Tower of Iron Will

Elmer Gantry may be the most depressing novel I have ever read. Its core message seems to be that people who are willing to lie and cheat will succeed, and even when they occasionally slip up and get caught, if they lie and cheat even harder they will come out even more successful. While I accept this may be reality I tend to expect something else from fiction. In fiction you expect virtue to be rewarded and mendacity to be punished. I guess that is why they call it fiction.

Chapter 3 contains the best description of the high pressure Evangelical conversion process I have ever read. Lewis captures the peer pressure, the flattery, the parental guilt tripping, the appeal of membership in a welcoming community, all the elements that drive so many down the aisle. Once Gantry is converted he quickly learns how to use the church to advance his own ego and passion for womanizing. Gantry's career passes through a few phases, with ups and downs, but even when he decides to restart his career as a minister in a small Methodist church, what is most striking is his complete insincerity. He is always like an actor playing a part, even with his own family.

Gantry's tragic opposite is Frank Shallard, Gantry's former seminary classmate and a closet Agnostic. While Shallard is at least honest with his friends about his doubts, Lewis points out the hypocrisy of leading a church while secretly not believing the doctrines. When Shallard tries to be publicly honest he looses everything, unlike Gantry who rises higher and higher in society on the back of his charisma and stunning hypocrisy.

The back cover of the Signet Classic edition compares Elmer Gantry to the work of Voltaire. Lewis certainly holds his subjects in the same level of contempt that Voltaire did, but Candide remains naive while Gantry grows into his role as a corrupt fraud. Elmer Gantry is an impressive work and I don't regret reading it, but while Voltaire will make you laugh Lewis will make you sigh heavily.