Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis

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Résumé :
Arrowsmith has been inspirational for several generations of med students. Martin Arrowsmith agonizes over his career and life decisions never sure if he's making the correct descisions. While the book details Arrowsmith's pursuit of the noble ideals of medical research for the benefit of mankind and of selfless devotion to the care of patients, Lewis throws many less noble temptations and self-deceptions in Arrowsmith's path. The attractions of financial security, recognition, even wealth and power distract Arrowsmith from his original plan to follow in the footsteps of his first mentor, Max Gottlieb, a brilliant but abrasive bacteriologist. A powerful novel that asks more questions than it answers. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. In the course of the novel Lewis describes many aspects of medical training, medical practice, scientific research, scientific fraud, medical ethics, public health, and of personal/professional conflicts that are still relevant today. Professional jealousy, institutional pressures, greed, stupidity, and negligence are all satirically depicted, and Arrowsmith himself is exasperatingly self-involved. But there is also tireless dedication, and respect for the scientific method and intellectual honesty.

Biographie:
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American novelist and social critic who became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1930. Known for his satirical examinations of American society, Lewis explored themes of conformity, ambition, and institutional hypocrisy in novels such as Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. His work combined social realism with sharp irony, establishing him as one of the most significant American literary figures of the early twentieth century....

Sommaire:
A searching and unsentimental novel of scientific ambition, professional integrity, and the uneasy marriage of research and commerce. First published in 1925, Arrowsmith traces the career of Martin Arrowsmith, a gifted but conflicted physician whose devotion to scientific inquiry brings him into repeated tension with institutional authority and commercial medicine. From small-town practice to laboratory research and epidemic response, Lewis follows his protagonist through the competing demands of idealism, recognition, and compromise. Working in collaboration with the microbiologist Paul de Kruif, Lewis renders the world of early twentieth-century medical science with unusual precision. The novel explores the ethical dilemmas inherent in research, the pressures of philanthropy and patronage, and the difficulty of sustaining intellectual independence within expanding bureaucracies. Arrowsmith's struggle is not merely professional but moral: whether to pursue truth wherever it leads, or to accept the rewards of conformity. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1926-though declined by Lewis-Arrowsmith remains one of the most incisive American novels of professional life and scientific culture in the modern age....