Customer Reviews

McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (Signet Classics)

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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.

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.

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.

I must admit that I was at first reluctant to read Frank Norris' McTeague on account of its not- so-breathtakingly-exotic title. But now that I have finished reading the book, I must say that McTeague has to be one of the finest writings on the plight of the middle class I have ever read. Set in the slummy streets of San Francisco, the book centers around a degree-less dentist named McTeague and covers the various the ups and downs of his miserable life. The book is kept mildly entertaining due to Norris' consistant introduction of new conflicts and events in successive chapters. Aside from the plot and characters, the book is also a very interseting thesis on human sexual roles by Norris. It proves to be entertaining due to Norris eloquent amalgum of sulleness, humor, and irony. The book's main negative is its haphazard pace. Progressing very slowly in some chapters and snowballing in others, the book is for the reader who prefers varity of pace over steadiness. Despite its creative shortcomings, the book succeeds in educating the reader about the difficult and disturbing lives of the lower-middle-class.

H L Mencken believed "McTeague" to be the great American novel and it surely is the principal American parable. A giant golden tooth and a gilded canary cage are just two symbols of greed in this rich novel. Published in 1899 this work by Frank Norris reminds of Emile Zola's writing in realism and artistry. Norris takes the reader from Polk street San Francisco to Death Valley in this brilliant depiction of avarice. Erich von Stroheim's silent film "Greed" is based on McTeague, unfortunately the whole 9 1/2 hour film is no longer extant. The novel is funny at times like when Marcus is pontificating to McTeague: "It's the capitalists that's ruining the cause of labor," shouted Marcus, banging the table with his fist till the beer glasses danced; "white-livered drones, traitors, with their livers white as snow, eatun the bread of widows and orphuns; there's where the evil lies." Stupefied with his clamor, McTeague answered, wagging his head: "Yes, that's it; I think it's their livers." The gentle love story of Old Grannis and Miss Baker shows how simple contentment can be and serves as an an antithesis to the rest of the book. "and the two old people sat there in the gray evening, quietly, quietly, their hands in each other's hands, "keeping company," Early in the book Mcteague has dreams of oral opulence: "It was his ambition, his dream, to have projecting from that corner window a huge gilded tooth, a molar with enormous prongs, something gorgeous and attractive. He would have it some day, on that he was resolved;" Trina his fiancee buys this grand tooth for his dentist office and gives it to him as a gift. As the McTeagues descend into financial ruin he clings to this object. When he finally does decide to sell all he can get for it is five dollars, if sown under a large enough pillow the tooth fairy would have left more for this gargantuan grinder. The gilded molar is not only a symbol of his success as a dentist, but also the love he and his wife once shared. The Buddha said desire was the cause of suffering and we certainly see that here as greed takes center stage in this novel. Most of the characters mine the ore of suffering with their cupidity and as they struggle to acquire they become possessed.

This book is unrelentingly depressing and vital; impossible to put down the numbing narrative. The snobbery of Norris's privileged youth shows as he malaciously yet objectively records the low-brow tastes in art, theater, and music, as well as interior decoration. Sometimes this irritated, but by and large Norris stood apart, cooly neutral, employing tricks of the French symbolists, mostly repetitive description, sometimes whole sentences, reframing the scenes in the refrains. The description of Trina only grew more intense and invigorated the more she was plunged into despair and poverty. McTeague is not an entertaining book, certainly not. It's a compelling tour through animal lust and brutality. Employing the refrains served to increase the idea of the narrative as a child's fairy tale or a time-worn, rusty allegory. This in turn cemented the dreary finality of bleakness: eternal determinism. McTeague fascinates with raw animal magnetism, like a dazzling beauty fascinates a man from across the room, like life itself hypnotizes in its teeming energy and elemental force. Norris compels, fascinates, controls. He's a man obsessed whose obsessions become the obsessions of those who read him. This book is fatally irresistable.

I like this book, I really do, but I was troubled by the first eighty or so pages. I didn't know what to think. Was I supposed to laugh at McTeague's clumsiness? Were the characters supposed to be reflections of the real townspeople of San Francisco in 1899? These questions, however, were soon wiped away as the story unfolded.

Norris does a good job of putting rhyme with reason when describing the characters' motives for many of the things that occur. The repetition of a lot of descriptions seem a bit cumbersome at first, but then I got the feeling that these are the only words to describe them. This is a great novel in that Norris was able to make me feel for (or against) each person. But, he also makes them so rounded that you can't hate any one entirely.

The subplots to this book intermingle with perfection, each one coming to the desired ending (without being predictable) and adding the communal feel to what is going on with the main participants. The sharp contrast between good and evil fill the reader's thirst for revenge and peace in two of these stories. By kicking these feelings into me, it made me realize how not-so-perfect my mannerisms are, and therefore I don't think this is a "story of San Fransisco," but of America itself.

The language in this novel astounded me. It reads as true today as it relates to the turn of the century. When Heise shouts "Get out!" after receiving a bit of shocking news, I couldn't help but think of Elaine on Seinfeld. I know it probably wasn't meant in quite that way, but just the fact that it matches today's slang is rather remarkable.

This is a good book to read for both entertainment and enlightenment.

One of the reasons that people read novels is to explore why human beings do what they do. These reasons flow in surges that go in and out of vogue. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the current vogue was Naturalism, a philosophy of life that suggests that people are preprogrammed by their environment to such an extent that one can accurately predict the outcome.

In MCTEAGUE, Frank Norris absorbed the biological imperatives of Charles Darwin into the economic choke-hold of Karl Marx and wrote a novel of a hulking unlicensed dentist who goes through life smashing all obstacles with his hamlike fists early enough and often enough so that the reader feels sure that this dentist (McTeague) will wind up at the mercy of the very elements that he tried so hard to conquer.

The novel opens with the revelation that McTeague is a brute who chose dentistry as a profession despite the fact that he barely understood the medical books of his field. He meets and marries Trina, a good woman who mistakes McTeague's size and stupidity for passion and permanence. McTeague's married life is a straight line progression from worse to worst, all of which was eminently predictable from the opening pages. One gets the feeling that McTeague remains a mystery, despite his punishing appearance on nearly every page. Why, one further wonders, does he do things the way he does. Norris provides no ready answers, but he suggests that McTeague is a ubiquitous force of nature, one that is more easily noticed than explained. Sigmund Freud had not yet appeared to offer deeper analyses of the human psyche so naturalistic writers like Frank Norris were left with rationales that equated with the natural world around them. Darwin and his struggle of the fittest made it easier for readers to see McTeague as somehow fitter to survive than the victims of his rage. Marx and his economic determinism made it equally easier for readers to grasp the fact that one's freedom to move was limited by where on the economic pecking order one stood. By the end of the novel, a handcuffed McTeague, alone in the unforgiving desert, was a stark reminder that the power of nature to twist man into a pretzel was one that resonated with Norris' readers such that they could see McTeague's final plight more as a peek into their own future than into his. Today's readers leave MCTEAGUE with much the same morbid thoughts.

The novel starts out almost almost farce-like with the bumbling oaf of a dentist McTeague, his clever, good-natured friend Marcus, and the sweet, innocent Trina caught in a seemingly benign love triangle. But it quickly turns into a dark story of greed, lust, and trickery which is both comical and engrossing in its absurdities, while at the same time horrific in the undeniably truths it reveals about human nature.

Though I love novels that are thoroughly crafted so that themes and recurring symbols are not terribly difficult to dissect, I felt Norris to be a little too blunt and overt in what he wanted to be taken from events. Each character represents only one or two exaggerated qualities, which makes for an intense and profound plot, but not a terribly finessed one. In effect, the novel does not show what it is like to be a complex, everyday human, but rather what would happen if humans allowed themselves to be governed by their animal instincts, which reminds us just how much of that animal lurks within our everyday selves.

I read McTeague for a class, and the professor premised it by saying that it had "the greatest ending of any story, in any language, in the history of the world." I'm not entirely sure to what extent I believe that, but it's definitely an end worth getting to.

I purchased this book because my daughter was reading it in college. I was not familiar with either the title or the author, but a quick web search allowed me to rectify that shortcoming quickly. It is a gut wrenching view into the early city life of San Francisco. Marriage, money, and ignorance are the main charaters presented through names that soon become the face of the story.

Norris, the realist, doesn't waste time on the way the world could be, and he doesn't even speculate on the way things are; he rather cuts to the reality of the time and, like a snapshot, gives us that which an observant eye would see if present. The violent ignorance manifested by the characters stuns, and I was amazed and intrigued by the actions of individuals I had become close to through the events of the story.

Be forewarned, those sensitive to sterotypical descriptions of race will be shocked, and those without patience for the actions of brutally ignorant settlers will be sickened. Nevertheless, for a picture of the probable behavior of the settlers of the west, this is a fine read.