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pharmdad2007's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book about a strong woman who is determined to prove that she can survive and thrive in the harsh "man's world" that is interstate motor travel in the 1920s. Her quirk and spunk are delightful, and the other colorful characters that pepper this novel make for a very fun read.
wynwicket's review against another edition
4.0
I confess: I picked this up after it was mentioned on the tv show "Boardwalk Empire." Published in 1919, this was a light-hearted, road-trip, battle-between-the-classes romance, between wealthy Claire Boltwood ("used to gracious leisure, attractive uselessness, nut-center chocolates, and a certain wonder as to why she was alive) who, on a road trip from New York to Seattle, meets Milt Daggett, the working-class owner of a small-town garage. Cultures clash, drama ensues (bears! hijackers! seedy hotels!), and finally Claire must choose between upper-class stagnancy and the "free air" of personal choice.
Apparently, this was one of the first road trip novels. As such, I enjoyed it, though Claire's prevarication is a bit annoying, and the author gushes endlessly about the scenery along the way. Still, the language was beautiful and the ending satisfying. Makes me want to pick a direction and simply drive.
Apparently, this was one of the first road trip novels. As such, I enjoyed it, though Claire's prevarication is a bit annoying, and the author gushes endlessly about the scenery along the way. Still, the language was beautiful and the ending satisfying. Makes me want to pick a direction and simply drive.
brianlokker's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up the audiobook version of Free Air on a whim when I saw it on sale. I’ve read a couple of Lewis’s novels and I want to read more, but I’d never heard of this one. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the story. It’s a great adventure and a charming love story, but it also offers numerous insights into American society and human nature.
The novel describes a road trip in which young Claire Boltwood, accompanied by her father, drives her roadster from Minneapolis to Seattle. Claire is a socialite from Brooklyn Heights, New York, who spends her time in “gracious leisure” and “attractive uselessness.” She suffers the attentions of boring boys from Princeton and Yale, along with one somewhat older man, Jeff Sexton. Jeff is “solid” and “nice.” “And he was so everlastingly, firmly, quietly, politely, immovably always there.”
Claire’s widowed father, Henry, is a successful businessman, but he’s a workaholic and suffers from nervous exhaustion. Claire has lured him to Minneapolis, where his firm has a branch office, in the hope that he will spend some time relaxing. But he works just as hard in Minneapolis as he did in New York. So Claire proposes a long road trip to Seattle to visit relatives. Claire will drive—her father is used to chauffeurs and doesn’t drive.
Soon after they start out from Minneapolis, the roadster gets stuck in the mud. Fortunately, a Good Samaritan, Milt Daggett, intervenes. Milt is a young mechanic from the nearby town of Schoenstrom, Minnesota. Milt is as homespun as Claire is sophisticated. But from the minute he first laid eyes on Claire when she stopped in Schoenstrom a few miles back, he was smitten with her. On the spur of the moment, he decided to hit the road himself in the wild hope that he might get to know her. When Milt sees Claire’s roadster stuck in the mud, he seizes the moment. And Claire is impressed by his quiet and friendly competence.
From then on, Claire and Milt continue to have encounters along the road—since Milt knows that Claire is headed to Seattle, he tells her that’s where he’s going too—and gradually, they do get to know each other. They both realize that they’re very different people from very different worlds. As the miles go by, they educate each other and the differences recede in importance, but will the differences ever recede enough that Claire and Milt can move on from casual road-trip-inspired friendship?
Sinclair Lewis was an astute observer of American life. In Free Air, he makes pointed, progressive observations about gender roles and class and regional prejudices. (On the other hand, he does seem to accept some conventional views on issues like ethnic and racial discrimination.)
By the standards of the day (the novel is set in 1917), Claire is a feminist, but she’s been trapped in the role that society has assigned to her. She sees the road trip as a chance for independence. “Free Air” is Claire’s motto for the trip, which she takes from an advertising sign on the air hose at a garage. At one point, when Milt makes a mostly-joking comment about “kidnapping” Claire to toughen her up, Claire calls it an “insane masculine conceit, which I, as a woman, resent. Shakespeare may have started it, with his silly Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare's men may have been real, but his women were dolls, designed to please some majesty. You may not know it, but there are women today who don't live just to please majesties' fancies.” As much as she likes Milt, Claire is no pushover.
Lewis’s sharpest social commentary concerns class and regional distinctions: the elites of the east and west coasts versus the folks of mid-America. It’s not long into the trip before Claire thinks that the Eastern sophisticates who denigrate rural folk as “peasants” or “hicks” don’t know what they’re talking about. “In fact, Claire learned that there may be an almost tolerable state of existence without gardenias or the news about the latest Parisian imagists.” Not that it would be easy for Claire to forswear the luxury of the comfortable, well-off society into which she was born. But in Milt, she sees another option. And Milt, for his part, sees Claire as representing a wider world—a world of education, achievement, the arts, and more—than his background provided.
As a result of her road trip, Claire has one foot in each of the two worlds. The men from those two worlds who love her, Milt Daggett of the Midwest and Jeff Saxton of the East, both claim to know the “real” Claire. According to Milt: “‘You've never seen her bucking a dangerous hill—I kind of feel that a person who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know her.’” But Jeff disagrees: “‘I don't want to be contradictory, old man, but I feel on the other hand that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League Dances, in a Poiret frock, can know her!’” The question is, does Claire know the real Claire?
I really admire Lewis’s writing. He describes the landscape, the people, and the events in the book with equal mastery. Even though the book was published a hundred years ago, it seems fresh and lively. And I especially enjoy Lewis’s dry wit that infuses many of his descriptions, especially his descriptions of the foibles and pretensions of people: “Georgie had a little mustache and an income, just enough income to support the little mustache….”
I recommend this book highly: 4-plus stars. (I didn’t love the narration of the audiobook, especially the male narrator’s attempt to give voice to Claire. But I’m not much of an audiobook fan anyway, and in fact, I listened to most of it with a written copy of the text in front of me, so take my view of the narration with a grain of salt.)
The novel describes a road trip in which young Claire Boltwood, accompanied by her father, drives her roadster from Minneapolis to Seattle. Claire is a socialite from Brooklyn Heights, New York, who spends her time in “gracious leisure” and “attractive uselessness.” She suffers the attentions of boring boys from Princeton and Yale, along with one somewhat older man, Jeff Sexton. Jeff is “solid” and “nice.” “And he was so everlastingly, firmly, quietly, politely, immovably always there.”
Claire’s widowed father, Henry, is a successful businessman, but he’s a workaholic and suffers from nervous exhaustion. Claire has lured him to Minneapolis, where his firm has a branch office, in the hope that he will spend some time relaxing. But he works just as hard in Minneapolis as he did in New York. So Claire proposes a long road trip to Seattle to visit relatives. Claire will drive—her father is used to chauffeurs and doesn’t drive.
Soon after they start out from Minneapolis, the roadster gets stuck in the mud. Fortunately, a Good Samaritan, Milt Daggett, intervenes. Milt is a young mechanic from the nearby town of Schoenstrom, Minnesota. Milt is as homespun as Claire is sophisticated. But from the minute he first laid eyes on Claire when she stopped in Schoenstrom a few miles back, he was smitten with her. On the spur of the moment, he decided to hit the road himself in the wild hope that he might get to know her. When Milt sees Claire’s roadster stuck in the mud, he seizes the moment. And Claire is impressed by his quiet and friendly competence.
From then on, Claire and Milt continue to have encounters along the road—since Milt knows that Claire is headed to Seattle, he tells her that’s where he’s going too—and gradually, they do get to know each other. They both realize that they’re very different people from very different worlds. As the miles go by, they educate each other and the differences recede in importance, but will the differences ever recede enough that Claire and Milt can move on from casual road-trip-inspired friendship?
Sinclair Lewis was an astute observer of American life. In Free Air, he makes pointed, progressive observations about gender roles and class and regional prejudices. (On the other hand, he does seem to accept some conventional views on issues like ethnic and racial discrimination.)
By the standards of the day (the novel is set in 1917), Claire is a feminist, but she’s been trapped in the role that society has assigned to her. She sees the road trip as a chance for independence. “Free Air” is Claire’s motto for the trip, which she takes from an advertising sign on the air hose at a garage. At one point, when Milt makes a mostly-joking comment about “kidnapping” Claire to toughen her up, Claire calls it an “insane masculine conceit, which I, as a woman, resent. Shakespeare may have started it, with his silly Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare's men may have been real, but his women were dolls, designed to please some majesty. You may not know it, but there are women today who don't live just to please majesties' fancies.” As much as she likes Milt, Claire is no pushover.
Lewis’s sharpest social commentary concerns class and regional distinctions: the elites of the east and west coasts versus the folks of mid-America. It’s not long into the trip before Claire thinks that the Eastern sophisticates who denigrate rural folk as “peasants” or “hicks” don’t know what they’re talking about. “In fact, Claire learned that there may be an almost tolerable state of existence without gardenias or the news about the latest Parisian imagists.” Not that it would be easy for Claire to forswear the luxury of the comfortable, well-off society into which she was born. But in Milt, she sees another option. And Milt, for his part, sees Claire as representing a wider world—a world of education, achievement, the arts, and more—than his background provided.
As a result of her road trip, Claire has one foot in each of the two worlds. The men from those two worlds who love her, Milt Daggett of the Midwest and Jeff Saxton of the East, both claim to know the “real” Claire. According to Milt: “‘You've never seen her bucking a dangerous hill—I kind of feel that a person who hasn't seen her in the wilds doesn't know her.’” But Jeff disagrees: “‘I don't want to be contradictory, old man, but I feel on the other hand that no one who has failed to see her at the Junior League Dances, in a Poiret frock, can know her!’” The question is, does Claire know the real Claire?
I really admire Lewis’s writing. He describes the landscape, the people, and the events in the book with equal mastery. Even though the book was published a hundred years ago, it seems fresh and lively. And I especially enjoy Lewis’s dry wit that infuses many of his descriptions, especially his descriptions of the foibles and pretensions of people: “Georgie had a little mustache and an income, just enough income to support the little mustache….”
I recommend this book highly: 4-plus stars. (I didn’t love the narration of the audiobook, especially the male narrator’s attempt to give voice to Claire. But I’m not much of an audiobook fan anyway, and in fact, I listened to most of it with a written copy of the text in front of me, so take my view of the narration with a grain of salt.)
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