Dr. Morris Fishbein and
bacteriologist/science writer Paul de Kruif) - a mark of Lewis's
genius as an author.
2). Sinclair Lewis, as usual, has a tin ear for colloquial dialogue.
3). Arrowsmith is doomed, in each of his employments, by his perfectionism - others, who know better how to compromise, urge him to stay on and even how to do it, but his usual response is
"I'm licked!" and on to the next. His one true interest - bacteriological research - endures and grows and eventually pushes any humanity out of his life. Even his penultimate experience in combatting plague on a West Indian island is regretted, not for the death of his loyal wife, but because he compromised the scientific method in how he administered the bacteriophage therapy. In the end, his second wife and son are turned away for a monastic-like life in the wilds.
4). If this is an heroic character - and Lewis is on record as saying he thought so - then it says something about the author. There seems to be a lot of Sinclair Lewis in Martin Arrowsmith - both keen, but heartless, observers - and indeed, there are several parallels between the two - the weakness Arrowsmith has for the bottle at various stages, his scorn for religion and its practitioners, and his womanizing, for example. (Lewis was an alcoholic and was twice divorced). Lewis elsewhere has been described as a proto-feminist, but any sympathy he has for the female gender is a little like Marx's sympathy for the working class - more in theory than in practice (which may be said about feminism in general). The truly pathetic character in this novel is Dr. Arrowsmith's first wife, who sacrifices her own life and sticks to him in spite of his selfishness - and who winds up buried in a backyard on some fetid Caribbean island. Lewis and his hero both seem to try to develop some sympathy for her, without much success.
5). Lewis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this novel, but refused it. Evidence is that at least part of the basis for this was that he was miffed over the failure of Main Street and Babbitt to win it.