Customer Reviews

Sister Carrie (Signet Classics)

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Somewhere in the depths of time a critic once labeled playwright Eugene O'Neill a genius with no talent. It's a description that could just as easily fit Theodore Dreiser, an uneducated, mercurial man who, while still in his twenties, and with virtually no experience composing fiction, managed to crank out what I consider one of the greatest novels in American literature. Very few authors have ever managed to generate the raw power that Dreiser does over the 500 or so pages of "Sister Carrie." It is amazing how much of the human experience he has put into this book, how well he understands the hopes, fears, and desires--mysterious and contradictory as they often are--that drive ordinary people.

The conventional judgment on Dreiser puts him in the naturalistic, social-realist tradition of Zola and Hardy. There is much in this; but I think his real strength lies in depicting character--Carrie, Hurstwood, and Drouet really come alive in these pages. His characters possess a depth and complexity of feeling that one rarely finds in fiction. Dreiser has a melancholy, fatalistic sense that the world may be too vast and impersonal for people to live in it comfortably, and yet his world is vibrantly human as well.

I personally find Carrie a more likable heroine (if you could call her that) than many readers have. She is self-absorbed, yes, but also capable of compassion for others, and she is never intentionally cruel. Like all of Dreiser's characters she is somewhere between the angels and the devils.

This is by no means a perfect book. Dreiser's rhetorical flourishes can become absolutely ridiculous, and so can his habit of injecting philosophical commentary into the texture of the narrative. But the total effect of "Sister Carrie" is powerful, and more than compensates for any defects in the novel.

It is no mystery why Frank Norris praised to high heaven Theodore Dreiser's 1900 novel "Sister Carrie." Norris, one of America's great naturalist writers, saw in Dreiser's tale about a young woman on the make a reflection of the same bleak vistas he wrote about in "Vandover and the Brute," "The Octopus," and "McTeague." When Dreiser submitted his book for publication, it was Norris who read the book and made a glowing recommendation to the publisher. There were immense problems with "Sister Carrie" from that point forward: the wife of the publisher hated the story and worked hard behind the scenes to prevent its release. With a contract already signed, Dreiser's book did become a reality but the publishing house refused to support it with any marketing. The story languished for years in a paper limbo before finally emerging to great success and acclaim. Thank goodness it did because this may be one of the most powerful books ever written about social climbing and the perils of bad morals. Dreiser went on to publish more novels (American Tragedy, The Financier) before dropping out of the literary scene and converting to communism before his death in 1945.

"Sister Carrie" doesn't promise much at the beginning. In fact, this is yet another story about a rural person arriving in the big city seeking fame and fortune. In this case, it is Carrie Meeber, a young woman moving to Chicago to live with her sister and her husband while she tries to find work. Carrie quickly discovers big city life is tough; her sister's home life bores her to death, the work she finds in a shoe factory is pure drudgery, and she doesn't have enough money to buy decent clothes because she has to pay her sister four dollars a week for rent. Carrie hates her base co-workers and spends most of her free time watching people pass on the street outside of her sister's apartment. When Carrie loses her job after an illness, it looks like she will have to return home to Columbia City and forget about her dreams in Chicago.

Enter George Drouet, a semi-successful salesman with a voracious appetite for the ladies. George finagled Carrie's address when he met her on the train into Chicago, and now the two meet again by chance. The results of this meeting shape the rest of the book. Carrie abandons her sister's lodgings and becomes "kept" by George. It is during this period that Carrie meets George Hurstwood, the wealthy manager of a fancy Chicago tavern and friend of Drouet. Through a series of misunderstandings about the marriage status of Carrie and Hurstwood, and serious lapses in moral judgments, Hurstwood and Carrie move on to bigger and better things in New York City.

It is at this point that Norris must have began enthusing, for Dreiser embarks on a harrowing tour through the destruction of a human being's body and soul. Just when you think a person could sink no lower, Dreiser yanks you back to reality and illustrates for you just how bad things can get before the inevitable occurs. When the author contrasts the utter humiliation of one character with the elevation in status of another, the tension becomes too much to bear. This novel is painful to read, but at the same time it is so riveting it is nearly impossible to put it down. We've all seen or known people who suffered the fates revealed in this story, or at least I have, and that makes it even more chillingly realistic. How Dreiser managed to capture the feel of his characters' lives is a mystery, but that is what makes this book great literature; it is timeless in its examination of the inner workings of the human soul.

"Sister Carrie" is classic literature, but that does not mean there are not problems with the story. Dreiser's prose takes some getting used to before it starts to flow. In fact, this may be the best book I have ever read where the prose is often mediocre. I told one person that the author's style reminded me of an intoxicated welder, and I still believe that to be the case for most of the book. Dreiser has a tendency to jam his sentences together into an unwieldy mix of clauses and commas. After a few hundred pages this hardly seems to matter but it could provide a reason for someone just starting the book to quit reading it. Do not quit, however, because the story ends up being so good that the stylistic problems quickly fade into insignificance.

Another difficulty involves the middle portion of the story, when Carrie, Drouet, and Hurstwood vie for position with each other. These chapters appreciably drag while providing no clues about the goldmine that soon follows. Looking at the story as a whole, I understand now why these chapters were necessary but I didn't while I was reading them. Again, do not give up too soon lest you miss out on the extraordinary buildup to the soul shattering conclusion.

Ultimately, the messages conveyed by Dreiser outweigh the dual problems of prose and a few plodding chapters. The scandalous behavior the author wrote about angered many during his time because people believed that divorce, infidelity, loose morals, and social positioning were things better talked about privately than brought out in the open. The fact that Dreiser wrote such things without delivering a blistering rebuke about such behaviors also stunned society. Perhaps it is not too far off to say that Theodore Dreiser was the Jerry Springer of his generation, merely revealing things that everyone knew happened behind closed doors. Whatever the case may be, "Sister Carrie" is sheer brilliance. I was so fired up after reading this book that I went right out and got "American Tragedy." I now understand why Frank Norris went into paroxysms of delight about Dreiser's book.

This edition, which was prepared by volunteers, contains numerous errors, dropped words and punctuations, misspellings, wrong tenses, etc. It was so annoying to read that I purchased the Modern Library edition ($3.50) after about 75 pages. The errors are not occasional; they're on virtually every page. Although it's much less expensive, the savings aren't worth it.

Living an average middle-class life, I have always wondered how the very rich and the very poor get where they are. Sister Carrie is a beautifully written and fascinating tale of how one climbs and descends the social ladder of life. I am aware that some readers have criticized this book stating that Dreiser did not develop the characters very well and that Carrie was not very likeable. Well, it is my thought that Dreiser never intended for us to become solely wrapped within the characters. He meant for us to become enveloped in the circumstance. The two main characters, Carrie and Hurstwood, are truly victims of circumstance - Carrie's never-ending unhappiness and Hurstwood's downward spiral. As we go through life, there are so many events and choices that will guide our lives to what they are. When one stops and thinks about this, it is really quite fascinating. I believe Dreiser r was aware of this aspect of life and he wanted to write a novel that would effect the lives of everyone who reads it. I read the entire book in 3 days. I simply could not put it down. I recommend Sister Carrie to everyone. It will leave you thinking and thinking and thinking.

The constant typos in this edition ruin Dreiser's literary style. I got what I paid for.

I sometimes fear that novels heralded as "classics" may have been great in their time, but no longer have as much wallop. That was my prejudice approaching "Sister Carrie." I'd read "An American Tragedy" years ago and was impressed, though not as much as I'd been led to believe. Thus, I wondered whether Dreiser's "second most famous" novel would be worth the effort. It was. Although firmly set in its time, it is not dated, and the book moves briskly from start to finish. The characters are well drawn, and I found myself drawn into their stories and the choices they made, with the consequences laid out as the novel progresses. Dreiser manages to convey the gritty reality of living in Chicago and New York at the turn of the last century, with the contrasts between wealth and poverty so pronounced. His attention to detail makes the scenes come alive, and he tells the story without being didactic or preachy. For example, there is an episode involving a streetcar strike, which the author tells in a way that makes clear his own political views, yet those views are not crammed down the reader's throat.
This one is worth the effort.

As I have aged, and become aware of the time left in life, I have returned to reading classic books that I read in high school, or overlooked for popular fiction works of today. And am I glad I did. When in high school, we read Dreiser's American Tragedy, and I remember being one of the few who loved it. I felt it reached me as a teenager as no other book ever had, and to this day it is one of my few favorite books of all time (then again I love American Romantic Period paintings, and not many people I know do, so maybe it's just my taste). Anyway, Sister Carrie is new to me, and I love it. Of all the books that explain women's true feelings that I have read, this is one of the best. I think it still holds true for many women...circumstances may be different, but the feelings remain the same. If you want to understand the woman in your life, study Carrie. And the path of the male character is astoundingly real, even today. It is a thoughtful book that warrants everyone's attention. And added benefit...the language is beautiful. Writers from our past used words in ways to describe the world that I have rarely read in modern times...you can feel the wind through the trees, sense the depression of winter days, understand the inner feelings of characters far better than much put into books today provides. I have read far too many books today in which action takes precedence over character. Read Dreiser, or Dickens, or Hardy, or Austen and then try a modern book..its shocking how little the new books can hold you after the experience. SISTER CARRIE is worth your time.

Sister Carrie," Theodore Dreiser's debut novel, is the extraordinarily powerful story of Carrie Meeber, a naive small-town girl from Wisconsin who comes to the big city, Chicago, to reside with her older sister's small family. The year is 1889. "She was eighteen years of age, bright, timid and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth."

Carrie is soon overwhelmed by the difficulty of finding work, especially since she has no previous experience as a wage earner. When she finally does get a job on an assembly line at a shoe factory for $3.50 per week, she is exhausted by long hours of standing and poor working conditions. "Not the slightest provision had been made for the comfort of the employees, the idea being that something was gained by giving them as little as possible." "The wash rooms and lavatories were disagreeable, crude, if not foul places, and the whole atmosphere was one of hard contract."

Carrie does well in spite of these hardships, but she must pay her sister's husband almost her entire salary for her room and board. With winter coming and the chill winds of a Chicago autumn upon her, Carrie has no money for a coat, hat, nor even an umbrella. She is absolutely wretched. Then she meets a young salesman, Charles Drouet, whom she had become slightly acquainted with on the train to the city. She is eventually tricked into living with him - seduced by his offers of marriage, and the economic security and comparative independence he provides her. She is still a girl and is motivated by impulses and her passive, overly trusting nature.

Carrie makes another serious mistake when she allows herself to be deceived a second time by a well-to-do, married saloon manager twice her age, Mr. Hurstwood. Drouet, showing off, had introduced Carrie to his socially superior friend, and also thought to shine in Hurstwood's eyes by presenting him to his attractive, young "wife."

Disillusioned after a few years with Drouet, who loves her in his fashion but has proved to be irresponsible and flighty, Carrie believes Hurstwood to be single and herself to be in love with him. Hurstwood, a respectable gentleman who has never been a philanderer, is himself quite enamored with Carrie - enough to leave his family. He persuades her to flee Chicago and move with him to New York. He does this by outright lying to the young woman in his desperation to have her.

Given the period when the novel was published and the morality and mores of the time, "Sister Carrie" was not only poorly received, the novel scandalized polite society. The heroine, a young woman who comes to the city, forms two out-of-wedlock relationships, eventually becomes successful in her own right, rising to fame and respectability. She is rewarded rather than punished for her moral lapses.

Originally a newspaperman, Theodore Dreiser writes with a blunt journalistic style. In "Sister Carrie" and his other work, he deals with the gritty reality of life and is known as an outstanding representative of naturalism - a movement in literature and the arts where real life subjects are portrayed as they exist in the real world - with all their blemishes and defects.

I originally read "Sister Carrie" 25 years ago and thought to revisit it when I found it in one of my book trunks. I loved the novel back then, but now I really appreciate what a great American novel this is. The characters are outstanding in their depth and realism. The story is compelling, and the portrait of American life as seen through Dreiser's eyes is exceptional. Highly recommended!
JANA

Sister Carrie is probably best known for being the American example of the Naturalist school of writing. Centering around Carrie, a girl who comes to Chicago to live the good life in the big city, it follows her action from being a factory worker, to a 'companion', to a housewife, and finally to fame and fortune on the stage in New York City.
Dreiser sets the measure of the game early, on the first page, with the statement that all women are provided two options in life. One is to work hard, live, and have children. The other is to fall into a life of sin.
For those who don't hold with that line of reasoning, the book will be a bit hard to swallow. Dreiser operates along the same line of logic that Emile Zola set down when creating this genre. Every action Carrie makes is predestined, in Dreiser's eyes, by her surroundings. She will not and cannot make any decision contrary to her 'nature'.
While this is all very well and good for Dreiser, it is not so for Naturalism. Thomas Hardy's famous Tess, and Jude, make decisions contrary to their nature all the time, it is society that is at odds with the characters and not the other way around. Carrie's society seems perfectly willing to accept her, but it is her decisions that one finds appalling. The feeling is more like being on a careening freight train, with the outcome inevitable and predestined but terrible nonetheless. There is none of the same despair and void that one finds in Hardy, and somehow that is the books biggest flaw.
Hardy's novels, that were written a full forty years before Sister Carrie, explore naturalism in such a way as to make the character the hero and society the villain. Dreiser's Carrie is no such hero, she is just the unfortunate victim of circumstance.

My mother told me to read this book about ten years ago when I was the same age as Carrie. I rarely listened to her, (I do now, always listen to your mother!) so she read me the first few lines, and I had to pick it up: something about a girl of eighteen and how she might fare alone in nineteenth century Chicago intrigued me. There was a hint that she might go bad! So of course I had to pick it up. Besides, I'll read almost anything, which you can see from my various reviews. I found I couldn't put it down.

This is a great melodrama about a harsh and sprawling metropolis at the turn of the century, and like Dreiser's other work, it's also a story of the viciousness Darwinian nature of capitalism. In this case, he looks at the story through the eyes of a pretty young woman who comes to the city by herself-young Carrie, called "sister Carrie" in homey fashion by her rural family, to show the sweet origins of what ultimately becomes a not-so-respectable woman.

Carrie, trying to become an "actress", relies on sexuality to survive. It's suggested that she doesn't have much of a choice, and that everyone is for sale in the city. Preyed on by more sophisticated men, she ultimately becomes successful in her own right. This leaves us with a sort of confusion-we've grown to symapthize with Carrie and understand her behavior is a survival mechanism, but she is also callous and begins to change from victim to conniver. At the end, we aren't sure whether to cheer her triumph, or feel bad for those she's left in her wake.

Another entertaning, great Dreiser story that will teach you about American urban history, not to mention keep you turning the pages in great suspense as to what will become of lovely young Carrie. Thanks, Mom!