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Title: An American Tragedy Notes by Martin Bucco ISBN: 0-8220-0169-1 Publisher: Hungry Minds, Inc Pub. Date: August, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (70 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Simple Plan
Comment: The film "A Simple Plan" could have easily been called "An American Tragedy," and the book "An American Tragedy" could have just as easily been called "A Simple Plan." The plan at the book's center seems so simple indeed. The novel's protagonist, Clyde Griffiths, impregnates a girl below his social station, and he's so terrified by the idea of being exposed and ruining his chances at a life as part of the social elite (and losing the local well-to-do beauty to whom he's hitched himself) that he actually finds himself driven to kill her as his only escape. But Clyde has a simple mind, and his efforts to claw his way out of a desperate situation that inexorably suffocates him is compelling fiction.
Theodore Dreiser has been called one of the worst great writers in the history of literature, and that claim is justified. He can hardly compose a sentence that doesn't drop like lead from the tongue. He's especially fond of the double negative, which can become pretty tedious in a 900+ page novel. And in retrospect, the amount of plot on display in his novel does not seem to warrant its length, but somehow, I was able to overcome these two factors and find myself engrossed in it anyway. It doesn't for one second become boring or slow. And it offers some especially candid and frank ideas about the nature of guilt and the culpability of those who take lives, whether they're working on the side of crime or the law. Most fascinating for me were the novel's final pages, when Clyde tries to turn to religion for solace when he's at his loneliest, but can't get around the notion that there's really nothing to turn to.
Dreiser pulls off quite a feat by making all of his characters sympathetic. I didn't want Clyde to get away scot-free with what he'd done, but my heart couldn't help but go out to him. Likewise, Roberta, the girl he wrongs, could have come across as shrewish in another author's hands (she does in the film version, "A Place in the Sun," if you're interested in a literature to film comparison) but she doesn't here. Even Sondra, who could have been so unlikeably spoiled, comes across as essentially a warm character.
1925 was the literary year for deconstructing the American Dream. Both "An American Tragedy" and "The Great Gatsby" came out that year, and while I have to admit that "Gatsby" is a better written book, "Tragedy" just has a visceral appeal for me, and it's the one I enjoyed more.
Rating: 5
Summary: excellent narrative!
Comment: In An American Tragedy, Dreiser sets out to outline the pathos of an American Dream gone wrong. In Clyde Griffiths, you have Everyman, someone who strives to rise from poverty to riches, from anonymity to wealth. But to reach that goal, he resorts to falsehood,adultery and murder. The early part of this epic focuses on Clyde's childhood, his religious upbringing and his subsequent rebellion against the austere and joyless existence he is destined to live had he stayed in his parent's mission.
Working as a bell-boy in a hotel, Clyde comes under the influence of other wayward youths, which will play a big part in his having to leave Kansas. In Chicago, he meets his wealthy uncle, who offers him a job at his collar factory in Lycurgus, and it is there that Clyde meets and falls in love with Roberta, a worker under his charge. Again, fate deals Clyde a bad hand and he chances upon Sondra, a rich girl who catches his fancy and who, ultimately, leads to his demise. While the last part of this book can be tightened and shortened, Dreiser presents to the reader an excellent example of the power of great narrative. The ominous portents of Cylde's destruction is presented as his initial pursuit of Hortense, a less-wealthy version of Sondra. The irony of his first direct contact with Roberta on a boat on a lake, and her subsequent death in similar circumstances, cannot escape the reader. Clyde's inability to grasp his guilt even up to the end is a true reflection of human nature. Although Dreiser's sentence construction can, at times, be ponderous, the his descriptive and narrative powers more than make up for that. This 800-plus epic is well worth taking the time to read!
Rating: 4
Summary: Worth a read
Comment: This book was recommended to me by a Russian friend who said that Dreiser had been popular in the Soviet Union. I could immediately see why. Early on in the book I was gripped with the sense of impending doom. The tragedy takes 800 pages to unfold, but you know that something bad is coming from the start. It is as tragic as the best of Russian novels.
The 1920s setting is full of social and economic inequities and demonstrates how individuals struggle against the rigid lines often drawn in a capitalist society.
Overall, a good book to glimpse at life in the early 20th century and to watch the slow unraveling of a soul. It also forces the reader to confront issues such as guilt, responsibility, fairness and intention.
While the first half of the book is gripping, the second book is overwritten and becomes boring at times. Also, the protagonist's changes in character sometimes seem to occur too rapidly or unexpectedly to be realistic.
Worth a read to become acquainted with Dreiser's style.
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Title: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, Richard Lingeman ISBN: 0451527607 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 10 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by CARSON MCCULLERS ISBN: 0553269631 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1983 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Financier by Theodore Dreiser ISBN: 0452008255 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: June, 1988 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: John Dos Passos : U.S.A. : The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money (Library of America) by Townsend Ludington, Daniel Aaron, John R. Dos Passos ISBN: 1883011140 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: Henry James: 1896-1899: The Other House/the Spoils of Poynton/What Maisie Knew/the Awkward Age (Library of America) by Henry James, Myra Jehlen ISBN: 1931082308 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: 10 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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