McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (Twentieth Century Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Frank Norris (Author), Kevin Starr (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 2005 | Series: Twentieth Century Classics

An early example of American realism, "McTeague" was considered truly shocking when first published at the turn of the century. This searing portrait of the downfall of a slow-witted dentist and his avaricious wife embodies Frank Norris' powerful insights into conflicting forces of heredity and social conditioning. It is a novel of compelling narrative force, resounding with a sense of life as epic. As Kevin Starr points out in his introduction, "McTeague" continues to be regarded as a central statement of evolutionary awareness in late nineteenth-century America and as representative of the best work of a school of writers that included Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The novelist Frank Norris is almost forgotten today, but in books like "McTeague," published in 1899, he paved the way for a whole generation of American writers--a generation that included Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis and, less directly, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. McTeague is a dentist saddled with a grasping wife, and the book chronicles his rise and fall in awkward but powerful prose. This type of social realism, so contrary to the uplifting entertainment of the day (and to Mark Twain's more fanciful, comic novels), provided turn-of-the-century America a disturbing mirror in which to view itself.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The classic novel by Frank Norris is revisited in this 1989 recording by an immensely talented and well-directed group of actors. Set in 1899 San Francisco, Norris's story relates the life and times of a dentist, played wonderfully by Stacy Keach, and his wife, Trina (Carol Kane). With a celebrity cast of nearly 40 players that features superior performances from, among others, Helen Hunt, Ed Asner, Marsha Mason, Teri Garr and Hector Elizondo, the production is flawless and captivating. With music and realistic sound effects, director Gordon Hunt takes full advantage of the performing weapons at his disposal. Notable standouts include Joe Spano, who plays Trina's jealous cousin, Katherine Helmond as Miss Baker and Bud Cort portraying an array of secondary characters. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (March 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140187693
• ISBN-13: 978-0140187694
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #663,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realism; not once, not twice, but thrice over!!, April 21, 2002

By 

Kevin S. Currie (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McTeague (Paperback)

I, like at least one other reviewer below, first heard of Frank Norris while rummanging the bookstore. After finishing McTeague, it puzzles me how I made it to age 25, through high school and college American Lit courses without reading him! Maybe I'm bold but I enjoyed this book more than any Hawthorne, Steinbeck or Twain.

This book is realism thrice over. The first 'realism' is coventional. Norris in the vain of the French realists writes a novel exploring people with complete human imperfections. From the feeble-witted McTeague (Norris never gives us his first name) to his avaricious wife Trina, we are introduced to a cast of characters who fuction the way people do. And unlike today's 'realist' literature that tries to be shocking for shock value, Norris is nothing but sincere.

The second 'realism' is Norris's refreshing 'fly on the wall' approach. Unlike fellow realists like Dreiser and Lewis, Norris does not judge his characters- never commenting or moralizing, just reporting. Through two murders, one rape fantasy and spousal abuse among other things, Norris simply tells it as it 'happens.'

The third 'realism' is in the language, both that of the characters and the novelist. It is always said that Hemingway was the one who taught us that descriptively, less is more. Now I see that there would have been no Hemingway without Norris. He is sparse and terse, giving the novel a life-like tone. The characters tend to stammer ("Yeah- uh- uh- yeah, that's the word") reflecting the way we really talk.

This is not Henry James, Edith Wharton or Harriet Stowe. It is a gritty tale set in 1890's San Francisco with an ending that will leave you in nothing less than shock. Before Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, there was Frank Norris and McTeague.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A powerful portrayal of greed (in spite of its stereotypes), August 24, 2003

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McTeague (Paperback)

Along with Stephen Crane, Frank Norris was one of the earliest writers in American naturalism--a tradition that eventually gave us Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and John Steinbeck. Influenced by social Darwinism and the French realists (especially Zola), their style tends to bluntness and away from romanticism and their view of civilization is marked by grimness. "McTeague" is considered Norris's classic work, and for good reason: its effect on later writers is obvious, and the book represents a shocking, bleak expose of greed and of the bestial nature of human beings.

McTeague is an unschooled, middle-class dentist who marries Trina, a daughter of German immigrants who is also the sweetheart of her distant cousin Marcus. Their lives are irrevocably changed when Trina wins $5,000 from a lottery, and their story is an examination of the resulting greed, miserliness, jealousies, intrigues, abuse, and homicide. Norris's worldview is not entirely gloomy, however: he introduces two endearing and unforgettable characters, Old Grannis and Miss Baker, an elderly couple whose only pleasure in the world is the knowledge of each other's existence on the other side of the shared wall of their two apartments. They are the antithesis of greed, and the simplicity of their desires provide much-needed comic (and, yes, romantic) relief.

The 21st-century reader, however, should be warned that Norris's ethnic stereotypes are not pretty. Zerkow, a Polish Jew, is a parsimonious junk peddler who has "bloodless lips" and "claw-like, prehensile fingers--the fingers of a man who accumulates, but never disburses." He dreams incessantly of gold, and is entranced by the long-lost (and undoubtedly imaginary) gold dinnerware described by a Mexican maid, Maria, whom he eventually marries in order to monopolize her memories of the treasure. Maria herself is a dim-witted and unrepentant petty thief, yet her portrayal is more sympathetic in its evocation of naivety and innocence and suffering. Yet it's difficult to overcome the cringe factor created by Norris's depiction of these two characters. (To confirm that I was not overreacting, I searched the Web and found that, unfortunately, these passages are cited or reprinted gleefully and favorably on a number of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi sites.)

Happily, the remainder of the novel's characters are not so one-dimensional, yet all the main characters turn out to be, in their own way, as narrow-minded and greedy as Zerkow and Maria. There are two ways to see the disparity in the presentation of these characters. Critics tend to point out the Zerkow is presented first, as the archetype of greed--and that the remainder of the novel shows how McTeague, Trina, and Marcus are as greedy as Zerkow--or as "greedy as a Jew." The more charitable analysis reverses the perspective: that Norris mitigates his representation of Zerkow by demonstrating, in effect, that he is no different than anyone else--that all humans are basically brutes (a word Norris uses often).

Norris's novel is above all a stark condemnation of human baseness. The various characters pursue their inescapable and expected demise, and the suddenness and shock of the ending is breathtaking. The power of the novel's underlying message ultimately overwhelms its dated bigotry, and "McTeague" is still a must-read for anyone interested in American literature.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McTeague is literary naturalism in the purist form., May 12, 2000

By 

Christian Engler (Woburn, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: McTeague (Paperback)

McTeague, the man, is the embodiment of the majority of human civilization. The simplicity and directness of the themes are so free-flowing they are hardly noticible: success, wealth, power, the fear of losing that which elevates citizens to one of the three social classes: 1) Wealth 2) Middle-class 3) Poverty. The characters in the novel: McTeague, Trina, Marcus, Zerkow, etc., are all simple-minded individuals longing for something that is universal in life: success and comfort. But what happens when that goal, that climax, is never achieved, almost achieved but never fully there or worse yet, achieved but then brutally snatched away? That is what happenes to McTeague, a dentist, who can no longer practice his craft because he holds no dental degree. What happens when that comfort zone, that stability, is yanked away and gnawed into pieces so miniscule it can't be reconstructed to its original form? Can he rise from his adversity or will he, like many before him and many after him, fall into the pits of criminal behavior and social depravity? As is always unfortunately the case, the latter is almost always what comes into fruition. There is a force in the novel that brings the characters quietly together. The dark happenings that they incur as a result of their narrow-minded longings almost makes what happens to them inevitable. The writing itself is lucid and relaxed, which is a real accomplishment considering the horror he puts his characters through. The scenes of San Francisco, the desert and the village-oriented type feel of Polk Street where the beginning action takes place are wonderfully described, not laborious as compared to the old and tragic English novels of the 19th Century and onward. For any literate individual interested in how greed can destroy a life, McTeague is the book for you.