classic American epic, tragic and compelling

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	• An American Tragedy (Signet Classics) Theodore Dreiser Signet Classics, 2000 - 880 pages average customer review:based on 101 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

classic American epic, tragic and compelling

Dreiser's masterpiece, An American Tragedy is a thick novel, divided by the author into three books not just for length but for content.

The first book sets up Clyde Griffith's and his background, showing how he longed to do better for himself than what he perceived his parents had done. He wanted bright lights, money, easy living - and it seems he is heading that way after he makes a break from the family, working for a hotel. This books ends abruptly with the first physical tragedy, sending Clyde running away as he will run away from future troubles.

The second book is the heart of this novel, in my opinion. Clyde's ever desperate attempts to ingratiate himself upon his social betters, to use the Griffith's name for all it is worth, while at the same time secreting his affair with Roberta, is wrenching fiction. You both loathe his weaknesses and understand his passions. Dreiser exposes the hollowness of Clyde's views and aspirations with prose that is just as accessible as a modern novel.

The third book went a little slower for me, with near constant re-hashing of the events from the second, in particular the final episodes on the lake. However, this isn't without merit - it is needed to bring the reader to understand Clyde's state of mind, and how he comes to address these issues with the Reverend, his mother and most importantly himself.

An American Tragedy is entertaining as drama, and enlightening to the human condition. It deserves recognition as Dreiser's ultimate work.

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American Society, Dissected

This novel provides an engrossing view of American society in the early 1900s by following the partial rise and complete downfall of Clive Griffiths. The examination of Griffiths's life offers comments on poverty, wealth, religion, politics and morality. Griffiths is truly a flawed hero, and the reader will have trouble finding sympathy for him despite his deprived background. His greatest sin is that he is never satisfied; he always wants more. In the end he discovers that "more" comes at great cost to himself and those who care for him.

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PONDEROUS

Wow, what a ponderous read! I know this was the era of yellow journalism and sensationalistic literature, but OMIGOD, this could've been reduced to 1/3 its length with the removal of superfluous adjectives!

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Outstanding

This is the ultimate "be careful what you wish for" novel as Clyde Griffiths, trapped in a detested situation of his own making, concludes that his only path out involves murder; but when he can't go through with it in a final demonstration of his "weakness," his intended victim dies anyway by accident - only to bring down upon Clyde a conviction for "murder" and a reservation with the electric chair. Clyde's dream is the classic American one of rising above one's lowly position to a higher status, but he is frustrated at every turn. He takes a mistress, the poor factory girl Roberta Alden, at about the same time he befriends rich society girl Sondra Finchley; he learns that Roberta is pregnant just as Sondra declares her love for him. He feels trapped with Roberta with no way out, until he schemes to take her to an isolated lake and drown her. In one of the most famous scenes in American literature, Clyde is unable to complete his plans while in the boat with Roberta - only she somehow falls overboard and drowns anyway. Clyde is frozen by the spectacle of her drowning and is unable to act. A long trial ensues in which perhaps the real American tragedy is revealed: Sondra's wealth protects her from ever having to get involved with Clyde's proceedings. This long novel (perhaps too long) is fascinating in so many ways, with the ironies behind Clyde's hopes, dreams, actions, and fate so dramatically and honestly detailed by Dreiser, that, as one critic said, it's "a great work worthy of a permanent place in any list of milestones of modern fiction."

As with all Library of America editions, this edition of Dreiser's masterpiece is definitive and constructed to last a lifetime.

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great book

i loved this book and for the dumbest reason, i didn't want to finish the book, only because i knew what was going to happen. i didn't think the prose was long and windy, rather i found it beautifully written. perhaps one of the most beautifully written book i've ever read..

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The classic depiction of the harsh realities of American life, the dark side of the American Dream, and one man's doomed pursuit of love and success...

"Mr. Dreiser is not imitative and belongs to no school. He is at heart a mysticist and a fatalist, though using the realistic method. He is, on the evidence of this novel alone, a power."-The New York Times Book Review

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