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Frank Norris

The Octopus: A Story of California (The Epic of the Wheat) Paperback – August 1, 1994

by Frank Norris (Author), Kevin Starr (Introduction)

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Like the tentacles of an octopus, the tracks of the railroad reached out across California, as if to grasp everything of value in the state Based on an actual, bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880, The Octopus is a stunning novel of the waning days of the frontier West. To the tough-minded and self-reliant farmers, the monopolistic, land-grabbing railroad represented everything they despised: consolidation, organization, conformity. But Norris idealizes no one in this epic depiction of the volatile situation, for the farmers themselves ruthlessly exploited the land, and in their hunger for larger holdings they resorted to the same tactics used by the railroad: subversion, coercion and outright violence. In his introduction, Kevin Starr discusses Norris's debt to Zola for the novel's extraordinary sweep, scale and abundance of characters and details.

Print length

688 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Classics
Publication date

August 1, 1994
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

7.75 x 5.09 x 1.33 inches
ISBN-10

0140187707
ISBN-13

978-0140187700
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This is a turn-of-the-century epic of California wheat farmers struggling against the rapacity of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its domination. The company controls the local paper, the land, the legislature and, when the farmers organize to protect themselves, even manages to control their representative on the state rate-fixing commission. An unremitting tale of greed and betrayal, originally intended as one-third of Norris' never-completed "Epic of the Wheat" trilogy.

About the Author

Frank Norris (1870–1902) was an American journalist and novelist. Among his novels are McTeague, The Octopus: A Story of California, and The Pit. His fiction is classified under naturalism and has been compared to the works of Émile Zola, Stephen Crane, and Edith Wharton.

Kevin Starr (1940 - 2017) was an American historian and California's State Librarian, best know for his multi-volume series on the history of California. His writing won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and gold and silver medals from the Commonwealth Club of California. His books include Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915; California: A History;and Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; First Edition (August 1, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140187707
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140187700
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.75 x 5.09 x 1.33 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,184,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,940 in Classic American Literature
- #27,359 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #54,647 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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4.1 out of 5

95 global ratings

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Mark K. Rempel

An Emotional Passionate Work

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2014

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My edition is 656 pages and is unabridged (Penguin Books, 1987, 1994 reprint). When I read an earlier edition in the 1980 or perhaps in late 1970s, I could not put it down. I got so involved with the characters and so outraged with the railroad's soulless behavior that I steamed and yelled and stomped. The book is passionate and enthralling, though a very long book. Well worth reading again and again. The Wheat is symbolic of the common man against Big Business (the railroad). Specifically it deals with what is called the Mussel Slough Tragedy of 1880, how the railroad swindled and stole land from farmers. It is a naturalistic and didactic novel on wheat farmers, farm life, and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley in late 19th century America. But it is also a railroad story, though it mostly focuses on the plight of the farmers, there are scenes showing the railroaders point of view as well. It is an epic sweep of life in California back then. A classic tome of American fiction. The edition I have has a note on the text says it is based on the second printing of the first American edition of April 1901 and is complete. Includes a 24 page introduction by the historian Kevin Starr, who puts it all in context. The novel deals with a denunciation of wickedness and an assertion that Truth will prevail, so it can be seen as a persuasive advocation for social justice in the manner of Emile Zola and other realist writers. The novel isn't meant as entertainment, but as a tool to force change on an unjust situation, so much of the prose was designed to get the reader mad and involved to create a force for justice. In this respect it is considered to be anti-business and is no doubt frowned on by the ultra rich who believe that they should be praised for being successful. I suspect the book has been banned by some organizations for being anti-capitalist, un-American, etc., for the same reason The Grapes of Wrath had been banned for criticizing the growers and corporate agricultural businesses in California.

10 people found this helpful

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biscotti

Shocking in its day

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 10, 2015

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This was schrewdly written to please a certain segment of the reading public, and it was crazy successful in its day. Remember that, and you'll understand better what you are reading. Most readers in Norris' day lived east of St. Louis, and of those most were New Yorkers. In those days New Yorkers did not think highly of Californians, and it pleased them to read about Californians who lacked sophistication and a moral compass. Also the Victorian Novel was a major form of entertainment , was passed from hand to hand and enjoyed by everyone with enough education to read and a bit of time on their hands (the entire middle class, basically). By today's standards it is a bit of a potboiler, too long, full of mean-spirited racial and gender stereotypes that will insult everyone from Indians to Hispanics to women. It is surprising to learn that San Francisco was rumored to have gay leanings even in the 1890's (surprising to me anyway). It was avant-guard stuff, and there was no denying the coming threat of economic ascendance by the West with its mineral wealth, its international port and its modern approach to agriculture that skipped the family-farm stage almost altogether. Though New Yorkers hated many of these goings-on they couldn't ignore them. This book was a real blockbuster in the days before film and TV, was read by men and women in equal numbers, and teenagers would sneak it out of their parents' rooms to impress their friends and be properly shocked and horrified.

21 people found this helpful

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Frank D

Prequel to The King of California

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2011

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I came across this book reading the The King of California, a non-fiction account of large-scale cotton farming in California's San Joachin Valley from the pre-Depression era to the present. The King references the massive jack rabbit hunts the farmers and small town residents conducted as recreation and social events culminating in a large-scale picnic for hundreds in the fields, documented well in The Octopus. The main story is a well-written literary tale of the original wheat farmers in their battle against the railroad, the classic war between capital and labor, from a socialist perspective, with the evil corporate railroad as capital, The Octopus, destroying the farmers and the families dependent upon the farmers (although the farmers were quite successful also before they were ruined). It details well the day-to-day life, their families and workers, who homesteaded the lands given to the railroad by the federal government, and who expected to buy it from the railroad at nominal cost. It didn't work out thay way, the farmers organizing and then poorly implementing both a political and ultimately an armed fight against the railroad agents who were supported by the law. Written from the early 1900's perspective, I speculate that it may have had a profound influence on John Steinbeck before writing the Grapes of Wrath, with a similar theme. It also prequels the highly successful later cotton and produce farmers who shaped the future of today's Central Valley of California. I generally prefer non-fiction, but thoroughly enjoyed this story of early California agriculture and political struggle, and look forward to purchasing Norris's sequel, The Pit, which reportedly describes another story of wheat trading in the commodities market of Chicago.

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J C E Hitchcock

The Epic of the Wheat

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 28, 2012

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"The Octopus" was intended to be the first part of a trilogy to be entitled "The Epic of the Wheat". Frank Norris was to complete the second instalment, "The Pit", but had not started writing the projected third part (provisionally titled "The Wolf") when he died in 1902. The novel is set in the San Joaquin Valley of California and tells the story of a conflict between the local wheat growers and a railway company, here referred to as the Pacific and South-Western Railroad. Although the action takes place in the late 1890s, Norris was inspired by a real-life incident known as the Mussel Slough Tragedy which had occurred some twenty years earlier.

The ranchers have two main grievances against the railroad. The first is that the railroad can use its monopoly over transport in the area to charge them extortionate rates for transporting their produce. (One major character is bankrupted as a result of such profiteering). The second, and even more fundamental, grievance relates to land ownership. Much of the land being farmed by the ranchers is leased from the railroad company, which has lured them to the area with vague promises that they will eventually be able to purchase it at $2.50 to $5 per acre. The company, however, goes back on these promises, and puts the land up for sale at much higher prices which the ranchers cannot afford. The ranchers are particularly incensed by the fact that the railroad are attempting to profit from the improvements which they themselves have made and which have led to the increase in land values. The farmers form a League to resist the incursions of the railroad, but given the vast financial resources available to their opponents this is always going to be an unequal struggle. The novel's central incident is a shootout (based on the events of the Mussel Slough Tragedy) between some of the ranchers and agents of the railroad.

The novel has no single protagonist, although there are four characters who play major roles- Magnus Derrick, Annixter, Presley and Vanamee. Magnus, the president of the League, is an elderly man, one of the original Californian pioneers who arrived during the Gold Rush, who has gone into wheat ranching late in life. The novel charts the degeneration of his character; originally a man of integrity and high principles, he succumbs to the temptation to use immoral methods, such as bribery, in his fight against the railroad. The character of Annixter, another rancher, develops in the opposite direction; originally a selfish and arrogant young man he softens and becomes generous and kind-hearted after he falls in love with and marries a young servant-girl. Presley, a young poet who sympathises with the farmers' struggle, is in some ways a self-portrait of the author. Vanamee, a close friend of Presley, is a wanderer and mystic haunted by the tragic death of his fiancée Angele, who died in childbirth after being raped. The main villain is S. Behrman, a banker who acts as agent for the railroad. (Like a number of major male characters, Annixter, Presley and Vanamee are always referred to by their surnames alone; we never discover their Christian names).

As Kevin Starr points out in his introduction, Norris was influenced by European Naturalist writers such as Zola and saw the conflicts between the railroad and the ranchers as the clash of vast, impersonal forces. Shelgrim, the president of the railroad company, tries to justify himself in these terms, using what might be described as reverse Marxism. In Marx's view the materialist dialectic would inevitably lead to the triumph of socialism; in Shelgrim's it will inevitably lead to the triumph of a more efficient capitalism.

Unlike the corrupt Behrman, Shelgrim is not an evil man; we see a softer side to his personality. Yet he is a blinkered man who is unable to see the suffering which results from the operations of the untrammeled capitalism which he defends. This is brought out in the penultimate chapter in which Norris contrasts the opulent lifestyle of the wealthy- Cedarquist, a San Francisco businessman and an associate of Shelgrim, is hosting a banquet- with the destitution faced by Mrs Hooven and her two daughters on the streets of the city. (She is the widow of a German-born small farmer killed in the shootout).

Norris' sympathies are very much with the ranchers, despite the morally dubious tactics they are occasionally forced to resort to, and the story is told from their viewpoint. Although some of them are moderately well-to-do businessmen, by comparison with the immensely wealthy railroad corporation they are very much the "little men". If the railroad as an impersonal force, it is a force of destruction. Norris compares it to the "octopus" which gives the book its title, but more often he likens it to a mechanical monster, "that terror of steel and steam" which leaves "blood and destruction in its path". These words are taken from the book's final chapter, but they echo a powerful scene in the opening chapter in which an engine ploughs into Vanamee's flock of sheep, killing them indiscriminately.

This scene, and some others in the book, reminded of another late nineteenth century writer, Thomas Hardy. (The early part of "Far From the Madding Crowd" also contains a scene where a flock of sheep are killed). Like Norris, Hardy also wrote about agriculture and the struggles of farmers and farm-workers against impersonal natural and economic forces. Particularly Hardyesque were those powerfully written set-piece scenes describing the events of the farmer's year- ploughing, harvesting and the rabbit-hunt.

Unlike the religious sceptic Zola, Norris appears to have been a Christian believer, and this may account for a fundamental philosophical difference between the two writers. Whereas Zola had a basically pessimistic view of society, Norris ends his book on a note of rather facile optimism in which the growth of the wheat is used as a symbol of a benevolent providence. The final words of the book are "All things, surely, inevitably, resistlessly work together for good". This conclusion did not really sit well with the grim events which Norris had just finished relating, and I was uncomfortably reminded of Voltaire's Dr Pangloss. ("All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds").

Another weakness in the novel is the mystical Vanamee/Angele subplot, which does not really fit in with Norris' main themes. In the main, however, "The Octopus" is a novel of tremendous power and vision. Besides Zola and Hardy I was reminded of a third author, another Californian, born in the year of Norris's death. In the power of his descriptive writing, his social concerns and his sympathies with the poor and dispossessed, Norris can be seen as a predecessor of, and an influence upon, the John Steinbeck of novels like "The Grapes of Wrath". His death aged only 32 was a massive loss to American literature.

4 people found this helpful

H. Tee

Brilliant - Zola meets Sergio Leone

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 5, 2010

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The Octopus is an American classic published in 1901 based on a real conflict between the Railroad and the Californian farmers in 1880. Frank Norris took his style from Emile Zola and this is certainly evident from the pace, realistic narrative and punchy, dramatic sentimentality of the tale.

The basic premise of the story is that the all powerful, pervading railroad wants to get the wealth created by the farmers. The courts, politicians, press and importantly Trusts are in the control of the rail owners. There are many, many farmers and country folk rendered in great detail in the story; land managers, farmhands, wives and daughters etc (the Dyke, Hooven, Derrick and Tree families to name a few). This is in stark contrast to the number of people of the trains being basically only S Behrman, the train representative and perhaps Genslinger the paper editor.

It is in someway the detached, largely anonymous selfish destruction reaped on the farming community that makes the story so powerful. The people who are feeding America and beyond don't deserve this damage. Yet in classic Zola style, Norris makes one's blood boil at the inequity. The fall of virtually all the people we come to appreciate is very moving.

There are other reasons to like this story; for one I felt occasionally like I was reading a Western: guns, a train hold-up and exciting posse chase are depicted wonderfully (not least because it's carried out by a character brought low because the railroad arbitrarily raised the price to haul his crop). The rabbit round-up, the 40 strong teams of ploughs astride and other farm related activities was quite informative.

This is quite a long story with a lot happening but the author was quite astute in occasionally putting in reminders of past events to tread things together (I wish more books did this).

There are a couple of criticism: one is that the tale is very male indeed yet it is only towards the end that Norris somewhat conveniently uses the need for one girl to resort to prostitution to show that particular demise (woman would be losing their homes just a much as men but their voice is not given to any great extent earlier on). Secondly I could not help but see the inherent contradiction that the farmers were only there because of the land opened-up by the rail network - Norris needed to be a little more balanced perhaps (e.g. including a family of rail workers perhaps); but his philosophy that `farmers' and `railroad' are just events on the all powerful wheat is carried well to the final scene (you'll know what I mean when you read it!)

This is definitely a brilliant read; it's passionate and powerful. If you do read this and enjoy it, you'll love Germinal (mining) or The Beast in Man (murder on trains) by Zola each have similar feel to this.

6 people found this helpful

Simon Raes

Informative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 21, 2014

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Norris's story is a must-read for all who want to have an idea on how the Railroad (by some labelled as the most corrupt institution that has ever existed in America) took advantage of and bankrupted the ranchers and wheat growers in California around the turn of the century.
Nonetheless, the book also has a lot of descriptive passages which I didn't like so much... You can always skip them ofcourse without losing the storyline.

One person found this helpful

Steven Bennett

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 27, 2017

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Great item, quick delivery, no problems

Jessica Eklöf

Maybe spell-check?

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on November 11, 2019

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No page numbers, paragraphs start and end in the middle of a sentence, there a typographical errors all over. Don't buy this copy.

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