Sister Carrie (Signet Classics) 
asked by bookworks on November 13, 2006 3:47 AM
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel, was published in 1900--sort of. The story of Carrie Meeber, an 18-year-old country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman, was strong stuff at the turn of the century, and what Dreiser's wary publisher released was a highly expurgated version. Times change, and we now have a restored "author's cut" of Sister Carrie that shows how truly ahead of his time Dreiser was. First and foremost, he has written an astute, nonmoralizing account of a woman and her limited options in late-19th-century America. That's impressive in and of itself, but Dreiser doesn't stop there. Digging deeply into the psychological underpinnings of his characters, he gives us people who are often strangers to themselves, drifting numbly until fate pushes them on a path they can later neither defend nor even remember choosing.
Dreiser's story unfolds in the measured cadences of an earlier era. This sometimes works brilliantly as we follow the choices, small and large, that lead some characters to doom and others to glory. On the other hand, the middle chapters--of which there are many--do drag somewhat, even when one appreciates Dreiser's intentions. If you can make it through the sagging midsection, however, you'll be rewarded by Sister Carrie's last 150 pages, which depict the harrowing downward spiral of one of the book's central characters. Here Dreiser portrays with brutal power how the wrong decision--or lack of decision--can lay waste to a life. --Rebecca Gleason
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A girl named Carrie moves from Wisconsin to Chicago to become something. She gets in a love triangle with two men--the kind, but "inferior" Charles Drouet and the worldly, wealthy George Hurstwood. Carrie picks one of the two, and we see a reverse of good fortune. Carrie rises in society while her significant other, through a series of bad decisions, falls in society. Carrie uses these men to get what she wants, but I wouldn't exactly call her a maneater. Through failure and success and exposure to harsh reality, Carrie matures and toughens. She grows; though some may argue she becomes a worse person, not a better one.
This was Theodore Dreiser's first novel. It is a very good story and a very easy read.
Sister Carrie also delves into the cutthroat conditions of the late 1890's. The ease at which someone became homeless and was at the mercy of other people's compassion was very scary. This book made me deathly afraid of becoming homeless. I can't tell you how paranoid I was. Some people seem to think everyone who is homeless asked for it by being lazy or indulging in bad habits. But if we realized how quickly good fortune could change, maybe we could be a little more sensitive and sympathetic to people who find themselves on the street. It could easily be us: even those of us who aren't stupid or frivolous with our money.
This was Theodore Dreiser's first novel. It is a very good story and a very easy read.
Sister Carrie also delves into the cutthroat conditions of the late 1890's. The ease at which someone became homeless and was at the mercy of other people's compassion was very scary. This book made me deathly afraid of becoming homeless. I can't tell you how paranoid I was. Some people seem to think everyone who is homeless asked for it by being lazy or indulging in bad habits. But if we realized how quickly good fortune could change, maybe we could be a little more sensitive and sympathetic to people who find themselves on the street. It could easily be us: even those of us who aren't stupid or frivolous with our money.
reviewed by vern on November 25, 2006 3:05 PM
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Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser, is, in short, the tale of a small-town country girl's attempts to rise to aristocracy in the cutthroat world of the early 20th century. After many adventures, and some trials and tribulations, Carrie does find the affluence and financial success that she desired more than anything else in the world - but there is more to it than that.
Carrie from the beginning seems to be the very emblem of a consumer driven materialistic society, and there seems to be no doubt about this as the book continues on. She seems possessed by the inanimate, and seems to completely disregard anything other than the right clothes, the right place to work, and her appearance. Carrie is seemingly vapid, and, as she struggles to "make it" by letting Drouet take care of her and give her his money, she hardly acknowledges the fact that he has helped pull her out of poverty. Once she is able, she throws him away in order to be with Hurstwood, a man of even more wealth and connection. However, it needs to be said that Carrie is not stupid. As materialistic and shallow as she seems to be, she is intriguing nonetheless. She knows how to get what she wants, how to manipulate others into giving her what she wants, and there is something about her that even the men of the novel seem to find irresistible. She is most definitely worth a deeper analysis.
The fact remains, however, that none of the characters seem likeable. They all lack depth, don't seem to have agency, and remain basically static throughout the entirety of the novel. But this is brilliance on Dreiser's part, because it seems to serve as a commentary of the society in which the characters are a part. They seem to perfectly represent a world which also seems to lack in depth and focuses solely on exterior, surface-level qualities.
Dreiser's novel is a powerful and accurate portrayal of a materialistic society and the ways in which living such a shallow life can ultimately lead to the downward spiral and complete end of a person, like Hurstwood, or the forever unfulfilled and never-quite-satisfied attitude of Carrie's. But Beware: the prose tends to positively drag in many places, mostly through the middle section of the book, moving at an almost ridiculously slow pace. Nonetheless, it is still worth the time.
Carrie from the beginning seems to be the very emblem of a consumer driven materialistic society, and there seems to be no doubt about this as the book continues on. She seems possessed by the inanimate, and seems to completely disregard anything other than the right clothes, the right place to work, and her appearance. Carrie is seemingly vapid, and, as she struggles to "make it" by letting Drouet take care of her and give her his money, she hardly acknowledges the fact that he has helped pull her out of poverty. Once she is able, she throws him away in order to be with Hurstwood, a man of even more wealth and connection. However, it needs to be said that Carrie is not stupid. As materialistic and shallow as she seems to be, she is intriguing nonetheless. She knows how to get what she wants, how to manipulate others into giving her what she wants, and there is something about her that even the men of the novel seem to find irresistible. She is most definitely worth a deeper analysis.
The fact remains, however, that none of the characters seem likeable. They all lack depth, don't seem to have agency, and remain basically static throughout the entirety of the novel. But this is brilliance on Dreiser's part, because it seems to serve as a commentary of the society in which the characters are a part. They seem to perfectly represent a world which also seems to lack in depth and focuses solely on exterior, surface-level qualities.
Dreiser's novel is a powerful and accurate portrayal of a materialistic society and the ways in which living such a shallow life can ultimately lead to the downward spiral and complete end of a person, like Hurstwood, or the forever unfulfilled and never-quite-satisfied attitude of Carrie's. But Beware: the prose tends to positively drag in many places, mostly through the middle section of the book, moving at an almost ridiculously slow pace. Nonetheless, it is still worth the time.
reviewed by samoan on November 27, 2006 5:18 PM
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I really enjoy old prose, the old style of writing. I also like the modern style, but it's nice to get back to descriptive writing. Combined with the fact it's a great story, I consider it a must READ!!!
reviewed by wellness on November 27, 2006 5:52 PM
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I hate to reiterate a common point made by many reviewers but I feel it's necessary to say (once again!) that the middle of the book was some hard reading. It wasn't hard, vocabulary-wise, but because Dreiser went into *great* detail about Carrie and Hurstwood, separately and as a couple (among many other things) - so much so that it could have been its own novel. It has the potential to lose people who are short on patience. Perhaps five chapters could have been combined into two (if that!).
Be that as it may, roughing it through the middle makes getting to the end feel as if you've accomplished the impossible, and your effort will be rewarded.
The ending was unconventional, to say the least. Not to give it away but if a potential reader believes that Dreiser tied things up quite nicely, think again! Such an ending is a present-day writing teacher's nightmare.
I must confess that as I was reading the book I was simultaneously checking out the reviews here on Amazon and was prepared to feel really sorry for Hurstwood. From what I understand, Hurstwood's deterioration is the main attraction of the book (and of the movie adaptation made in the 1950s). After seeing how he tricked Carrie into leaving Chicago with him - first going to Canada and then settling in New York, how he was a bigamist (throwing that in Carrie's face at the appropriate moment), and how utterly unprepared he was to fight his wife and live a new life in a new town, I wound up not feeling as sorry for Hurstwood as is expected to be. His lack of motivation and the lies on which he built his life with Carrie were of his own doing and, in a sense, he got what he deserved in the end.
Carrie, on the other hand, has been portrayed as this vixen who gladly used married men for her own gain and nothing could be farther from the truth. She didn't even know Hurstwood was married until Drouet sprang that bit of trivia upon her (after he was informed by a maid of Carrie's frequent outings with Hurstwood). Also, Drouet was not married (but they did live together as an unmarried couple in a day when that was unthinkable!).
To me, Carrie is the most identifiable character here, not because she's the title character but because of her need to overcome a repetitive life full of drudgery, routine, and never making her ends meet. This was summed up perfectly on Page 31 of this edition: "Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit (her sister and her husband)?"
Carrie's attitude regarding work and her outlook on life is, on the surface, very frivolous and not at all of an adult: "Carrie ... bent over her work. She felt as though she could hardly endure such a life. Her idea of work had been so entirely different" (Page 38). She wanted more out of life than what the industrial 1890s had to offer, and anyone can identify with that sentiment (especially today in the hyper 21st Century. What are supposed to be 9-5 office jobs turn out to be something we practically live with 24/7 and then you're fired (or "laid off"), without warning, for reasons that wouldn't make sense to a preschooler. And, for our troubles, we die of cancer in the end. Translation: Nothing much has changed in one hundred-plus years in this country).
Carrie had advantages (like men wanting to take care of her) that others don't have (nor ever get) but, when the going got tough in New York City, she put her feet to the pavement and found work (something Hurstwood was always putting off).
Whether one feels Carrie deserved her fame courtesy of hard work or through sheer luck (of being at the right place at the right time), Ames's thought sums up the reason for her success: "The world is always struggling to express itself ... Most people are not capable of voicing their feelings. They depend upon others. That is what genius is for. One man expresses their desires for them in music; another one in poetry; another one in a play. Sometimes nature does it in a face - it makes the face representative of all desire. That's what has happened in your case" (Page 429).
Did the good guy/gal win here? That's up for debate. One thing is for sure is that "Sister Carrie" is definitely not your conventional tale and is a fine representation of good American literature.
One final note: It's worth checking out the scholarship at the beginning of Barnes and Noble Classics Editions (as well as other editions that offer the same). While I find the overall scholarship to be biased majority of the time, it is, nonetheless, helpful and aids in your reading of the text. - Donna Di Giacomo
Be that as it may, roughing it through the middle makes getting to the end feel as if you've accomplished the impossible, and your effort will be rewarded.
The ending was unconventional, to say the least. Not to give it away but if a potential reader believes that Dreiser tied things up quite nicely, think again! Such an ending is a present-day writing teacher's nightmare.
I must confess that as I was reading the book I was simultaneously checking out the reviews here on Amazon and was prepared to feel really sorry for Hurstwood. From what I understand, Hurstwood's deterioration is the main attraction of the book (and of the movie adaptation made in the 1950s). After seeing how he tricked Carrie into leaving Chicago with him - first going to Canada and then settling in New York, how he was a bigamist (throwing that in Carrie's face at the appropriate moment), and how utterly unprepared he was to fight his wife and live a new life in a new town, I wound up not feeling as sorry for Hurstwood as is expected to be. His lack of motivation and the lies on which he built his life with Carrie were of his own doing and, in a sense, he got what he deserved in the end.
Carrie, on the other hand, has been portrayed as this vixen who gladly used married men for her own gain and nothing could be farther from the truth. She didn't even know Hurstwood was married until Drouet sprang that bit of trivia upon her (after he was informed by a maid of Carrie's frequent outings with Hurstwood). Also, Drouet was not married (but they did live together as an unmarried couple in a day when that was unthinkable!).
To me, Carrie is the most identifiable character here, not because she's the title character but because of her need to overcome a repetitive life full of drudgery, routine, and never making her ends meet. This was summed up perfectly on Page 31 of this edition: "Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit (her sister and her husband)?"
Carrie's attitude regarding work and her outlook on life is, on the surface, very frivolous and not at all of an adult: "Carrie ... bent over her work. She felt as though she could hardly endure such a life. Her idea of work had been so entirely different" (Page 38). She wanted more out of life than what the industrial 1890s had to offer, and anyone can identify with that sentiment (especially today in the hyper 21st Century. What are supposed to be 9-5 office jobs turn out to be something we practically live with 24/7 and then you're fired (or "laid off"), without warning, for reasons that wouldn't make sense to a preschooler. And, for our troubles, we die of cancer in the end. Translation: Nothing much has changed in one hundred-plus years in this country).
Carrie had advantages (like men wanting to take care of her) that others don't have (nor ever get) but, when the going got tough in New York City, she put her feet to the pavement and found work (something Hurstwood was always putting off).
Whether one feels Carrie deserved her fame courtesy of hard work or through sheer luck (of being at the right place at the right time), Ames's thought sums up the reason for her success: "The world is always struggling to express itself ... Most people are not capable of voicing their feelings. They depend upon others. That is what genius is for. One man expresses their desires for them in music; another one in poetry; another one in a play. Sometimes nature does it in a face - it makes the face representative of all desire. That's what has happened in your case" (Page 429).
Did the good guy/gal win here? That's up for debate. One thing is for sure is that "Sister Carrie" is definitely not your conventional tale and is a fine representation of good American literature.
One final note: It's worth checking out the scholarship at the beginning of Barnes and Noble Classics Editions (as well as other editions that offer the same). While I find the overall scholarship to be biased majority of the time, it is, nonetheless, helpful and aids in your reading of the text. - Donna Di Giacomo
reviewed by casurf on November 28, 2006 1:32 AM
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Identified with Carrie in this book. I felt like it was me in the book, how I think and feel. All of her emotions and motivations were so well written out and portrayed....it was one of those revelation novels for me.
A gorgeous timeless novel of a woman and times.
A gorgeous timeless novel of a woman and times.
reviewed by 90210 on November 28, 2006 6:58 AM