This novel may well have been the first in American Literature to give serious consideration to the emerging class of self-made businessmen.  While they would later come to be targets of ridicule and hatred, Howells--writing in the flush of victory in the Civil War, which Northern industrialists had so much to do with--treats his subject, if not gently, then sympathetically.  Silas Lapham is a Vermonter who takes over a minor paint business from his father and turns it into a significant success.  He is the very symbol of the nouveau riche, post-War millionaire.  However, his attempts to penetrate Boston society prove futile, his speculations in other businesses and in stock ventures prove disastrous and a rival paint company brings him to the brink of financial ruin.  But Lapham, who had cut some corners and made some moral compromises on the road to success, proves unwilling to stoop to deceit in order to save his own skin.  He recognizes that his rivals have natural advantages that he can not compete with and is honest with bidders for his company about these facts.  Thus, though he is eventually driven out of business, Silas emerges as something of a hero.

If the novel's moral aesthetics seem somewhat dated, recall that it was written at the height of the Victorian era.  Meanwhile, the language has worn well; it does not seem as dated as some other novels of its time.  And I, for one, found the essentially positive treatment of Lapham to be a refreshing departure.  It stands in honorable opposition to the more negative, and somehow less human,  portrayals of Dreiser, Lewis, Sinclair and that ilk.

(Reviewed:02-Mar-00)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

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