Came across a thought-provoking sentence and then another astoundingly wonderful review on Theodore Dreiser's monumental novel AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY.
SENTENCE
"At the end he (Clyde) is dead, not of justice, nor of social
revenge, but of a new disease: worldlessness."
REVIEW
[Okay folks, only my second 5 star rating in the last 54 novels! Read this book...
Theodore Dreiser’s 900 page tome moves slowly--but inexorably--like constellations at night--slow, but grand and beautiful, and holding all types of matter in the sky. This is not an epic of sweeping proportions. Instead it’s a complex, penetrating and fulfilling investigation of the human condition, a psychological chamber, a ground cave with depths to the devil. It’s the rise and fall of a man. Battle between nature, choice and fate. This is deep, meaningful fiction. The psychology in this book is a crowning achievement of Naturalism. American Tragedy takes potential energy and makes it kinetic.
Read any 5 pages for Chris’sakes.
Dreiser maintains this requiem, not so much like an author removed from the pages, simply recording words on paper, but like someone within the story, just as curious, anticipatory and beguiled as the characters in action. You must read this book in no less than 40-50 page portions, and complete within 2 weeks. Anything less and you risk losing gossamer threads under weighty words and thought--the constellation at night. The story builds. Poisonous. Every paragraph essential to the next, like heartbeat. His diction and syntax reflect the mood and pacing of the story. When characters are crestfallen, the writing is dour; when action is swift, the writing short and speedy; when there’s love, the writing is sussurant and sparkles as might fresh snowflakes at night; when the devil is about, the writing is a dirge.
Poverty, passion, struggle, desire, love, wealth, envy, escape, money, murder, trial, salvation
Poverty, passion, struggle, desire, love, wealth, envy, escape, money, murder, trial, salvation
Some complain that Dreiser is too wordy, too ponderous, and could use another round with an editor. I understand that. But for me, his complex-compound, subordinating sentences with numerous modifiers and lengthy run on sentences and long paragraphs satisfies a reading need I have to plumb the soul in excruciating detail. My own mind overthinks itself, and so I relate to thoughts that weave slowly and seam together storyline that may be removed by as much as 800 pages. Dreiser’s writing is like Henry James, but with a mean streak. Accept the circuitous writing and observe the characters grapple with the moment-by-moment blows of their destiny.
When I think about this book, all that arises are scattershot feelings I don’t quite understand. Like this, dammit, what does it mean?:::
~~Dreiser’s words investigate the range of human emotions, in the dark, gently but hotly, like your hesitant, hungry hand probing lambently over the body of a unexpected new lover for the first time.
~~When I return to memories of those girls--my own conquests as a boy--I was early suffering a man’s emotion, a heart the size of which was too small to restrain the same feelings applied in this spectacular book, no matter how sweet or how wicked.
~~When I was young I used to ponder things like most kids, but occasionally I’d warp forward suddenly and see so far beyond the solution that, for no less than several moments I felt as if I was rising, with a grip on nothing, breathless, for example looking down from so high above the northern hemisphere that I conceived the orbit of the planet and knew, positively, as only a few others at that exact moment, that we are rotating counterclockwise AND orbiting counterclockwise the sun, both spindles of a Greater Hand, powerless to effect the most infinitesimal change, like Clyde moving powerless to his end.
~~If I could stop Clyde, I wouldn’t. There’s a fossil in his actions that will be played out, and if I touched him anyway, the australopithecine brutality may rub off on me, and scare me such that I may commit the same crimes, and run away to endure the same punishments.
~~God help Roberta; she can no more gather the first tendril breeze, miles and miles afront the coming storm, already under the shadow of a building anvil, as could a paper cup hold a straight-flag gale.
~~Dreiser shouldn’t be able to see that finely into the human brain! (axon to dendrite to synapse, again a billion times in loop), unless by God--pain and horror--he’s recalling exact perfidy from experience.
~~When I looked to the west this evening just after sunset, low in the sky but high in the air, against the washed-out blue and sound of insects, were ruddy clouds underlit by spectacular salmon, encrusted there almost by putty knife, the crenelations highlighted, I felt that I would never be able to read American Tragedy again for the first time--that initial feeling lost, like this crepuscular atmosphere, slowly fading and going away from me, so that never, never, would I be able to capture the same moment as ever long I live.
This! This is what happens! This is how I respond to Naturalism; relenting; submitting; to Theodore Dreiser; to Emile Zola; to Thomas Hobbes who said that “my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear” and who warned us that bellum omnium contra omnes and that lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
American Tragedy is a classic of the 20th century. I surrender to epic writing that, like an asymptote, nears the f*cking wicked essence of real human tragedy. Read this book..
FROM: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331319.An_American_Tragedy?from_search=true.]
SENTENCE
"At the end he (Clyde) is dead, not of justice, nor of social
revenge, but of a new disease: worldlessness."
REVIEW
[Okay folks, only my second 5 star rating in the last 54 novels! Read this book...
Theodore Dreiser’s 900 page tome moves slowly--but inexorably--like constellations at night--slow, but grand and beautiful, and holding all types of matter in the sky. This is not an epic of sweeping proportions. Instead it’s a complex, penetrating and fulfilling investigation of the human condition, a psychological chamber, a ground cave with depths to the devil. It’s the rise and fall of a man. Battle between nature, choice and fate. This is deep, meaningful fiction. The psychology in this book is a crowning achievement of Naturalism. American Tragedy takes potential energy and makes it kinetic.
Read any 5 pages for Chris’sakes.
Dreiser maintains this requiem, not so much like an author removed from the pages, simply recording words on paper, but like someone within the story, just as curious, anticipatory and beguiled as the characters in action. You must read this book in no less than 40-50 page portions, and complete within 2 weeks. Anything less and you risk losing gossamer threads under weighty words and thought--the constellation at night. The story builds. Poisonous. Every paragraph essential to the next, like heartbeat. His diction and syntax reflect the mood and pacing of the story. When characters are crestfallen, the writing is dour; when action is swift, the writing short and speedy; when there’s love, the writing is sussurant and sparkles as might fresh snowflakes at night; when the devil is about, the writing is a dirge.
Poverty, passion, struggle, desire, love, wealth, envy, escape, money, murder, trial, salvation
Poverty, passion, struggle, desire, love, wealth, envy, escape, money, murder, trial, salvation
Some complain that Dreiser is too wordy, too ponderous, and could use another round with an editor. I understand that. But for me, his complex-compound, subordinating sentences with numerous modifiers and lengthy run on sentences and long paragraphs satisfies a reading need I have to plumb the soul in excruciating detail. My own mind overthinks itself, and so I relate to thoughts that weave slowly and seam together storyline that may be removed by as much as 800 pages. Dreiser’s writing is like Henry James, but with a mean streak. Accept the circuitous writing and observe the characters grapple with the moment-by-moment blows of their destiny.
When I think about this book, all that arises are scattershot feelings I don’t quite understand. Like this, dammit, what does it mean?:::
~~Dreiser’s words investigate the range of human emotions, in the dark, gently but hotly, like your hesitant, hungry hand probing lambently over the body of a unexpected new lover for the first time.
~~When I return to memories of those girls--my own conquests as a boy--I was early suffering a man’s emotion, a heart the size of which was too small to restrain the same feelings applied in this spectacular book, no matter how sweet or how wicked.
~~When I was young I used to ponder things like most kids, but occasionally I’d warp forward suddenly and see so far beyond the solution that, for no less than several moments I felt as if I was rising, with a grip on nothing, breathless, for example looking down from so high above the northern hemisphere that I conceived the orbit of the planet and knew, positively, as only a few others at that exact moment, that we are rotating counterclockwise AND orbiting counterclockwise the sun, both spindles of a Greater Hand, powerless to effect the most infinitesimal change, like Clyde moving powerless to his end.
~~If I could stop Clyde, I wouldn’t. There’s a fossil in his actions that will be played out, and if I touched him anyway, the australopithecine brutality may rub off on me, and scare me such that I may commit the same crimes, and run away to endure the same punishments.
~~God help Roberta; she can no more gather the first tendril breeze, miles and miles afront the coming storm, already under the shadow of a building anvil, as could a paper cup hold a straight-flag gale.
~~Dreiser shouldn’t be able to see that finely into the human brain! (axon to dendrite to synapse, again a billion times in loop), unless by God--pain and horror--he’s recalling exact perfidy from experience.
~~When I looked to the west this evening just after sunset, low in the sky but high in the air, against the washed-out blue and sound of insects, were ruddy clouds underlit by spectacular salmon, encrusted there almost by putty knife, the crenelations highlighted, I felt that I would never be able to read American Tragedy again for the first time--that initial feeling lost, like this crepuscular atmosphere, slowly fading and going away from me, so that never, never, would I be able to capture the same moment as ever long I live.
This! This is what happens! This is how I respond to Naturalism; relenting; submitting; to Theodore Dreiser; to Emile Zola; to Thomas Hobbes who said that “my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear” and who warned us that bellum omnium contra omnes and that lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
American Tragedy is a classic of the 20th century. I surrender to epic writing that, like an asymptote, nears the f*cking wicked essence of real human tragedy. Read this book..
FROM: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/331319.An_American_Tragedy?from_search=true.]
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