Reflections - The Rise of Silas Lapham

This will be one of the more contentious reviews on this blog.

I like The Rise of Silas Lapham. 

I think it is an intelligent book that gives not only a fine portrait of a believable man, but a wonderful picture of an age, too.

William Dean Howells is one of the most neglected and under-rated novelists in American Literature. He is due for a revival. I keep thinking it's about to happen when another of his books appears in paperback, but it never quite takes off.

Howells is, perhaps, just too old fashion, but he is certainly not without life or value. Other recommended titles are: A Hazard of New Fortunes, Indian Summer, The Landlord at Lion Head, and A Modern Instance, all of which have appeared in paperback in the last decade.

One of the problems that Howells suffers from is that he mixes his genres, so that he is never a satisfactory choice for 'realism', 'romanticism' or 'humor.' The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps the most even of the titles named here, being fairly strongly rooted in realism.

Lapham, the self-made man, as the jacket notes probably say, moves from arrogance to experience, loses his fortune but gains his soul. He's a well-meaning, if blinkered man, and his presence in the book is never anything but welcome. He's a well drawn, round character whose behavior is always in character, but not stereotype.

The women in the book are an interesting blend. Mrs Lapham is bewildered by the change in her social status. She's out of her depth, but is too genuine to put on airs in the way her husband does. She wins respect by being herself while he appears foolish by over-playing his role. The daughters, Irene and Penelope, at once want to enter the new social class that their wealth enables them to, but both express a yearning for the simpler days, when they were secure in knowing what to do and how to behave.

The Laphams contrast well with the Coreys, but Howells is too good a writer to have the contrast that simple. While the Coreys are established and respected, they are also crashingly dull. The fire has gone from their bellies; they have peaked and are coasting along the summit road and will shortly begin their descent without even knowing it. It is not hard to imagine the Coreys in later years as the Vertrees in Tarkington's The Turmoil (discussed earlier), still proud in their reduced state, still possessed of all their virtues and dignity, but without the ability to sustain their previous position.

No one in The Rise of Silas Lapham is dishonorable except Lapham's business partner. That Lapham cannot detect this earlier is at once a failing in him, but also a tribute to his ingenuousness: he is not suspicious, nor is he deceitful, unkind or bullying.

Lapham is an obvious man, and the new house in Back Bay typifies his ambitions. It becomes the object and statement of his achievement. His ruin, the destruction of the house and the dashing of Irene's matrimonial hopes, bring his world crashing down, but it does not defeat him. His strength is where it has always been - in his family. Lapham's disasters do not drive a wedge between him and his wife and daughters; it ties them more tightly together, and we feel confident that they will not only endure, but prevail.