The Theodore Dreiser Blog

Had to Practice...

2009-04-11T20:54:00.001-04:00

Things got changed around and I had to check back in. Your comments, of course, are most welcome. TE

2009-04-11T20:40:00.002-04:00

Ummm... I note some activity on this blog. Rather glacial, really, but glad to see two recent posts. Watch for more because I have a trip to Indiana planned and I'm going to give a first person account of a city that was very important to Mr. Dreiser.

Back at it...

2007-01-16T20:31:00.000-05:00

Hello all. It was a struggle to get back to my blog. Not just for "creative" reasons but because the blogmaster has changed access and told me that the whole blog experience was "upgraded" with all sorts of new and improved things. But, of course, I couldn't remember by user name or password so, well, you know, just the old run-around.

At any rate, this is just a short post because I can't stay too long. But I just wanted to say that one reason I haven't posted any entries is because I haven't read anything by Dreiser for a while. But that's changed and so it's time to get going again. See you tomorrow or the next day, watch for comments about the short stories... some good, some not so good...

Did you think I'd never return...?

2006-03-27T20:54:00.000-05:00

Hello... Uh... What time is it...? Wow, I must've been asleep... Last thing I remember was discussing an opera about American Tragedy. And C'mas Eve. Was that last year? Couldn't be. Hey, I wonder if my second publication was ever mailed from "The International Dreiser Society." Oh... no, never got that; well, I'm sure they're working on it. I wonder if they ever updated that one web-site entry from 2003...?

Anybody out there...?

Since my last posting I have read quite a few of D's works: Hoosier Holiday, Jenny Gerhardt, Genius. Here's a joke I used at work. Let's say someone walked by while I was reading at lunch. He/she might ask: Tom, what're you reading? I'd say, I'm reading your biography (and I'd show them the title: "Genius".) They'd laugh. Then I'd say: and this is only Volume I. Brought the house down.

Genius is brilliant. I don't think H.L Mencken liked it - I have to go back and re-read his comments; I didn't finish them because I didn't want Mencken to give away the ending - which is phenomenal. When Eugene and Suzanne pass each other after five years and pretend not to recognize each other, that misconnect and disconnect are riveting. I thought of the weirdness that characterizes events in "The Alexandria Quartet", where reality oftentimes seems up for grabs.

Gotta go. I'll be back. Love to hear from you!

You Wanna Listen to What on C'mas Eve?

2005-12-11T06:49:00.000-05:00

Hello Drieser Fans!

Sorry I haven't made any posts lately. I know it's difficult to navigate the early years of the 21st Century without seeking insight about a chronicler (Mr. Dreiser, not me) of the early years of the last century. I guess I could claim that I've just been too busy! That's a good excuse, plus you could infer that I have really important things to do. My blog adviser - one of the best in the business, and I mean that, this chap actually gets paid for writing a blog - tells me that one shouldn't let a blog get stale, that posts should be frequent. That's advice I try to follow.

So, a few things first: RE on Christmas eve... take note of a note that was sent to me a week or so ago. Don't want to listen to "Here Comes Santa Claus" or one more rendition of "Up on the Rooftop"? Well, try something happy - tune into the Metropolitan Opera's performance of the new opera - "An American Tragedy!"

The opera will be broadcast on the radio on Dec. 24 at 1:30 p.m. Check the Met's Web site to see if your local public radio station will be carrying it. If you live in the Cincinnati area, I'm told that WGUC will broadcast.

You know, I can't help but think about how Clyde ignored Roberta on Christmas eve. Was there ever a more heartbreaking telling of someone being stood up, abandoned? Roberta, completely alone, with a present for Clyde, waiting, hoping that what was happening wasn't really happening at the rich people's holiday soiree. Roberta peering into the dark night and winter, trying to avoid a crushing but inevitable sense of having been used. I don't have a copy of the novel and it's a good thing. I don't know if I want to be reimmersed in the pitiful sense of hope that fills Roberta with life - for a while. Remember, it's just a novel. But that's what makes D so great - you have to keep telling yourself that. CLYDE AND ROBERTA ARE JUST MADE UP! THEY DON'T REALLY EXIST!

Among family members who pretend to stay interested in my Dreiser commentary I have said that much of D's writing - particularly Tragedy - makes me think of a Mahler symphony. Kind of difficult, you know? A lot going on. Not too happy for a long time. But then suddenly some magical melody jumps out of a dark muddle of twisting gloomy tones; it can be a dance or a folk tune or birds whistling in the woods. And then the rest of the instruments catch up and pure bliss races along until, well, you know it's gonna happen - some tuba signals that the devil and all the mean people are back and poor melody gets slammed and trapped by fate and whatever else just makes people want to cry. Now that I think about it, D and Mahler were writing/composing at about the same time... Hmmm, I think there's a link; those fellas might have been IMing each other.

I finished The Titan. A great second part of the Cowperwood trilogy. The last 100 pages or so were brilliant. Characters, color, conversation, reporting, places, politics, commentary jump out of the text. I don't think it's all under control, though. The final events of the novel seem somewhat random, almost disconnected.

And - I hate to write it - but I think the final drama, as Frank tries to get the Chicago City Council to extend his transit franchise for 50 years, is dated. Think about it: Cowperwood is trying to take over the entire Chicago transit system. The image is good - the Titan will control how everyone moves around and through the city. That movement will influence commerce and industry and land values. From the top of a skyscraper, the people and machines move like ants through a controlled and predictable pattern, with wealth and power ascending to one person - Frank Cowperwood.

But most people today have never been on a bus - deliberately. A few cities have light rail and subways. Street cars? Come on, just urban gadgets for tourists - they don't carry power or the powerful. Frank's power is really last century. That's not D's fault. My comment is just that readers of today - especially young readers outside of Chicago or New York or San Francisco or Portland - might find it hard to accept that the guy who owns the bus sytem could be the equivalent of George Soros or Bill Gates. Anyway, who owns bus or rail systems? They're public entities (to a certain extent because of people like F.Cowperwood). Now, if you live in New York City and you're wondering about getting around in case the transit workers do strike... Well, there are always exceptions.

Frank's work to rebuild the tunnels under the Chicago River is very 21st century - more on that latah!

Remember, if you want a notice when this this blog has new material, send your e-mail to tfewing1@yahoo.com. I'll keep all addresses confidential. But if the agent of a certain someone offers me 20Gs for the e-mail string... well, we all gotta get by...

"Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent..."

2005-12-01T18:13:00.000-05:00

Are you from Chicago? Are you familiar with some of Chicago's more sullied and storied events; I'm thinking, you know, like its political history? Well, maybe you know the phrase "Don't want nobody nobody sent."

The phrase references the surprise appearance of official investigators looking into shenanigans involving money and votes and access and open public processes and who gets to be in charge and why. Come to think about it, that's hardly a historical reference for Windy City politics. It's kinda timely today.

Anyway, an up-and-coming news sleuth filled me in on that phrase and it's certainly something our man Frank might be worrying about. I'm at the point in The Titan in which the Republicans just won City Hall, a significant purge of the long and profitably entrenched Dems. This purge was financed by one Hosmer Hand along with some other wealthy colleagues, with on-the-ground tactics carried out by very colorful hirelings who always have one grudge or another against any power structure.

The real goal of Mr. Hand's upheaval, interestingly, is not political power. Rather, it's revenge at you-know-who. That's right: Frank Cowperwood. And you probably know why - because Frank stole the affection of the young Mrs. Hosmer Hand, turning the elderly husband into a vengeful cuckold. Actually, this same call for retribution comes from many in Chicago. Frank moves through social circles like a tomcat.

But, now, Aileen has met Polk Lynde and there are sparks within a dangerously charged atmosphere. More on this latah...

How about that name "Hosmer Hand?" Is that great or what? What about "Polk Lynde?"

No author is better than Dreiser at creating, describing, presenting and commenting on his characters, usually presenting all of those descriptives in the same sentence, or remarkably few sentences. Consider how he expands on Polk Lynde's personality: "He (Polk) was comparatively young - not more than Aileen's own age - schooled, if not educated, at one of the best American colleges, of excellent taste in the matter of clothes, friends, and the details of living with which he chose to surround himself, but at heart a rake." Schooled, if not educated - ever meet anyone like that?

Polk's father is a wealthy farm implement manufacturer. Polk is the gilded heir; money is just to fight off boredom. Consider how Drieser sets Polk's relationship with hard work, risk, capital, labor, showing up for work everyday, i.e., reality: "He (Polk) realized that the business itself was a splendid thing. He liked on occasion to think of it with all its extent of ground-space, plain red-brick buildings, tall stacks and yelling whistles; but he liked in no way to have anything to do with the rather commonplace routine of its manipulation." A contemptuous, pompous and arrogant rake - I would say finely crafted by Mr. Dreiser.

I'm getting long-winded, so I just have to pose a rhetorical question now. As accomplished as Dreiser is at descriptions, characterization, historical recounting, psychological insight and commentary... I'm wondering after 327 pages, will the sum of The Titan be greater than its great parts?

Oh - now I'm really carrying on, but I checked the ticket prices for "Tragedy" in New York. Some sections are sold out - I think for the opening night.

Keep in touch.

Breaking news from New York...

2005-11-26T18:58:00.000-05:00

This just in: AP is reporting details still aren't settled for the ending of the opera "An American Tragedy." Show opens New York, Dec. 2. I won't be there. If any readers attend, we would appreciate a full report. (Send e-mail to tfewing1@yahoo.com to discu$$ payment.) For more info, go to: http://www.anamericantragedy-theopera.org.

The write-up sent to me tells that the opera's composer's father - got that? - really liked "A Place in the Sun", the 1951 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, a movie that is supposed to be based on "An American Tragedy." In my mind, that comparison is similar to a saw-horse and a Kentucky thoroughbred.

I can't recall M. Clift's movie name - I think it was George, not Clyde (the name of the character in the novel). But here's the basic difference: the movie was about Mr. Clift (or George), a personality, a singular presence in the movie's world. But the novel is not singularly about Clyde. Yes, we're tightly linked to Clyde's tragic youth and young adulthood (that's all he gets...). But in a larger sense, Clyde is just a strike-plate, just the dynamic, the engine, if you will that opens up and exposes and pulls us into a much larger world - the world as it existed in the early 20th Century.

Also, keep in mind that a tragedy, in literature, exacts widespread ramifications. To set things right, payback is extensive. Think back to high school English when you had to pretend you were interested in all those words in MacBeth but what you really liked was the witches and stuff like that.

A real tragedy means the columns and pillars of the royal house come tumbling down, with lightening and earthquakes wreaking havoc throughout the kingdom. There's trouble in Denmark, not just with a couple of kids. The movie did not develop nor portray the fundamental systemic, societal misalignments in which Clyde and Roberta are trapped. In the movie, the upper class twits became George's friends. In the novel, they were at best neutral, at worst actually hostile. That distinction is critical. At the end of the novel, the cataclysm of Clyde's decisions and actions reverberate from Albany to Rochester, from Boston to Denver. Hopefully the opera will impose this broad scope. Without such themes and precepts and concepts, it won't be Wagnerian, it'll be "Days of Our Lives." But, on with the show! Maybe the music will be good.

Thanks to one of the AP's best new reporters for sending me the info about the opera. I had seen reference to it a while ago in a Terra Haute, IN, newspaper. But I had forgotten about it and I was very glad to get the update. Also, this reporter sent a very nice note. (Plus, I happen to know she's very pretty.)

I'm still reading The Titan. This post was going to comment on that novel, which I'm enjoying. To be honest, I'm not sure why Dreiser has Frank pursuing so many women for so many pages. It's done masterfully, but it seems overdone. What's the point? OK, so Frank is a moral ingrate, a self-centered egotistical rationalizing womanizer. So far, though, I'm left confused by the deep and swirling descriptions that Dreiser affixes to this behavior.

Maybe a light bulb will go on as I continue...

Now here's a tragedy - I have to go back to work on Monday (just kidding, boss)! I took off all of Thanksgiving week. Very pleasant.

Remember, if you want to get an e-mail notice about posts on this blog, please send your e-mail address to tfewing1@yahoo.com. I promise I'll keep it confidential; I won't even give it to John J. McKenty as he sits in his rocking chair keeping track of votes on Chicago's City Council...

Frank and Aileen Are In Chicago - Watch Out...

2005-11-19T22:43:00.000-05:00

Hello people. You'll note it's Saturday night. You're thinking: pathetic, the poor fellow is writing this Dreiser blog on a Saturday night. Yup. That's right. And glad to be doing it, too. That's just the kind of insouciance (go ahead, look that one up) a person can assume at the ripe old age of _4!

Anyway, you'll note the title of this post - about Frank and Aileen. That's the Cowperwoods, making their mark in the Windy City and Frank is kicking butt and taking names. This is how The Titan opens.

I'm glad to be back with Dreiser's three dimensional characters; they're almost life like; in fact, you'd think they are real, or were real, since in this early part of the novel the year is 1878.

I have to compare this to the short stories. Sad. Depressing. Morose. Unhappy. Jeez. The thing is, in the novels, Dreiser's characters can have some raucus times. Look at Clyde learning to dance in Tragedy. Or Clyde and his fellow bellhops ordering drinks at dinner after work. Or Frank's parties at his new house in Philadelphia. Or Charles and George at the "resort" in Carrie. No fun in the short stories (at least the ones I read). Mostly, these stories were recountings of a single person, recollective, frustrated, trapped. Yes, they may be well written, but they're not easy to read. And another comment: they're almost too old; in many ways they are dated, with characters stuck in a world that's long gone, and their struggles and challenges are stuck there, too.

Now consider the opening text from Chapter 2 of The Titan:

"The city of Chicago, with whose development the personality of Frank Algernon Cowperwood was soon to be definitely linked! To whom may the laurels as laureate of this Florence of the West yet fall? This singing flame of a city, this all America, this poet in chaps and buckskin, this rude, raw Titan, this Burns of a city! By its shimmering lake it lay, a king of shreds and patches, a maundering yokel with an epic in its mouth, a tramp, a hobo among cities, with the grip of Caesar in its mind, the dramatic force of Euripides in its soul."

Wow. Now that's some writing. Powerful images, dreamlike, burlesque, historical in scope, romantic, classic, modern - all at the same time. That force isn't in the short stories. Also missing are Dreiser's fantastic, weird characters. Consider the introduction to General Van Sickle, Franks' lawyer in The Titan:

"The old soldier, over fifty, had been a general of division during the Civil War, and had got his real start in life by filing false titles to property in southern Illinois, and then bringing suits to substantiate his fraudulent claims before friendly associates." Hey, it's just business. Remember, the General is Frank's lawyer. How can fun things not lie ahead?

Gotta stop. Because, it is Saturday night and I think Lawrence Welk reruns are on soon on our PBS station here in Cincinnati.

By the way, if you would be interested in an e-mail notice telling when there is a new post on this blog, send me your e-mail address and I will notify you and I will keep all e-mails confidential. Unless, of course, you are an associate of General Van Sickle and the Cook County prosecutor is looking for you... But surely there aren't people like the General any more are there? Send your e-mail to: tfewing1@yahoo.com.

Today's New York TIMES

2005-11-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

I liked the article in today's New York Times about the man in New Mexico who purchased, for his spouse, the complete set of the Penguin Classics Library. That's 1082 books. The seller: Amazon.com. The price: $7989.50 + free shipping. I went to Amazon's site to see if any of Dreiser's works are within that set. Just one: "Sister Carrie."

Sorry I've not made a post here in a few days. I'm still reading the short stories. OK, no excuse for not writing anything. But, to be honest, I'm just not moved to write by these stories. On the bus this morning I almost I finished one - "Will You Walk Into My Parlour?" - which had potential and I wanted to give it a thumbs up. Finally finished it at lunch. In many ways, it is a good story; but I thought the end petered out - that, after 70 pages!

Why isn't anyone writing any responses? No one reading any novels? Anyone planning to attend the Dreiser commemorative at the community college in New York in June, 2006? I plan on being there.

Keep in touch...

Some comments on Sister Carrie

2005-11-07T22:08:00.000-05:00

1. Carrie likes nice stuff - clothes, jewelry, furniture, houses. She's not a "material girl" in the way we think of that term now, i.e., gathering stuff seemingly just for stuff's sake or measuring a person's value just by how much stuff she or he owns. Rather, Carrie likes nice stuff compared to being being destitute, having nothing, or barely enough to scrape by even after working 50 hours a week. After living with Drouett, Carrie passes some of her peers from the shoe factory, a job she lost to sickness. She compares her nice clothes (from Drouett) with the threadbare, unflattering garments the shopgirls are wearing. She doesn't want to revert to that condition. The world's a nicer place when your clothier is Ann Taylor or LL Bean rather than Dollar General or the Salvation Army thrift store. Carrie is torn about her relationship and dependence on Drouett, but she can't bear the thought of slipping back to a marginal existence under brutal employment. Would you? The desire and struggle for comfort is a critical drive with Drieser's characters; sometimes, it's all-consuming and it skews direction and blinds choices. For Carrie, a pathway opened up. She looked for an alternative, there wasn't any.

2. George Hurstwood's fate is interesting, and I don't think entirely plausible. As noted, he manages a bar/nightclub called Hanna & Hoggs and it is one of the places in Chicago. In Chicago, George is the man about town: he's at the theatre, the clubs, the restaurants, he's a glad-hander, he's generous, he's gracious and handsome and sends flowers and buys people drinks. But after moving to New York, George falters, his life slips into a slow, irreversible decline. Why? Why couldn't he become a first-class schmoozer like in Chicago? Some questions: Just what did George do prior to getting his manager's job? Did he just luck into that? He didn't own H&H. Apparently whatever his resume, it wasn't much good in New York. (Of course, there is the matter of the stolen $10,000 - but he did return most of that...) George is attractive and successful in Chicago just because he was lucky? External to such fortunate placement he was a loser. Not sure what all this means, or if it's entirely realistic.

3. Final comment on Carrie - she was completely unformed as a character. She was pushed and pulled with little resistance. She didn't think for herself. She sat in her rocking chair. Obviously, this was deliberate on Dreiser's part. I liken her to a stem cell - she could become anything, but there was very little to set her in one direction or another.

If you have any thoughts on Hurstwood's demise, I hope you'll respond.

[Still reading the short stories...]

Sister Carrie (cont.)

2005-11-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

Well, hello again, and this will be "part two" of my very quick summary of "what happens" in Sister Carrie. After the summary, I want to make some comments.

My last post introduced the relationship between Carrie and Mr. Drouett. (Oh, importantly, I have to report that I had to take my copy of Carrie back to the library. So, my summary here is from memory. A few details may escape me...) Carrie and Drouett's was an important "friendship." But even more important is the relationship between Carrie and George Hurstwood.

George is Drouett's friend. Actually, George is friends with many people, many important people in Chicago. George is a playah. He manages a cool bar - referred to as a "resort", by Dreiser - called Hannah & Hoggs, a place well known to many of Chicago's movers and shakers. This place, actually this placement of George is important. It defines him and the form given to him by his standing as the manager is critical. Later he abandons his post with H & Hs when he and Carrie flee to Montreal and then New York City. George never recovers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Drouett introduces George and Carrie, who casts a spell over George. Carrie is mildly interested. George thinks that Carrie and Drouett are married. That's one difficulty. Another is the fact that George is married; but this is not a happy example of "'til death do us part." In fact, George abandons his spouse, family, job, reputation, connections, everything he has, to run off with Carrie, whom he almost kidnaps in the night, under the pretense that Drouett is ill. Oh, and there is also a crime committed. In a series of great scenes George tricks Carrie and they leave Chicago, eventually residing in New York City. Once there, do they live happily ever after? Yeah, right. They do okay for a few years, i.e., George does OK. Carrie mostly sits around. But then George's business is sold and his life starts a downward spiral. He never recovers. Carrie has to find work. She gets a series of small parts in various theatrical productions. This modest start becomes the opportunity for her to pull herself up by her bootstraps, kind of a Horatio Alger success. She goes to the top; George sinks.

Well, dear reader, if you've read Sister Carrie, please pardon this brief summary that has left out all of Dreiser's masterful characterization, dynamics, psychology, tension, friendships, commentary, history and insight. I only present it in order to make a few comments on this remarkable tale of people and cities and work and economics and the way it was in 1900.

So where are the comments? Next post.

Very quickly, I have to return to the book of short stories that I referenced a few postings ago. I'm still reading it. Again, they are OK, not the best, not the worst. I'm going to try to finish them. Why, you ask? Don't have an answer for that.

Have a good weekend!

Our attention is diverted.

2005-10-30T07:43:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers:

Have you seen the posts from the - I presume - gentleman named "Manley"? He writes well enough, but I'm wondering if he's wandered into the wrong class, so to speak. He wants Dreiser picture books, coffee table books and in one post he asks about a Dreiser tour guide for the Erie Canal. I think that reading - all reading - is something to encourage in an increasingly visual society where information and "knowledge" can seem to arrive instantly via the Internet and television. But I'm at a loss about comment or advice for Mr. Manley, actually, a sense of unease that extends far beyond trying to answer whether or not CVS sells Dreiser's novels. I think Mr. Manley has a boat. It's possible that while working on his boat or waterskiing or keeping his head under the water to watch the propellor spin, perhaps Mr. Manley was in some way afflicted, resulting in a condition that still hasn't resolved completely. I just don't know; complete sanity is not one of my strong points. Another possibility is that the waterways in which Mr. Manely floats are not the purest and that various mind-altering volatile compounds affected him. We'll retain his posts. Perhaps a more clinically trained reader can offer some help. In the meantime, please advise if anyone sees any of Dreiser's novels at Super-X or Costco or Sam's Club. I'm sure they are there.

But now, all seriousness aside, let's turn to Ms. Noe's delightful and well written comments. Thank you. Please keep us posted about works by Alexander McCall Smith.

As I noted in a previous posting I finished Sister Carrie last weekend. It took a while. Not nearly as long as finishing An American Tragedy which I had to renew many times (although I also had to renew Carrie...). But Sister Carrie is an easier book to read. The actual sentences, the words chosen, are not as complex and tightly woven.

For those of you who haven't yet read Carrie, the book tells of a young woman who goes to Chicago to find work. It's not easy - her struggle itself is one of Dreiser's messages. Carrie does find work in a shoe factory but she becomes ill, misses work and is fired. So she starts looking again and runs into a fellow she met on the train that first brought her to Chicago. He's a nice enough guy, although our author literally describes Mr. Drouett as "a masher." Drouett is a successful salesman and he gives Carrie money. Then he starts buying her clothes. Then, when she can't stand living with her provincially minded sister and brother-in-law, who largely like having her around because she pays $4 a week for rent, Carrie lets Mr. Drouett set her up in an apartment. Then we learn that she and Mr. Drouett are, indeed, living in that same apartment. He establishes the lie that Carrie is Mrs. Drouett.

Dreiser masterfully presents the non-choices, the dilemmas, for Carrie as she struggles. The Chicago winter is approaching and Carrie has no coat. She has no food. But here is Mr. Drouett, very friendly, he's not threatening or demanding, with the offer: just take some of my money, Carrie, pay me back when you get work. Carrie has no choice; she either maintains Victorian propriety, and starves or freezes or both, or she takes Mr. Drouett's material offerings. She has no strong feelings for him. If there is any intimacy in their relationship it's not overt, quite possibly because even such a Platonic relationship was scandalous enough for the year 1900, when Carrie was published.

More later - remember, it's a long book.

The Short Stories

2005-10-27T20:18:00.000-04:00

First, I want to thank Anonymous for her or his comments regarding Frank C.'s status in the Financier. I agree, at 20, or so, Frank has accomplished quite a bit, and compared to many 20 year olds - why it hasn't been that long ago since this writer was 20, or perhaps even 2 X 20 - Frank is "Da Man." But I think that our author has deliberately cast him (i.e., Frank, not your blogger) as a kind of wunderkind. Recall that Frank has it "figured out" early in the novel. He knows what the world's struggles are all about. He knows who wins the battle of the weak and the strong. Recall the tremendous scene in the first 30 pages or so when Frank, as a boy, watches the battle of the sea creatures in the aquarium in the window of the store in Philadelphia. (I would be more specific about that battle but I took my copy of the F. back to the library a while ago and I can't look it up right now.) So, my point is, that at 20, Frank is on a mission, and he's successful. But Anonymous's point is well taken. In a way, Frank is almost two-dimensional; he's just a money making automaton who can do no wrong in the money business.

Now, I want to turn to Short Stories for at least a comment or two. I am reading a collection called "Free and Other Stories." Publication - 1st printing: August, 1918; 6th (and final) printing, April, 1927. Either date - that's a long time ago. The later date is 78 years ago!

The story "Free" might be summarized as "Clyde Griffiths and Roberta get married and live together and have a family." Ohhhh... It's not happy. [For those of you not there yet, Clyde and Roberta are an important twosome in American Tragedy. At first they think about marriage but then Clyde has other ideas and they take a boat ride together... and, well, I can't tell anymore because you have to read the book, but I can write that the boat ride does prevent their marriage.]

Anyway, in Free, our hero (Rufus Haymaker) is trapped in a death watch for his poor sick wife and the dilemma for Mr. Haymaker is that while he hates to contemplate her desperate condition, the truth is he never never liked the lady. So, there are many philosophical riddles and conundrums. The story's OK. It's called a "short story" but it's 53 pages! Dreiser can write, can't he - forever? The man never runs out of words.

Anyway, the story Free has some dark humor. To help the poor wife - remember, this is medicine (so called) as it was practiced at least 78 years ago - Dr. Storm orders "a transfusion." Blood is obtained from "a strong ex-cavalryman out of a position." The wife rallies, but just briefly. So then, a 2nd transfusion is ordered. This time - from a horse! And the husband is worried that his mixed and confused thoughts might somehow affect his wife's demise!

Meanwhile, Mr. Haymaker is thinking about being "free." Get it? And having a few years when he doesn't have to pretend, pretend, pretend. He ogles the nurse: "a smooth, pink, graceful creature, with light hair and blue eyes, the kind of eyes and color that of late, and in earlier years, had suggested to him the love time or youth that he had missed."

So far I have also read "McEwen of the Slave Makers", about a fellow who falls asleep and becomes a soldier with a colony of ants and a story with the very unpolitically correct title of "Nigger Jeff" in which a lynch mob is trying to abduct a black man being held by the sheriff.

Well, so much for happy themes that don't quite ever modulate to the major key.

I still need to comment on Sister Carrie, which I finished last weekend on a dark and stormy and chilly night; not quite as cold and stormy as the blizzard that filled New York's streets as George went for a final night in another flophouse and laid down to rest after he turned on the gas.

Hey, remember, they're just novels...

Thoughts on "action."

2005-10-20T21:54:00.000-04:00

Actually, I'm not sure if "action" is the right word. My reference is to an event, or a new personality, that really upends the landscape on which Dreiser's characters are currently set. For example, in a previous comment I thought that the great Chicago fire was the equivalent to hurricane Katrina for Frank Cowperwood's operations in Philadelphia. In Sister Carrie the reader gets the same sense of shift after certain events, e.g., the panicked travel that follows when Hurstwood discovers that his business safe is unlocked or when Carrie goes out with the Vances and, to her surprise, Mrs. Vance's brother will be part of the group for dinner. These kinds of modulations propel action and advance the story. I find them unexpected and surprising; a tactic that makes Dreiser such a good author. The action idea in Dreiser is almost contradictory. In the novels I've read (so far just two and a half) the characters are largely inactive. Clyde works in a collar factory. Carrie seems to spend most of her time in a rocking chair reading penny dreadfuls. Frank does his ciphering (except, of course, when Eileen is around...). Action in these novels is not like in an "action novel" where people climb mountains or go hunting or ride horses or get in gun fights. Rather, the action occurs more fundamentally - the stage itself, the landscape, shifts in some fundamental way and our friends find themselves pushed forward.

In Cincinnati, where I live, we have a great used book store on Main Street called the Ohio Book Store. Truly one of the best - three or four stories of a every kind of book imaginable - from five years old to 125 years old. I was there last week to see which of Dreiser's novels might be available. I found a Modern Libary edition of Sister Carrie which was in pretty bad shape, but it did have an introduction written by the great man himself. Then, I found a two volume boxed set of Tragedy; it, too, was in horrible shape - frayed, torn, faded and really old! I didn't buy either but I did buy two biographies. One is titled "Dreiser"; the author is W.A. Swanberg, pictured on the jacket cover and he is smoking a pipe (that's gotta mean something). It was published in 1965 and it is in pretty good shape. On the first inside page a previous owner signed his name and wrote the date - 1972! You know what? I think I know the guy! My complaint: why did he have to sign his name in ink?

The second book is also titled "Dreiser." It is written by Philip L. Gerber and it seems (I haven't read it yet) to be more commentary than biography. This book is part of a series called "Twayne's United States Authors Series" and it was published in 1964. The Series editor is (was - 1964 was a long time ago...) at Indiana University, a college that has a hold on me - and I am not an IU graduate.

Anyway, when I was paying for these two books I commented that I saw just two of Dreiser's novels. The bookstore owner said that his novels very rarely come in. Why is that? My birthday copy of The Titan is old, purchased from a collector on E-bay. Maybe everyone's keeping her or his copies; maybe there weren't too many printed; or maybe the copies were all burned...

That's not funny. Dreiser's books were ordered to be burned by at least one library board. More on that another time.

Suddenly I remember that there are dishes on the dinner table. Real dishes to pick up or drop or, ugh, clean somewhat and place in the dishwasher. They are not dishes on a table at Hannah and Hogg's on Adam Street or at Sherry's at 5th Avenue and 28th Street. No, these dishes are real, very real.

a present

2005-10-16T13:50:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday was my birthday, and consequential here only because I was lucky enough to get a present: a copy of "The Titan", from my wonderful spouse, who has found herself having to sit through many one-sided discussions and readings based on or from some of the novels... She said she doesn't mind...

Anyway, I liked The Financier. I thought Frank Cowperwood was cool. He was tough without being mean. He liked life, the arts, beauty. Of course he was also a crook, spending 13 months in the big house, but, hey, it's business.

Then, whose name jumped out at me as I flipped through the pages of my new copy of The Titan?! Frank's! Really. I didn't know that The Titan starts where The Financier ends. You see, my birthday present will be a friendly companion for quite some time. Just think of how many chores will not get done, how many leaves will not be raked... My copy of The Titan is 552 pages.

But I am digressing because first I have to finish Sister Carrie. I am at the point where she is getting ready for her first theatrical appearance, a benefit presentation for Drouet's lodge.

Which book are you reading now?

Hello Theodore Dreiser Fans

2005-10-13T20:08:00.000-04:00

Hello to everyone who enjoys - perhaps that's not the right word - Theodore Dreiser's novels and writings! "Enjoys" might be too superfluous. A better welcome might be to everyone who is "challenged" or "stimulated" or "enlightended" by Theodore Dreiser's novels (and enjoyment can certainly be a part of such responses).

Here's how I started reading Dreiser: a few years ago - at the turn of the century - many of you might have seen a Modern Library list of the top 100 English language novels of the 20th Century. Well, Drieser has two on that list - Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy.

I read Tragedy first and it bowled me over. Jeez. This guy knew how to pen a sentence or two. Then I read "My Life With Dreiser" by Mrs. Dreiser, who, of course, didn't become "Mrs." until the end of the book... Then I read The Financier and I thought it was better - in some ways - than Tragedy. What a remarkable historical novel. Everything's going fine for Frank Cowperwood in Philadelphia and then what knocks him off his perch? The great Chicago fire! I'm thinking: is this a parallel to Katrina or what?

It occurred to me that others might be avid Dreiser readers, folks who might like a place to comment on Ted's writings and ideas. So I thought I'd get this Blog started, an event made possible with the assistance of a professional blogger - my son, a status that is not a joke; he is actually paid for blogging, another story, of course, but important here because he set up this site.

So if you like Mr. Dreiser's novels and other writings, feel free to contribute ideas, thoughts, perspectives, analyses, whatever. See you soon.