Ahh, satire. The literary form that makes fun of the cruelest, most power-hungry demons that plague mankind: greed, war, corruption, hatred, sexism, genocide, aspiring doctors…

Wait, what was that last one? Oh yeah, the "aspiring doctors" thing? Arrowsmith is, in short, a great American Pultizer-Prize winning novel that satirizes medical professionals.

Now usually we think of satire as poking fun and something heavy and dangerous, say, British Imperialism. The idea of satire, after all, is to portray something powerful as ludicrous and make readers rethink why they give that powerful thing (the British Empire, for example) so much respect. So why on earth would someone want to satirize doctors?

History lesson in brief, y'all: When Sinclair Lewis published Arrowsmith in 1925, the U.S. medical community was going through a big ol' upheaval. Something called the Flexner Report of 1910 caused American universities to lower the number of doctors they were training (uhh, never a good idea), and the report also called for all medical schools to get rid of rebellious ideas and to fall in line with "mainstream science."

Right. Because innovation in the medical field is such a bad thing, right? Medical innovation leads to craziness like heart transplants and the polio vaccine and chemotherapy… all sorts of weird nonsense that saves lives.

Arrowsmith follows the exploits of Martin Arrowsmith, an idealistic young doctor who wants to seek the capital-T Truth above all else. But the medical community's narrow-mindedness and endless politics keep thwarting Martin.

It's not just Lewis' white-hot satirical wit that makes Arrowsmith an awesomesauce read, though. After all, Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters". These round and nuanced characters, including the titular Martin Arrowsmith, are part of the reason that they tried to give Sinclair Lewis the Pultizer Prize for Arrowsmith.

What's that? Yeah, they tried to give him the Pulitzer Prize but he refused, saying, "All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous."

It seems like Sinclair Lewis—just like his hero Martin Arrowsmith—was idealistic and wary of politics. He talks the talk and walks the walk.

Have you ever gotten super-into something, only to find that the people around you are doing it for the wrong reason?

It starts, like everything, in high school. You love jazz band, but find out that most other people are just doing it to please their mommy or daddy. You love rugby, but find out that most of your teammates are just doing it because they couldn't make it into football. You love baking class, but find out that everyone else is just taking it in order to eat delicious cake…

Oh wait. That really is the only good reason to be in baking class.

Your boy Martin Arrowsmith has the exact same problem. He wants to be a great doctor in order to understand science and capital-T Truth, but everyone around him is out to make top dollar and gain power over other people. And this seriously icks Martin out. Arrowsmith follows Martin from the time he enters med school until he's middle aged, and he's perpetually surrounded by freaking jerks.

Arrowsmith makes it hilariously and painfully clear that you'll be surrounded by fools your entire life. It's like The Office for the world of medicine, if The Office included WWI, bacteriology, a bunch of outlaws masquerading as a squeaky-clean model family, and a bubonic plague-infested Caribbean island.

Of course, because this is a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by a Nobel-Prize winning author (Sinclair Lewis wasn't playing around), it never rests on simple satire or easy laughs. Martin Arrowsmith is a bit of a prig, and sometimes you want to smack him around because he's so high-and-mighty. But don't worry: any time you're tempted to reach into the pages of Arrowsmith and give Martin a one-two punch, the plot of Arrowsmith is already hard at work doling out punishment for its eager-beaver hero.

Oh, and if you're a science nut, don't worry about a Lit nerd like Sinclair Lewis messing up the science facts. Lewis basically co-wrote Arrowsmith with a scientist/writer named Paul de Kruif (and gave him 25% of the book's profits) so the science is watertight. Sinclair Lewis, unlike most of the characters in Arrowsmith, isn't one to take a shortcut or adopt a quick-fix solution.