Sister Carrie (original 1900; edition 2009)

A book that is awkward and stuttering in some places, and very interesting and insightful in others - characteristic Dreiser. The last 150 pages somehow redeem the first 350. If I were a less patient person, I probably would have given up on him long ago. ( )

I was not familiar with this author, who lived around the late 19th, early 20th century, but spotted this novel at Barnes & Noble. It's published in B&N's classics series that I like because they are very reasonably priced. They seem to be well edited- very rarely I find typos or other mistakes and they contain an introductory essay by written currently; typically by a college professor that is an expert in that author's works and life.

Sister Carrie is an interesting novel that traces the life-paths of two individuals. Carrie, whose life progresses from a poverty background growing up in Wisconsin, and moves to Chicago searching for a better life, and eventually becomes a successful actress in New York City. And George Hurtswood who is the manager of a respectable bar in Chicago and whose life ends by killing himself after his last years spent in poverty and destitution in New York City.

Although Carrie is presumably the central character in the novel, after all it's eponimously named, Hurtswood may be the more interesting person. His gradual descent into deprivation, while remembering his former wealthy station, is depressing reading some times. Reading this brings to mind the comment that Francesca da Rimini says to Dante, when he encounters her in the second circle of hell:

"Nessun maggior dolore
che ricordarsi del tempo felice
ne la miseria; e cio` sa 'l tuo dottore"

Longfellow's translation is: "There is no greater sorrow/ Than to be mindful of the happy time / In misery, and that thy Teacher knows"

In any event, Francesca's statement fits very well the state that Hurtswood saw himself from time to time, as he descended into the hell of his own creation.

I don't want to spell out the plot and its details, I let any person who wants to read the novel find it by him/herself. If you want to read an entertaining novel that carries (no pun intended) and keeps you interested for a couple of days, but has no overall redeeming value or no real discussion or consideration of ethical or moral issues, this is a good one for you. Also, I'm no prude but I find it refreshing to read a novel without overt sex and extreme use of foul language such as seems to be prevalent in most modern fiction. But, as one of our fellow LT readers puts it:

"... people use foul language because their vocabulary is not extensive enough to express their feelings in any other way. I feel the same way about an author's gratuitous use of it." ( )

Rated: B-
It was a wonderful story of turn of the last century life in Chicago and New York about a young progressive women moving up in life. What was strange was the ending which for me just dropped off. ( )

The best part is when they go to Montreal and it's some rural backwater where everyone speaks English. ( )

When the heroine, Carrie, was first introduced as a naive small-town girl heading to Chicago and falling for the advances of a travelling salesman on the train, I was worried that this would be a simple tragedy, where the helpless Carrie gets chewed up by the big city and ruined.

Fortunately, the book is a lot more interesting than that. Carrie does suffer, she does get disillusioned, but she also fights back and makes a concerted attempt to find happiness, and the results are far from predictable. Some of the men who try to prey on her end up as victims themselves, while Carrie experiences a real mix of good luck and bad.

Dreiser's writing style is a little verbose by modern standards, but still the story moves along quickly enough. The author also puts in some moral judgments and quasi-scientific explanations for the characters' actions, things which a modern writer would leave out but which work fine as artefacts of the age. The story was compelling and unpredictable, and I'm glad I read it. ( )