
An American Tragedy
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Narrated by:
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Dan John Miller
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By:
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Theodore Dreiser
An American Tragedy is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as Theodore Dreiser's supreme achievement.
First published in 1925 and based on an actual criminal case, An American Tragedy was the inspiration for the 1951 film A Place in the Sun, which won six Academy Awards and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.
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Yet for all his clumsiness as a writer, it would be wrong to call Dreiser tone deaf. In fact, when his characters speak, Dreiser reveals a deft ability to capture the nuance of place and class in their language. Business executives sound convincingly stentorian, tradespeople sound canny and unsentimental, young folk sound slangy and louche.
[An aside: It’s strange that both James Fenimore Cooper and Theodore Dreiser—key literary figures in the 19th and 20th centuries—had similarly tortured writing styles that were mitigated by an ear for dialog. What is it about the creative soil from which these writers sprang that they could only sing when their characters spoke?]
The contradictions in Dreiser’s style offer a microcosm of the novel’s assets and deficits. On the positive side of the ledger, An American Tragedy takes us on a guided tour of early 20th century America, from desolate city streets to the small town boarding houses, from revival meetings to drunken road trips, from swank hotels to factory floors. Along the way, were are shown an indelible profile of capitalism’s unwitting pawns. On the negative side, the story crawls along at such a pace that even its several reversals of fortune lack any punch. Dreiser was no puritan—indeed, he explores his character’s lustful and craven impulses without censure or commentary. Even so, he seems determined to drain his narrative of any pleasure, as if entertaining the reader were like dancing on the sabbath.
For much of his career, Dreiser made a living as a reporter, and in many respects, An American Tragedy reads like a very long news story. Nowhere is the journalistic voice more evident than in the last third of the novel, which deals with a murder trial and its aftermath. This is also where Dreiser seems on surest footing, his just-the-facts approach sounding and feeling thoroughly modern. But if such writing anticipates works like Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song by half a century, it must also be acknowledged that every narrative device Dreiser employs had been developed fifty years earlier by Emile Zola and his realist confrères. We are all susceptible to cultural chauvinism and can easily fall into the trap of viewing cornerstones of our culture’s art and literature as being the product of conditions that are uniquely our own. Let the record therefore show that there would have been no An American Tragedy without there first being a Germinal or La Bête Humaine.
Despite these French antecedents, An American Tragedy is a quintessentially American work of art. Its dark themes, sprawling scope and hard-nosed storytelling all have analogues in the contours of American history, geography and art. Reading this book is like driving across the United States. There are some noteworthy landmarks to be seen along the way, but also long, boring stretches that must be endured, and indeed this mix of adventure and tedium feels uniquely American. In the end, you are glad to have made the journey, but also glad when the trip is over.
[NOTE ON THE AUDIBLE PERFORMANCE OF THIS BOOK: Reading Dreiser’s prose would be a challenge for any actor, and therefore any performance of this text should be handicapped accordingly. That said, Dan John Miller is probably not the best choice for this undertaking. He reads stiffly—a problem that can be somewhat overcome by speeding up playback—and he struggles to give characters distinct voices. Some of his choices land very wide of the mark. Much of the novel’s action takes place in upstate New York, yet he gives many of the hard scrabble characters of the region southern drawls. Gosh darn it, this ain’t Faulkner!]
Quintessentially American--Warts and All
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Not Monty
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Still relevant
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Past as prologue
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Tragedy
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Great performance to a very good story.
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Great story coming of age
Every high school student would find this a typical classic
Also one if you missed on your summer reading list, read now.
Classic
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the book
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a period piece, still resonant
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Worth every minute
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