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Universally acclaimed when first published in 1955, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit captured the mood of a generation. Its title -- like Catch-22 and Fahrenheit 451 -- has become a part of America's cultural vocabulary. Tom Rath doesn't want anything extraordinary out of life: just a decent home, enough money to support his family, and a career that won't crush his spirit. After returning from World War II, he takes a PR job at a television network. It is inane, dehumanizing work. But when a series of personal crises force him to reexamine his priorities -- and take responsibility for his past -- he is finally moved to carve out an identity for himself. This is Sloan Wilson's searing indictment of a society that had just begun to lose touch with its citizens. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a classic of American literature and the basis of the award-winning film starring Gregory Peck. "A consequential novel." -- Saturday Review… (more)
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Title: [THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT]
Author: [[SLOAN WILSON]]
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Here is the story of Tom and Betsy Rath, a young couple with everthing going for them: three healthy children, a nice home, a steady income. They have every reason to be
At once a searing indictment of corporate culture, a story of a young man confronting his past and future with honesty, and a testament to the enduring power of family, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a deeply rewarding novel about the importance of taking responsibility for one's own life.
My Review: 1955. That is, if you're math-challenged, 58 years ago, and the year that Simon & Schuster published this book. So Wilson was writing it in, it's safe to say, 1953 (60 years ago). And this is what Wilson said:
Money, I need money, {Tom} thought. If they don't build a new public shcool, I should be able to afford a private school. I should get everything but money out of my head and really do a job for Hopkins. I ought to be at work now....
Money, Tom thought. The housing project could make money, but it depends on re-zoning, and Bernstein says we shouldn't ask for that until they vote on a new school.
A new school, he thought---so much depends on that! ... I should work for a new school, and I should work harder for Hopkins, and I should be making plans for our housing project. Where did I ever get the idea that life is supposed to be anything but work? A man's work should be his pleasure---I shouldn't expect anything more.
Tom Rath has just been to see the overcrowded public school his daughters have to attend because, unlike his own father, he can't afford to put them in a private school. He muses on these thoughts while waiting for a late commuter train into the city, where he will take on a lowly personal assistant's position and, in the process, displace a number of female employees from their physical space.
Sixty years since Wilson was penning these words, and not that much has changed. Now, of course, it could easily be a mom having these platform reveries, because we've been sold the bill of goods that nannies and au pairs are plenty good enough to raise the kids we've had but don't feel like raising even if it means NOT having a home theater, six DVR-equipped TVs, and each kid with an unshared Xbox. If mom's better at business, dad, YOU stay home and raise those people you engendered. Read to them, make them a snack after carpool, help with their homework. Hiring out parenthood sorta makes it pointless, doesn't it?
Ahem.
Me and my rants.
Wilson's book analyzes the sources of Tom's inner discontent as disconnection and materialism. I agree. The alarm bell sounded by this, and by the 1956 movie, went unheeded despite the fact that both were hugely popular and successful in their own spheres. (The movie was as good as the book, for once.)
At every turn, MONEY the getting and spending of, obsesses and defines Tom. His wealthy grandmother is being cared for by a greedy granny-nanny, and the hijinks appertaining thereto are most instructive for today's audience. Tom's boss, the venal and piggish Hopkins, plays out before Tom's increasingly revolted gaze his own probable future of alienated kid (extra probable because his three are TV obsessed brats), estranged wife, and grasping mistress(es). Then things get complicated when a wartime indiscretion with an Italian lass provides a surprise to Tom's unsuspecting wife.
Wilson wrote of his own time. Change the props, update the clothes, and make it about Betsy the wife, and nothing much has changed.
I'm sad about that. So much needless hurt caused in this world from sheer, wasteful greed for MORE when there's more than enough right in front of these hungry-souled people.
As you might be able to tell from the description, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit isn’t exactly a thrilling page-turner. Its story is mostly that of mundane everyday things that we’ve all faced at one time or another – not having a big enough salary, worrying about money, finding a good job, pleasing the boss at the new job, falling behind on home repairs, and struggling with marital and parenting woes from time to time. Eventually, some things happen that are more outside the norm for many like inheriting a boondoggle, having a will contested, recalling traumatic war experiences, and facing the possibility of an affair coming to light. But, all in all, this is a book that deals with human experiences that are not incredibly out of the ordinary and does so in a pretty straightforward way.
To me, the most interesting parts of the book were the juxtaposition of Tom’s wartime experiences and his rather dull life now (or even compared to Betsy’s letters at the time of what was going on back home). Some of the book’s best quotes come from here, including:
- “It had been almost like a suburban community, with the men all working for the same big corporation.”
- “How strange that after all the long months of killing, there would be finally, perhaps, the birth of a child, and that this would be the one thing he had done in the last two years which could conceivably lead to trouble.”
- “How curious it was to find that apparently nothing was ever really forgotten, that the past was never really gone, that it was always lurking, ready to destroy the present, or at least to make the present seem absurd … ”
- “It is strange, he thought, that almost always there is so much irony in success.”
Overall, though I found the book just “okay” at best. It was rather plodding at the beginning and then went off on weird tangents at other times, looking very closely at the lives of other characters for brief moments and then not coming back to them. None of the characters were particularly all that compelling, although I did find myself rooting for Tom on some occasions. His wife Betsy, with her seemingly unabated consumerism and throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude sometimes tempered by a holier-than-thou attitude, irritated me a great deal. After spending so much time with this book and looking at some events in sometimes excruciating detail, the ending did not feel conclusive at all with many things still up in the air.
My copy of the book was the audio version, which had a good reader who helped bring this rather flat book more to life. This version had an introduction from Jonathan Franzen, which noted some interesting critical readings and interpretations of the book, although I didn’t really find them to ring true myself. The book also ended with the author’s introduction to the 1983 edition, in which he explained he would be finally writing a sequel. Not liking this book and its characters enough to invest in a second book, I only read the Wikipedia summary of it, and I have to say it sounds even more disappointing.
Sloan Wilson's book of 1950's conformity still resonates today. The pressures that Tom faces to fit in, to not step outside the narrow vision of society of what is right and wrong still has a place today. Tom Wrath is an angry man, who is running away from his past, and unwilling to take risks. He sees everything from a class half empty perspective. He is countered by his wife, Betsy, who struggles with the same expectations of conformity, but who is willing to take risks to make their lives better. A lot of the differences between Tom and Betsy come from their experiences during WW2. Tom fought as a paratrooper in Europe and the Pacific, killing 17 men (including his best friend in an accident) and fathering an illegitimate child. These events are things that Tom refuses to talk about; they are part of another life, but they constantly dwell upon Tom's thoughts and shape his view of the world.
Despite being written over 60 years ago, and set in a very different time and place of America, I really enjoyed Wilson's story of Tom and Betsy Rath. Their story resonated with me and I thoroughly enjoyed the character development of both Tom and Betsy. They serve as counter-points to each other, and it is only through being forced to understand each other that they are able to overcome the difficulties that life seems to throw at them. By the end of the book Tom Rath is a very different person, more sure of himself, more at ease with who he is and the events and people that have made him the person he is now. Betsy, while getting less of a character treatment than Tom, also grows as she understands more about who her husband is, and how the war made him a changed man. And while the war changed her some too, the differences are great and she must come to terms with them.
I only have a couple of problems with the book. Wilson writes from an omniscient third-person POV, and in several chapters the reader is forced to head jump from character to character in the scene. This is a bit distracting. I also wish that more time was given to exploring Betsy and her own thought - especially on the critical point when she learns of Tom's infidelity and his illegitimate child born to an Italian woman. Betsy makes a large change in her character, but it mainly happens off stage and we don't see the struggle she goes through to decide to accept Tom and his decision to support the child. Considering we are seeing the thoughts of many other characters not showing us the struggle Betsy is going through felt like a let down.
Overall I recommend The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. Sloan Wilson's story still has power today to show us how life's events can change and affect a person. It is also a wonderful look at an era of American history that is little covered today. Written in the 1950's, the novel today feels like a well-research historical fiction, and being able to glimpse the world of 60 plus years ago was interesting. The audio production I listened to was narrated by Patrick Lawlor, who does a good job of bringing Tom Rath to life. I had previously heard him narrating a X-Files novel, so at first I could only hear Fox Mulder instead of Tom Rath, but that was more me than Patrick. His characterizations are well done and helped to make the characters stand out.
The Man in Gray Flannel epitomizes the proverbial meaning of life in a material world. It is also a study of 1950s conformity and climbing the corporate ladder. You have one man who is a slave to his workaholic lifestyle and is miserable because of it while another man is angry because he can never get ahead. Tom's boss, from the outside, projects an image of ease and calm amidst his wealth while Tom encounters roadblocks in every aspect of his life. The new higher paying job is not what he thought it would be. Secrets from his time as a solider in World War II will not stay buried. His wife wants more and more. Even the seemingly straightforward last will and testament of his grandmother's estate doesn't seem to be in his favor.
Confessional: the odd thing is, despite all of Tom's setbacks and struggles, I couldn't entirely feel for him. I felt more for his boss.
Most of the plot escapes me now, but I remember a scene in which the protagonist explains to his boss that he must turn down a high pressure, demanding promotion because he does not want his job to dominate his life.
In this book the protagonist is trying to make his way working for the United Broadcasting Corporation, in a job that he just does not believe in, and his wife is trying to help him believe in it enough so that they can build their future. The story reverts back and forth between the protagonist's memories of being in WWII, when he was a paratrooper, and had to kill many enemy soldiers when they dropped behind enemy lines, and the present, where he's struggling to adjust to the business world, and being a husband to his wife and a father to three kids. There are all sorts of obstacles in their way, but what I did like about this biok is that the author has them keep on going and not give up, which is what happens to so many marriages when they hit the rocks. I also liked that the author had the boss of the protagonist (the president of the United Broadcasting Corporation) actually listen to him and try to do his best for him, which is not what happens in reality. In my experience a person usually goes through their whole life trying to duck their head and do their work in a soul-sucking job, just so that they can make their living and get to their retirement age in a fairly healthy state of body, so that they can eke out the rest of their days on whatever tiny little pension they have, added to their tiny little social security.