Sinclair repudiates the SovietsThe eleventh and final book in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series, The Return of Lanny Budd, was published in 1953. Originally Sinclair had only planned to do ten Budd novels, concluding with the end of World War II, but he felt he had to bring the hero back to address the Cold War. This novel covers the years 1946 to 1949, with Lanny frequently traveling back and forth between the United States and Berlin. Written at a time of the expansion of Soviet totalitarianism and an escalation of anti-communist alarm in America, The Return of Lanny Budd feels like Sinclair’s apology for being too kind to Joseph Stalin in previous novels.
In the tenth installment, O Shepherd, Speak!, Lanny retired from spy work to produce a liberal radio show. Now he is called back into action by President Truman. A ring of neo-Nazis or communists or both is flooding Europe with counterfeit British pounds and American dollars, thus threatening economic havoc. Because of his European connections, Lanny is sent to Germany to investigate. Following World War II, Berlin has been subdivided by the U.S., France, Britain, and Russia, but the Wall has not yet been built. Spies, dissidents, and refugees fluidly move back and forth between East and West, creating a dangerous atmosphere where abductions and executions can occur anywhere at any time. While at first the book focuses on postwar Nazis, the enemy quickly switches to the Soviet Union, and the book becomes an extended piece of anticommunist propaganda
One of the commendable aspects of the book is that Lanny finally encounters some of the dangers inherent in being a spy, dangers he has for the most part unrealistically avoided over the course of the series. Even so, he still gets off relatively easy. He proves far luckier than most political prisoners, and even his torturers are surprisingly tolerant and reasonable. In his verve to quash communism wherever it rears its ugly head, Lanny displays uncharacteristically nonheroic behavior with his surprisingly callous attitude towards informing on friends and family members.
Ideologically, there’s nothing particularly wrong with Sinclair’s approach to The Return of Lanny Budd, but it is a marked departure from his earlier work. It’s hard to deny that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a totalitarian regime with little concern for human rights. When you read a Sinclair book, however, you’re hoping to get a different perspective on history than what you’ll usually find in mainstream literature. This novel hammers home the same unilateral Cold War paranoia that was drilled into our heads from the McCarthy era to the Reagan era. What’s worse, Sinclair lays it on so thick that one really gets the idea that he wrote this book to avoid being blacklisted for his socialist rhetoric of the past. While previously Lanny (and Sinclair) had been critical of American imperialism, there’s none of that here. Sinclair praises J. Edgar Hoover, overlooking the FBI’s police-state disregard for civil liberties while excoriating the USSR for the same. Sinclair also pushes religion in this book far more than I’ve ever encountered in the two dozen books of his that I’ve read. The author who wrote The Profits of Religion was never a full-blown atheist, but here, in the guise of Lanny, he advocates a surprisingly conventional view of deity and prayer that feels like he’s pandering to American puritanism.
When focusing on actual events, Sinclair is still a fine historical novelist who provides detailed insight into the time period he’s depicting. Here, however, the narrative too often devolves into preachy sermons. The Return of Lanny Budd is by no means a terrible novel, but as a capstone to this monumental and impressive series it is a disappointing departure from form.
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Lanny Budd from World War to Cold War
Published in 1949, O Shepherd, Speak! is the tenth volume in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series. Following on the heals of One Clear Call, this installment covers events of the years 1945 and 1946, chronicling Lanny’s adventures through the end of World War II and the dawn of the Cold War. As the novel opens, the Allies have just about wrapped up the war in Europe and are pushing the Nazis out of many of their formerly occupied territories. Lanny is still serving as an “assimilated colonel” in the U.S. Army, meaning he wears a uniform but plays a noncombatant role. Since he has lived most of his life in Europe and speaks German fluently, he assists the Allied forces in the interrogation of prisoners. Also, as an art expert, he is working as one of the Monuments Men in recovering works of art stolen by the Nazis and returning them to their rightful owners. In addition, because he has previously done some spy work regarding Germany’s nuclear weapons efforts, Lanny lends his expertise to the Alsos Mission, in which Allied intelligence personnel track down and interview German scientists about Nazi military technology, secure their laboratories, and confiscate their records and equipment.
Lanny’s previous experience as a secret agent masquerading as a Nazi sympathizer makes him a valuable asset to the Allied forces in the European Theatre, and once again Lanny crosses paths with his old acquaintance Hermann Göring. The Pacific Theatre, on the other hand, does not get much coverage in the series because there’s really no good reason for Sinclair to send Lanny to Asia. Instead, Sinclair finds many interesting war-related activities to keep Lanny occupied in America and Europe. This book also answers the question of what Lanny will do in peacetime. He inherits a million dollars from his childless godmother, who specifies that he spend the money towards the cause of world peace. (This plot element seems rather an unnecessary gimmick, since Lanny was already rich.) With the help of his wife and a few close friends, Lanny then transforms himself into someone very similar to Upton Sinclair—not exactly a writer, but the founder and editorial head of an indie media mini-empire that broadcasts a socialist perspective on current events. This peacetime enterprise is not as exciting as Lanny’s wartime exploits, but it does help to tie up many of the series’s loose ends. Almost all of the various supporting characters of the series are revisited, and each gets his or her own “Where are they now?” recap.
One recurring plot element that’s largely absent from this episode is paranormal phenomena. Since the beginning, Sinclair has used the series not only to outline his leftist history of the World Wars but also to propound his beliefs in extra sensory perception, communication with the spirit world, and possibly telepathy. In O Shepherd, Speak!, thankfully, Sinclair keeps the séance shenanigans to a minimum, though he does allow some discourse on the topic towards the end. He can’t resist one incredible message from the dead, but his treatment of the incident feels more sentimental than serious.
Sinclair intended O Shepherd, Speak! to be the conclusion of the Lanny Budd series, as is evident by its feeling of closure. Later, however, he felt the need to write an eleventh novel, The Return of Lanny Budd, published in 1953, which presumably follows Lanny further into the Cold War. O Shepherd, Speak! is not the best novel in the series (that would probably be One Clear Call), but it certainly falls within the top half of the ten books so far. The series as a whole is truly amazing. The sheer number of plot threads that Sinclair juggles and the wealth of historical information he imparts to the reader are awe-inspiring. Were it truly the final volume, O Shepherd, Speak! would have proved a fitting capstone to this monumental achievement.
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Lanny Budd invades Italy and France
One Clear Call is the ninth of eleven novels in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series. Published in 1948, this book covers the historical events of World War II from 1943 to 1944. If you’ve made it this far, then you already know that Lanny is a wealthy art dealer with socialist political views who masquerades as a Nazi sympathizer in order to gather intelligence for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the previous installment, Presidential Mission, FDR sent Lanny to Nazi-occupied North Africa to find military and civilian parties with anti-Nazi leanings to enlist them in supporting an Allied invasion of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. Since Lanny did such a good job with that mission, FDR asks him to perform the same function once again, this time forming alliances with partisans and anti-Hitler Germans to help the Allies drive the Nazis out of Italy.
Before he embarks on such an important mission, Lanny decides to perform two tasks which he has repeatedly undertaken in the previous few volumes: hold a séance and visit Hitler. Despite the fact that America is now at war with Germany, Lanny has developed quite a friendship with Hitler, who thinks that Lanny is spying for him. Lanny is also on good terms with fellow art lover Hermann Goering, who has amassed a sizable collection of masterpieces that the Nazis have looted from their conquered territories. As for the aforementioned séance, Lanny’s interests (and Sinclair’s) include such paranormal arts as telepathy and communication with the spirits of the dead. With so much action happening with the war, however, such activities are only mentioned briefly, and whatever revelations Lanny gleans from beyond the grave play little if any part in the plot. In fact, One Clear Call may be the least paranormal book in the series thus far, which definitely works in its favor.
Another factor that sets this entry apart from most of the previous volumes is that in this book Lanny finally encounters some real life-threatening dangers in his spy work. Previous volumes, including Presidential Mission, made his feats of espionage seem unconvincingly easy, whereas this novel more than once forces him to exercise his brains and derring-do to extricate himself from a potentially lethal situation. In following the events of the war, the main focus of the plot eventually moves on from Italy to France (though Lanny of course hops across the Atlantic numerous times). The Allies’ D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy takes place in this novel. As is often the case, Lanny does not witness the invasion firsthand, but Sinclair provides him with a realistically minor role to play behind the scenes. In the series as a whole, and Once Clear Call in particular, one really learns a great deal of detail about the historical events of these pivotal years, not just the military history but the political, cultural, and economic history as well. Sinclair’s leftist people’s-history approach provides a refreshing alternative perspective to the usual romanticized patriotic narratives of the period.
All in all, One Clear Call is the best book in the series thus far. The historical events are exciting, and the stakes feel higher in Lanny’s personal life as well. This novel brings together a lot of loose ends from previous novels and brings them full circle. The series sports a vast cast comprised of scores of characters, and every novel spends its fair share of time checking in on many of them, but here Sinclair does a great job of inserting the characters in realistic and purposeful ways. The suspenseful story rarely drags, and unlike some of the less compelling volumes in the series One Clear Call feels like a unified novel and not just a series of disconnected events. The Lanny Budd series is a monumental achievement in historical fiction, and this novel is Sinclair at his best.
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Lanny Budd’s North African interlude
Presidential Mission is the eighth book in Upton Sinclair’s 11-novel Lanny Budd series, not to be confused with the similarly titled fifth book in the series, Presidential Agent. Published in 1947, Presidential Mission is set amidst the events of World War II from 1942 to 1943. As established earlier in the series, Lanny is a wealthy French-born son of American parents who uses his career as an art dealer to gather intelligence for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Pretending to be a Nazi sympathizer, he is able to strike up acquaintances with high-level Germans including Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Rudolf Hess, as well as other powerful personages in Europe and America. Lanny’s globetrotting occupation and access to world leaders offers Sinclair the opportunity to provide a detailed look at historical events of the twentieth century, as told through his leftist perspective as an outspoken American socialist.
Presidential Mission opens at the point when the United States has decided to enter the war in Europe, but they have yet to make a decision as to where to land their troops. FDR sends Lanny to North Africa to gather intelligence, gauge the response of the locals to an American invasion, and recruit sympathetic anti-Nazi agents to work with the OSS (the precursor to the CIA). France controls most of North Africa, but France itself is occupied by the Nazis, and it is unclear to what extent the French armed forces will greet the U.S. troops as friend or foe. Lanny travels extensively in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, pretending to shop for Islamic mosaics while spying for FDR and forming alliances to support an Allied invasion.
As always, the intricacy with which Sinclair plots the events of World War II is impressive, and the way he works Lanny into the proceedings is ingenious. Lanny’s seemingly unlimited access to FDR strains realism, however, as does the fact that he only reports to the President in person. This causes Lanny to repeatedly trod a triangle from Washington to Vichy France to North Africa and back again. The novel treads water like this rather tediously for two-thirds of its length. From there, however, the pace picks up considerably and veers off into a totally different direction about which the less said the better, to avoid spoilers. Suffice it to say that the final third of the novel is a considerable improvement over what comes before.
Thankfully, Sinclair devotes very few pages in this novel to Lanny’s annoying hobby: séances, mediums, and talking to the dead. Unlike in other novels of the series, the supernatural plays no important part in the plot of Presidential Mission. The main fault of this novel, and of the series in general, is that for an espionage narrative it lacks any real sense of danger. Because the plot is so firmly tied to historical events, the outcome of Lanny’s efforts is rarely ever in question. We know how the war is going to end. We know Lanny is going to survive until the 11th book. He almost never fails at any mission he undertakes, because to do so would be to alter the course of history, which would defeat Sinclair’s purpose for the series, to provide a leftist history of the war. As a result, though Lanny is integrally involved in major historical events, his contribution to those events feels largely inconsequential. By the end of Presidential Mission, even Lanny himself admits that the intelligence he gathered really wasn’t all that crucial to the war effort.
Though this novel does have its faults, it does succeed as an eye-opening alternative perspective on world history. The Lanny Budd novels often fall short of perfection, and Presidential Mission is certainly not the best book of the bunch (so far that would probably be A World to Win), but the series as a whole is undoubtedly a monumental achievement.
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Around the world with Lanny Budd
A World to Win is the seventh of eleven novels in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series. Published in 1946, this historical novel covers events in world history from the Summer of 1940 to early 1942. Lanny, the wealthy and well-educated son of an American arms manufacturer, was born and raised in the South of France. Working as an art dealer, Lanny has traveled throughout Europe and America, meeting many famous and powerful people along the way. Though a leftist at heart, in the past couple books Lanny has pretended to be a Nazi sympathizer in order to gather intelligence from prominent Nazis with whom he has struck up an acquaintance, including Adolph Hitler, Hermann Göring, and Rudolf Hess. In A World to Win, Hitler’s power continues to increase. Germany has invaded and occupied a large portion of Europe and now has its sights set on Russia.
There’s no denying that the Lanny Budd series is a monumental achievement in American literature. The grand scope of the narrative is truly impressive, and the intricate detail with which Sinclair chronicles historical events is immensely educational. Nevertheless, the books in this series are often quite frustrating due to the glacial pace with which they proceed and the myriad subplots which digress from the main narrative, including Sinclair indulging his own avid interest in psychic communication with the spirit world. The first half of A World to Win is discouragingly slow, but the latter half is far more engaging, enough to grab the reader’s attention and hold it captive until the very end. While all the Lanny Budd books have their flaws and frustrations, overall I’d have to say that this may be the series’s best volume yet.
Thankfully, this novel contains fewer séances than the previous installments, and the paranormal does not play as integral a role in the plot as it has before. Lanny’s love life, however, does feature largely in this novel’s narrative, and the reader is often diverted from the events of World War II in favor of matters of the heart. Sinclair likes to point out that Lanny is one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, and here our hero has three or four women, all of them about twenty years his junior, vying to be the next Mrs. Budd. Because of his secret agent responsibilities, Lanny is reluctant to commit to any of these prospective brides, but that doesn’t stop him from making constant mental comparisons of their merits and faults. About halfway through the book, I finally got what I have been waiting for in this series: a genuinely exciting secret agent mission! Soon, however, circumstances rob the reader of such easy gratification, and the narrative reverts to romantic comedy mode, though as far as rom-coms go, one must admit that Sinclair sets up a pretty ingenious scenario.
While Lanny has been concentrating his efforts on the Nazis, Japan has begun to assert its military might on the world stage. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor takes place during this novel, though Lanny does not witness the event first-hand. This marks America’s official entry into the war, which will likely put a damper on Lanny’s ability to enter Germany and work among the Nazis. Lanny travels to Asia for the first time, as a tourist. Not surprisingly, given his socialist inclinations, Sinclair paints rather rosy pictures of Communist China and the Soviet Union. Mao and Stalin, our allies in the war, are portrayed as mostly benevolent rulers, their atrocities only hinted at as Sinclair focuses on the worldwide brotherhood of those opposed to the Axis powers. As always, Sinclair gives an interesting alternative perspective on world events and combines fact and fiction into an educational and entertaining reading experience. If you’ve already made it this far in the Lanny Budd series, you will certainly not be disappointed by A World to Win.
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Lanny Budd and the dawn of World War II
Upton Sinclair’s novel Dragon Harvest, first published in 1945, is the sixth book in the Lanny Budd series. The title echoes that of the third book, Dragon’s Teeth, making reference to the old saying about sowing dragon’s teeth, meaning to do something that inadvertently leads to trouble. In this case, the leniency with which European nations have reacted to Nazi aggression has allowed the German military to become extremely powerful. Here Hitler reaps the harvest of those appeasement policies by invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. The great thing about this series is that Sinclair really explains in detail how and why World War II happened. It is easy for us to look back in hindsight and see Hitler and the Nazis as blatantly evil, but Sinclair shows you how they were viewed at the time and how they were allowed to get away with what they did. Not only was fear of war a factor in the Nazis’ rise to power, but many saw them as saviors from the spread of Russian Bolshevism. The story covers the years 1938 to 1940. Among the events depicted is the Dunkirk evacuation, subject of the recent film by Christopher Nolan which has received so much critical acclaim.
Though this is essentially a spy novel, one thing that keeps this book from being a first-rate political thriller is the fact that there’s no overarching mission that unites the book as a whole. In Dragon’s Teeth, you have Lanny rescuing Jewish friends from the Nazis; in Presidential Agent, you have the mystery of Lanny’s missing wife. Here, however, it’s just Lanny bouncing like a pinball between Berlin, Paris, London, and New York, exchanging information with world leaders, in some cases visiting the same person four or five times over the course of the book. Here the espionage narrative, however, isn’t really the main attraction. What makes these books worth reading is Sinclair’s perspective on history and the educational insight he provides into world events.
As usual, in between all the scenes of political intrigue we get frequent updates on Lanny’s love life. No less than three love interests materialize in this volume. The relationship subplots are a forgivable diversion in these novels, but I didn’t really like the direction in which Sinclair took them in this story. At one point Lanny enlists one of his lady friends into a dangerous missions, while keeping her mostly in the dark about the risks she’s running. Sinclair needs the device in order to move the plot forward, but it doesn’t seem true to the character of Lanny, who usually proves himself ever the selfless gentleman.
Through the first half of the book I was getting ready to call this the best Lanny Budd book ever. The history was fascinating, the drama was engaging, and there was not an instance of paranormal activity whatsoever. Then, at about the halfway point, Sinclair returns to his pet interest in spirit communication and lays it on extremely thick, as if to make up for his self-control earlier in the book. In order to influence Hitler’s decision-making, Lanny comes up with a cockamamie plot involving séances and mediums. Even if you believe someone can talk to the dead, the idea of him actually pulling off the stunt he comes up with here stretches the bounds of believability.
These books always end on a bit of a cliffhanger, leaving the fictional narrative feeling unfinished in order to set up the next book. Historically, however, the ending of Dragon Harvest feels more resolved than most, as it ends with the surrender of Paris to the Nazis. The series promises lots more intrigue as the war progresses. Despite all my complaints, reservations, and disappointments, I do enjoy reading these books, and I’m in it for the long haul.
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Lanny Budd, paranormal secret agent
Presidential Agent is the fifth book in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series, which chronicles the adventures of a wealthy American art dealer in Europe who gets actively involved in some of the most important events in 20th-century world history. (Take care not to confuse this one with the almost identically titled eighth book in the series, Presidential Mission.) Published in 1944, Presidential Agent takes place from 1937 to 1938, and covers critical events in Europe leading up to World War II, including Hitler’s forced annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Through a mutual friend, Lanny is introduced to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who grants him a private meeting in the White House. Because of Lanny’s extensive travels in Europe and his acquaintance with many world leaders and dignitaries, FDR finds him to be an invaluable source of information. He asks Lanny to be his eyes and ears in Europe and periodically report back to him on the events taking place there. He even gives Lanny a code name, Agent 103. At first Lanny functions mostly as a news service, but the more he witnesses firsthand the terrifying threat of the Nazis the more involved he becomes in active espionage. Having previously met Adolph Hitler and Hermann Göring, Lanny cultivates his friendships with these two Nazi leaders and also develops a camaraderie with Hitler’s Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. Though a socialist at heart, Lanny must pretend to embrace the Nazi party line in order to acquire valuable intelligence. Beyond helping FDR, Lanny has personal reasons for embarking on this dangerous mission. In the last novel, he found love in the form of a German Jewish artist who works for the underground resistance. She has now gone missing, possibly held by the Nazis in a concentration camp, and Lanny will risk everything to find her.
Once again, Sinclair’s leftist view of history yields fascinating insights into the course of world events. Hitler’s taking of Austria and Czechoslovakia might be covered in a few sentences in a typical history textbook, but Sinclair really gives a detailed rendering of how these events gradually unfolded. The reader gains a clear understanding of how the Nazis came to power while many Americans and Europeans either welcomed them as saviors from communism or timidly buried their heads in the sand. The most disappointing aspect of the novel, as usual, is Sinclair’s indulgence in his fascination with the paranormal, which is even more evident here than in the previous books. One of Lanny’s hobbies is communicating with the dead through séances. Because Hitler and Hess are also interested in the occult, Lanny is able to exploit their mutual interest in spirit communication as a way to get close to them. While that is a valid way to advance the story, instances where séance revelations actually influence the course of events only thwart the credibility of what is otherwise a very intelligent, thoroughly researched historical novel.
I had ten per cent of the ebook file left when, to my surprise, the book just ended—the remainder being a preview of the next book. Presidential Agent feels like an incomplete novel meant to function as a bridge between the books before and after. By this point in the series, Sinclair seems to have stopped trying to give these novels a beginning, middle, and end, and simply treats them all as one long book. Some plot lines are resolved halfway through, while new threads are only begun. The books in this series really don’t function as independent novels, so the reader has to commit for the long haul. Though I have my reservations about each individual installment, I can’t help but admire the entire series as a monumental achievement. For those interested in 20th-century world history, the Lanny Budd series is worth the effort.
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Lanny Budd’s Spanish Civil War
Wide is the Gate, published in 1943, is the fourth novel in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series. In the second novel, Between Two Worlds, Lanny survived a scary encounter with Italian Fascism. In the third novel, Dragon’s Teeth, he came face-to-face with the Nazis. In this fourth book, both menaces are back and on the rise, while a new threat is added to the mix: Spanish dictator-to-be Francisco Franco and his right-wing Nationalists. Through the lens of Lanny’s leftist idealism, Sinclair examines the political turmoil taking place in Europe from 1934 to 1937 and illuminates crucial events leading up to the Second World War.
Lanny returns to Germany and once again meets with Adolph Hitler, with whom he rubbed elbows in the last novel. This time around, Lanny is surprised to find that his wife Irma is quite sympathetic to the Fuhrer’s politics. One of the great benefits of this series is that it enlightens us as to how such a madman ever could have come to power in the first place. It is easy for us now to look back on Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco as evil monsters, but the fact is they were supported by many, Americans included, who saw their Fascist movements as the magic bullet that would save the world from socialism. It’s a valuable lesson to bear in mind as we continue to see right-wing politicians play upon xenophobic fears to advance their agendas. Needless to say, Lanny and Irma don’t see eye to eye on many matters, and their difference of political opinion begins to wear on their relationship. Lanny starts keeping secrets from his wife as he offers his assistance to Trudi Schultz, a Jewish artist working for the resistance movement against the Nazis in Germany.
While the first half of the book is dominated by Lanny’s marital woes, the second half focuses largely on the Spanish Civil War. Lanny travels to Spain to purchase some paintings, and ends up getting caught in the crossfire between the Loyalist forces of the democratically elected leftist government and the Nationalist forces of Franco supported by Italy and Germany. Sinclair goes into a great deal of detail regarding the progression of the territorial struggle between the opposing armies. This historical context is combined with Lanny’s man-on-the-street perspective of the chaos of war—sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. As is typical of the series, the book culminates in a perilous mission for Lanny to undertake. Though exciting, the ending is a bit too similar to that of the previous novel, leaving the reader with the feeling that Wide is the Gate is somewhat of a watered-down version of Dragon’s Teeth.
Each volume in the Lanny Budd series has its share of disappointments, and this book is no exception. As usual, Sinclair spends hundreds of pages checking in with his gigantic ensemble cast before the plot gains any momentum. Once again, there are annoying digressions into the paranormal. Sinclair was fascinated by séances and the possibility of telepathy, so naturally his fictional hero must share this obsession, however inappropriate to the narrative at hand. Nevertheless, the shortcomings of each individual book are mitigated by the ambitiousness and epic scope of the series as a whole. The enormous cast of characters, meandering story, and intricate web of plot threads can be maddening at times, but after a while you just get sucked into Lanny’s world. The amount of historical detail Sinclair crams into every page is staggering, and his encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs is astonishing. If you’ve made it through the first three books, then you already know what I’m talking about and have probably decided to read on. Far be it from this Lanny Budd junkie to discourage you.
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Lanny Budd meets Hitler
Dragon’s Teeth, published in 1942, is the third book in Upton Sinclair’s eleven-volume Lanny Budd series. It won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1943. The story takes place from 1929 to 1934. Lanny and his wife, the multimillionaire heiress formerly known as Irma Barnes, are back to their life of leisure, ensconced in their villa on the French Riviera when they’re not out yachting or motoring around Europe. Lanny’s political views are becoming more and more openly Red, much to his bride’s chagrin. In addition to playing classical music on the piano and dealing in valuable artworks, one of Lanny’s hobbies is keeping abreast of political matters. On one of their trips the Budds venture into Germany, and what else should a young married couple do on a visit to Berlin but attend a Nazi rally? Thus Lanny, the curious dabbler, finds himself present at one of Hitler’s most important early speeches. Later, through a mutual acquaintance, Lanny is introduced to the Führer himself.
While looking back now we may wonder why on earth anyone would want to hobnob with Hitler, keep in mind that this was prior to World War II and the Holocaust. In their early days, many people around the world saw the Nazis as either a harmless fringe group that would never amass any real political power or just another useful tool for keeping the Bolshevik menace out of Western Europe. Lanny, on the other hand, catches a glimpse of the madman to be. Sinclair chronicles in detail the political struggle between various factions in Germany in the early 1930s and Hitler’s eventual rise to power. Though Lanny is an American and his family is safely tucked away in France, his old friends the Robin family are residents of Berlin, and as Jews they do not go unscathed by the Nazi ascension. Using his occasional career as an art dealer as cover, Lanny must venture into Nazi Germany and undertake a perilous mission on their behalf.
As is typical of the books in this series so far, it takes forever to get there. Despite the obvious excitement value of the subject matter, I actually found Lanny’s adventures among the Nazis less harrowing than his encounters with Mussolini and Italian Fascism in the previous book of the series, Between Two Worlds. Part of the problem here is too many distractions. Just when we are getting caught up in Lanny and Irma’s German intrigue, we get pulled away to focus on their families’ financial troubles. Also, as in Between Two Worlds, there’s at least a hundred pages unnecessarily devoted to the paranormal. Séances were apparently all the rage, and Lanny and his friends are constantly consulting the dead for news and advice. Sinclair expresses skepticism towards a medium’s ability to make contact beyond the grave and speculates that what may actually be occurring is telepathy, a subject with which he was fascinated. (In 1930 he wrote a book on telepathy called Mental Radio.) Regardless, it’s out of place here, and the novel would have been better served without this lengthy, dull hurdle to jump over before arriving at the good stuff.
After three Lanny Budd books, I can say for certain that they are consistently good, but I haven’t yet met one that really blew me away. You definitely learn a lot about history, though. Because of its Pulitzer, Dragon’s Teeth may be the most famous book in the series, but if you want to read this novel, you really need to go back and start with the first installment, World’s End, or you’re going to be lost. I, meanwhile, though not without some reservations, will be moving on to book number four, Wide is the Gate.
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Lanny went a-courtin’
Between Two Worlds, originally published in 1941, is the second novel in Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series. The first novel, World’s End, covered Lanny’s teenage years through World War I. This second installment, as the title indicates, covers the period between the two World Wars, following Lanny through his twenties and around the corner into his thirties. Lanny is still living the life of leisure on the French Riviera. His former schoolmate Rick, a wounded British war vet, is now a journalist, and his trade grants him access to all the important diplomatic conferences taking place in Europe. Lanny, who never can seem to stay out of political matters, goes along for the ride. Meanwhile their old classmate Kurt, a former German agent, is licking his wounds over his homeland’s defeat in the Great War. Like many of his countrymen, his disgruntlement over the political and economic beating Germany received in the post-war treaty negotiations leads him to sympathize with his nation’s rising radical right wing.
Lanny’s political views are drifting more and more to the left, and he begins to think of himself if not as a “Red” at least as a “Pink.” The rest of the world, on the other hand, is moving in the opposite direction. Fascism and Nazism arise in opposition to the Bolsheviks, and many around the world perceive these movements as either harmless or good for business. Lanny and Rick encounter both Mussolini and Hitler in their travels and witness firsthand the anti-Red brutality doled out by their followers. For today’s readers, looking back almost a hundred years at this period, Sinclair provides an invaluable perspective on how these two dictators were able to rise to power unchecked.
If this book has one major flaw, it’s long-windedness. The first couple hundred pages basically recap World’s End and catch up with all the characters introduced in that volume. If you haven’t read that one, however, you’re still likely to get lost here. Mussolini doesn’t show up until about page 200, and Hitler maybe a hundred pages later, and they both make limited appearances. Like its predecessor, Between Two Worlds concentrates less on world affairs than on affairs of the heart. Although this is only the second book, Lanny and his mother are both already on their fourth potential life partners, and the ones that they finally settle on leave the reader a bit dissatisfied. Over the course of the book, Lanny revisits every old girlfriend he’s ever had, sometimes more than once, as well as pretty much every acquaintance he made in the first book. The ensemble cast is constantly changing as Lanny and his entourage sail around Europe, play classical music at his villa, or rendezvous in New York City. At times everything seems like a digression, but you can’t help getting involved in these character’s lives. The amount of detail Sinclair stuffs into his narrative is staggering. He reports upon what everybody wears, eats, reads, or listens to, and all this minutiae coalesces to form a vivid experience of the time period being pictured. With this second book, I’m really starting to understand the rave reviews that Sinclair got for this series and the comprehensive depiction of world history it provides.
The next book in the series, Dragon’s Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943 and is rumored to be the best of the Lanny Budd books. Since it deals with the rise of the Nazis and the start of World War II, one would expect it to focus more closely on historical events than this one. I will confess, however, that even if I have to sit through another parade of Lanny’s girlfriends, Sinclair has already got me hooked.
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The education of Lanny Budd
In the 1940s, Upton Sinclair wrote an immensely popular series of eleven novels starring Lanny Budd. Lanny, the son of an American arms manufacturer, is born and raised in Europe, where he receives a cosmopolitan upbringing that leaves him well-versed in foreign languages, fine arts, and the leisure activities of the rich and famous. Throughout the series, Lanny not only witnesses but participates in many major historical events during and between the two World Wars. Along the way he interacts with many famous celebrities and important political figures. Through the life and adventures of Lanny, the series provides readers with an in-depth examination of early 20th-century world history, as viewed through Sinclair’s liberal lens. World’s End, published in 1940, is the first novel in the series. It covers Lanny’s adolescence during World War I.
When we first meet Lanny, he is at a boarding school in Switzerland studying, of all things, modern dance. When not in school he lives with his mother, Beauty Budd, on the French Riviera, just down the road from Cannes. His parents are divorced. His father, Robbie Budd, head salesman for the family munitions business, makes frequent visits to Europe on business. Like many young men, Lanny is trying to find himself. He can’t decided whether to follow his father in the family business, or to chart a course of his own. He spends many of the early chapters traveling around Europe with his mother and her jet-setting friends. Then World War I breaks out and rains on everyone’s parade.
I had heard great things about the Lanny Budd series—Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells were big fans—but I was a little disappointed with this first installment. I think much of the problem lies in the fact that Lanny is a teenager, so the novel must occupy itself with adolescent concerns, like learning the facts of life, losing one’s virginity, and coming to terms with the responsibilities of impending adulthood. Sinclair somehow manages to make even World War I seem boring by concentrating too much on the exploits of Beauty’s rich socialite friends. One wise choice the author makes is making Lanny’s two best friends from school a Brit and a German, thereby providing three differing perspectives on the war. Also to the book’s benefit, Lanny gains an awareness that his privileged upbringing is not the norm, and he starts to develop a consciousness of class issues. He begins to consider the merits of socialism vs. capitalism, which of course is the major theme running through Sinclair’s life’s work. Famous figures stop by for brief appearances: Anatole France, Isadora Duncan, Lawrence of Arabia, Lincoln Steffens, not to mention all the important heads of state. Only in the book’s final third does it live up to expectations in its coverage of world affairs, as it examines the peace conferences that followed World War I, and the wheeling and dealing in the future of nations that occurred there. Still, those pertinent scenes are interspersed with a lot of soap opera drama.
I don’t wish to make World’s End sound like a bad book, because it’s not. It does, however, feel more like a prelude of things to come rather than a complete novel in itself, even though it’s 740 pages long. It lays the groundwork for what’s to come in this acclaimed series, and for that I’m glad I read it, but don’t expect to be blown away by it. The decisions made, agreements reached, and deals struck in Paris at the end of the First World War had important ramifications for the world’s future, which will no doubt be explored later in the series. Lanny will move on to bigger, better, and more interesting things, but here he’s still just a kid.
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