Arrowsmith

I hadn't read Arrowsmith in nearly 30 years, and I'd forgotten a lot of it. I remembered his two marriages, his near-worship of the bacteriologist Gottlieb, his use of phage in a plague epidemic, and his eventual retreat to a cabin (lab) in the woods. I'd forgotten (among other things), his accidental engagement, his off-and-on rivalry with a classmate, and the charismatic epidemiologist who pushed Gottlieb off his pedestal. Like Elmer Gantry, it wanders the protagonist's life, although the reactive isn't quite as memorable as the magnetic con artist. The book I read is more complex than the book I remembered. Martin Arrowsmith is less competent than I remembered, and his forays in to small-town practice, public health, and hospital staff are mostly unsuccessful. They also provide Sinclair Lewis with an opportunity to skewer the snobbery hypocritical moralism of the early 20th Century with more humor than his other works. I was particularly drawn, though, to the scientific content. Lewis worked with microbiologist Paul de Kruif, and the discussions of lab work and practical applications of phage provided a nice epilogue to the immunology-heavy vaccines class I'd just completed.

Bright Young People

The Kardashians are not original.  Before they infected our tabloids there were Studio 54 denizens who were famous by proxy and before that fur-and-diamond wearing socialites and social climbers.  Even they weren't the first superstars who were famous for being famous. Nearly 100 years ago, British newspapers breathlessly followed the exploits - real and imagined - of the Bright Young People.  A strange mix of the titled, the noveau riche, and pretenders to both titles, they flitted from party to manor house to elaborate practical joke, entrancing the public and (in some cases) horrifying staid parents.  DJ Taylor engagingly catalogs the parties and scandals, but was perhaps a bit too even-handed in applying attention to the range of characters.  Perhaps that's because Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell were on the edge of the group, and the Mitford sisters (save Diana) were too young to fully participate in the social whirl.  Elizabeth Ponsoby and Brenda Dean Paul, on the other hand, staggered from party to scandal to salacious exploit, and they feature more prominently in Taylor's book than the truly accomplished members of their generation.  In a way it's comforting to see how prominent they were and contrast that with how obscure they now are.  It gives me hope that in a dozen years or so, the "reality" TV starlets who infect the magazine covers I see while buying groceries will have faded in to blessed obscurity.