Sister Carrie

I finished Sister Carrie today. Though it wasn’t a great book, it wasn’t bad either. It was bleak and dreary, from its depictions of turn-of-the-century industrial Chicago to New York’s Bowery and ‘skid row’, and I like bleak and dreary.

Here’s a summary: Carrie is riding a train from her hometown in Wisconsin to live with her sister in Chicago. On the train, she meets Charlie Drouet. Drouet notices that she is pretty and innocent, so he starts talking to her, because he likes women. Carrie, being naïve like she is, likes him because he pays attention to her and looks nice. They exchange addresses. Carrie obviously came to Chicago with “big city dreams,” not realizing how hard she would have to work to earn her keep. Carrie’s sister (Minnie) and her husband (Sven) charge Carrie a not-very-fair amount for her room and board, and I got the impression that they were going to use the extra money to pay off another house that they had somewhere. Carrie has trouble finding work, and gets a backbreaking job in a shoe factory. Carrie’s dreams of living it up are obviously dashed. Then one day she runs into Drouet. He loans her some money, and eventually tells her that he’ll get her an apartment and furnish her with whatever she needs (clothes, food, etc). She agrees and secretly moves out of her sister’s house. Drouet and her pretend to be husband and wife when they can, and he continuously promises Carrie that he’ll marry her, but she increasingly grows disillusioned with him. In the meantime, Carrie meets Drouet’s friend, Hurstwood. Hurstwood is an old wealthy man who is the manager of a restaurant/bar. Carrie becomes infatuated with Hurstwood, probably entirely due to his money and the life that he lives. Hurstwood falls in love with Carrie, but fails to tell her that he’s married. He and Carrie start talking about running away together, and he promises to marry her if she goes with him. They set a date to go.

In the meantime, Hurstwood’s wife finds out that he’s been gallivanting about with Carrie, and is going to sue him for divorce. The date that he is to run away with Carrie arrives and passes, but she never shows up to meet him – because she found out from Drouet that he is married. In light of this news, Drouet discovers what was between the two of them, and gets mad that she was going to leave him, “after all he did for her” and moves out. One night, Hurstwood shows up and tells Carrie that Drouet was injured and that she was to come with him. She believes him and goes. They get on a train, and head to Montreal. On the way, Carrie realizes that there was no injury…Hurstwood just used it as an excuse to get her away. Hurstwood has stolen thousands of dollars from the safe at his work, and is fleeing, but Carrie doesn’t know all that. From Montreal, they are going to New York. Carrie has big dreams of New York now, and isn’t so upset that Hurstwood has essentially kidnapped her. In order to avoid being persecuted, Hurstwood decides to give back most of the money that he stole. So, now he and Carrie are in New York, neither have jobs, etc. After a failed business venture and some unsuccessful attempts to find a new job, Hurstwood gives up bothering (except for a two day stint as a street-car scab in Brooklyn). Their situation becomes more and more dire, when Carrie finally decides to try getting a job as an actress. Because she is pretty, she gets some lucky breaks. Her talent is discovered, and she starts to bring in the money. Now Hurstwood is the dependent one, and eventually Carrie’s salary can no longer support them both. She moves out, and moves up in the world, becoming a very successful and wealthy actress, while Hurstwood is driven further down the social ladder, ending up a bum and killing himself in a flophouse. In the end, we see that even though Carrie has achieved everything she ever wanted, she still isn’t happy.

Most, if not all of the characters in this book were unlikeable. First of all, Minnie and Sven: they were clearly taking advantage of Carrie for their own gain, and didn’t exactly enquire after her when she disappeared with Drouet. Drouet: this ladies man kind of strings Carrie along on promises that he will marry her…though she isn’t exactly pitching a fit about their arrangement. Then she falls for Hurstwood because he’s richer than Drouet. And he deceives her too, first with promises of marriage, then he kidnaps her, fakes a marriage with her that he knows isn’t legal but she thinks is, and doesn’t seem real enthusiastic about taking care of her in New York. Granted, however, again it isn’t that she really complains of the situation until they start to run short on money, at which time it is pretty much justifiable to complain about the situation. So what does Carrie do? She gets a damn job. Good for her. Of course it’s mostly on the pretext that she’s pretty, but she rises in the acting world fairly quickly, and decides not to let Hurstwood mooch off her anymore. I don’t blame her, because it really is his own fault about his situation, mainly due to his theft of the money. So, I kind of feel sympathetic for Carrie in a way, because everyone around her is deceiving her. But on the other hand, until she decides to get a job, she is kind of just swept along with the desires of the men in her life.

I know that this book has a reputation for being poorly written, but to be honest, it’s a lot better written than a lot of books that are being published today. And we see that even more than 100 years ago, Dresier understood that materialism and consumerism are not going to make you happy. We haven’t learned very much.

More Dance...

Still reading Dance to the Music of Time, though the end of the first movement is finally within sight... (as in within 120 or so pages). I've been reading this book since the beginning of December, so the thought of being able to finish is a good feeling. I'll be taking a break from the series in March, to pick up the second movement in April...I want to be able to dedicate myself fully to Wings of the Dove :-) Now that I'm almost half way through the third novel in the Dance series (The Acceptance World), the characters from the first two novels are starting to reappear. In less than 25 pages, there were two instances of Nick saying, "She looks familiar. Oh yes, now I remember. She is so-and-so that I met at a party a number of years ago." Though I understand that characters had to be reintroduced in this manner due to the books publishing history (as a series of individual novels over a number of years), it's becoming annoying. And I never thought that I would say this, but I'm tired of his use of commas. He combines about eight different ideas and side notes in one sentence, all with the use of commas. Just give me a couple extra sentences instead, damn it. It wouldn't kill you. Maybe Powell should have read McCarthy and taken a cue or two from his writing style.

And it kind of bothers me that I know all about what everyone else is doing, but Nick doesn't really tell us much about himself, or what he's been up to. Here's a case in point: Nick's love life. I had read in a summary about Book 2 that Nick loses his virginity to Gypsy Jones after Deacon's funeral. Ok, so there is Gypsy and Nick, and there's dialog, and they're kind of lounging on a couch...and then Nick leaves and goes to Widmerpool's (who, by the way, had recently knocked Gypsy up and was annoyed he had to pay for her abortion). So, I thought, Gyspy and Nick must get together after his dinner with Widmerpool. But then the book was over. What? I went back and re-read the scene between Nick and Gypsy. This was all there was to indicate what had gone on: ..."At least such protests as she put forward were of so formal and artificial an order that they increased, rather than diminised, the impression that a long-established rite was to be enacted...Each product of that slow process of building up of events...coming at last to a head. ..I could not help admitting, in due course, the awareness of a sense of inadequacy. There was no specific suggestion that anything had, as it might be said, "gone wrong"; it was merely that any wish to remain any longer present in those surroundings had suddenly and violently decreased, if not disappeared entirely..." Yup...that's about it. Was I supposed to pick up on that? Because I didn't. He has similarly glossed over the beginning of his affair with Jean Templer.

Could this be the saddest thing I’ve ever read?:

“Evening had worn into night. The busy city slept. Down by the wharves, now deserted, a poor boy sat on the bulwark, hungry, footsore, and shivering with cold. He sat thinking of friends and home, thousands of miles away over the sea, whom he had left six months before to go among strangers. He had been alone ever since, but never more so than that night. His money gone, no work to be found, he had slept in the streets for nights. That day he had eaten nothing; he would rather die than beg, and one of the two he must do soon.

“There was the dark river, rushing at his feet; the swirl of the unseen waters whispered to him of rest and peace he had not known since——it was so cold—and who was there to care, he thought bitterly. No one who would ever know. He moved a little nearer the edge, and listened more intently.

“A low whine fell on his ear, and a cold, wet face was pressed against his. A little, crippled dog that had been crouching silently beside him nestled in his lap. He had picked it up in the street, as forlorn and friendless as himself, and it had stayed by him. Its touch recalled him to himself. He got up hastily, and, taking the dog in his arms, went to the police station near by and asked for shelter. It was the first time he had accepted even such charity, and as he lay down on his rough plank he hugged a little gold locket he wore around his neck, the last link with better days, and thought, with a hard, dry sob, of home.

“In the middle of the night he awoke with a start. The locket was gone. One of the tramps who slept with him had stolen it. With bitter tears he went up and complained to the Sergeant at the desk, and the Sergeant ordered him to be kicked out in the street as a liar, if not a thief. How should a tramp boy have come honestly by a gold locket? The doorman put him out as he was bidden, and when the little dog showed its teeth, a policeman seized it and clubbed it to death on the step.”


By Jacob Riis, from his book, Children of the Tenements, “What the Christmas Sun Saw in the Tenements”

What I Hate About Books

What I hate about good books is that they end. It's like saying goodbye to a good friend - someone with whom you have shared something improtant, and you never know if you will see them again. We are guests in these people's lives - we are witnesses to their triumphs and failures, their most private moments. A good book leaves you with the feeling that these people are your friends (or your enemies) - you identify with them, so not only do you sympantize with them, but they, inevitably, sympathize with you. You've offered each other comfort. But then you get to the last page, and suddenly you are saying goodbye. Though you anticipate it, count down to it in some cases, it always comes as a shock - suddenly you turn the page and realize you've reached the end. A really good book will make you turn back, avoiding the last sentence, the point at which you must inevitably close the book, and put them back on the shelf.

Sometimes, it's not goodbye forever. How many times have I attended Gatsby's parties and sat with Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, Tom and Jordan at the Plaza when there wasn't any ice? How many times have I hitchhiked with Sal Paradise, and watched Dean receed into the horizon on our way to the opera? How many times have I sat with Hannah and Almsay in the Italian villa? How many times have their pain and suffering helped me through my own? How many times have they comforted me? So, sometimes you do get to meet again.

But inevitably, something changes. WE change, but they are static, stuck perpetually within the same set of circumstances. Along the way, we change perspectives - so the way that we feel about the characters, and how they react to their circumstances changes as well. But does there always come a point when you outgrow them? When they become childhood friends, with whom your common experiences are no longer relevant? The type of friends with whom you say hello in passing but move on quickly - sentimental but essentially unmoved. So maybe part of the sadness in the ending is that recognition - that there will come a day when you won't feel the same about the people that have allowed you into their lives. It's not the sadness of never seeing them again, but the sadness of realizing that your relationship will change, and that things will never be the same.

All the King's Men

I came into this novel with a bad attitude. I was sure that I would dislike it, and dreaded its slow, 400+ pages. I thought it would be horrendous like The Last Hurrah, which I was forced to read in college. But it ended up being much better - a lot better, than I had expected. In fact, I liked it better than The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Appointment at Samarra, and Winesburg, Ohio, yet they all ranked above All the King's Men on the Modern Library list. Then again, it ranked higher - along with The Bridge of San Luis Rey (which I greatly disliked) - than On the Road, which should have been in the top 25 in my opnion. But they didn't ask my opinion.

My favorite part of AtKM is Jack's flashback to the night he and Anne almost consummated their relationship as teenagers. That scene - from making sandwiches in the kitchen to when his mother comes home unexpectedly was wonderful. The description of Anne undressing in his room was one of - if not the best of such scenes I've ever read. It was honest, realistic, and tender - something that was actually happening.

The Good Soldier Quote

"But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving for identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with the same ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist."