by Theodore Dreiser
|
| Amazon Price: | $13.16 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $12.38 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
The text of the Third Edition is based on the 1900 Doubleday Page edition, with detailed annotations that reveal the author’s use of real people and places in Chicago and New York. The novel is followed by "A Note on the Text," which discusses the relationship between this edition’s text and that of the Pennsylvania Edition (1981), and a "Textual Appendix," which provides a generous sampling of the cuts Dreiser and his friend Arthur Henry made in the typescript version of Sister Carrie. "Backgrounds and Sources" reprints generous excerpts from Dreiser’s autobiographies and other writings that help establish his personal connection to the novel. Coverage of the supposed "suppression" of Sister Carrie by its first publisher is drawn from Dreiser’s correspondence with Frank Norris, Arthur Henry, Walter H. Page, and F. N. Doubleday. "Criticism" collects thirteen essays, six of them new to the Third Edition, that discuss Dreiser’s distinctive literary naturalism and narrative technique, the novel’s relationship to American culture, and issues of gender and class in the novel, among other topics. Contributors include Ellen Moers, Robert Penn Warren, Amy Kaplan, Alan Trachtenberg, and Donald Pizer, among others. A Chronology of Sister Carrie and a Selected Bibliography are also included. .
Amazon.com Review
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
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A dated classic, 2010-01-12
Perhaps it is because this book is rather dated, but I only found this book to be ok. I found it very old-fashioned and prudish at times - though I am sure it was quite the scandal in its day! It was a day's worth of light reading, something to pass the time. But I would not label it as a favorite of mine.
I couldn't help but feel sorry for the men in the story, rather than for Carrie. Carrie is spoiled, manipulative and destructive in her pursuit of the "finer things in life". The men she uses to get there suffer the most for it!
If you like this book, the $2.95 price tag for this edition is worth it! I first downloaded the freebie, but the formatting was so off, I went ahead and downloaded this one. I just wish I had enjoyed the story better...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 I think the strength of the characterization outweighs any flaw in the execution., 2009-11-04
I read An American Tragedy many years ago. I do not remember very much about it. I remember that it moved me, but that I forgot it quickly. Sister Carrie is my second book by Dreiser.
I was dreading the book, at least a little bit. It seems to be universally damned with faint praise. I have heard readers describe the prose as awkward and overblown. I remember a Salon column snarking about it some years ago. I have heard that Dreiser's prose improved with the other novels, and have been told that it was possible to skip Carrie. And so on.
I loved it. That's a little bit lacking in nuance-- there *were* places that I got the criticism. At times I might have wished for other pacing. It has little flaws in the execution, and I suspect that you have to be able to swallow Dreiser's overall style. He's not lithe and little and zippy. His writing is sort of like a hoop skirt-- elegant from some angles, ponderous from others, not really very practical all around.
This said, I have rarely read a novel that treats so very well with character in time and place. Caroline Meeber is the kind of woman I find utterly unsympathetic. Her literary heirs generally fill me with irritation and vague revulsion, no matter how sympathetically portrayed. You know what I mean-- the lovely young animal, the woman who wants but doesn't think, the actress. Dreiser does a remarkable thing. He doesn't really make her sympathetic, exactly, but he makes her understandable. He makes a type of person who rarely seems human very human indeed. And a product of her time. The book is as much about the fragility of success in the early industrial era as it is about the individuals involved. Carrie comes through the mill unhappy but unscathed. George Hurstwood breaks himself in the traps of the time, forgetting that by serving the wealthy he does not actually become invincible. Terrible and true.
I believe that the strength with character in the text outweighs any flaws in the prose style. Perhaps I will be less impressed with a later reading, but right now, I would recommend it.
(Sister Carrie has an odd publishing background, by the way. There are several published versions of the book. I read the Penguin Classics unexpurgated version, and it seems to make a real difference if you get the earlier published versions which Dreiser self-censored in order to get the book printed. If in doubt, take a quick look--not enough to spoil your ending!-- at the last few pages. If it ends with Carrie, you've got a bowdlerized edition. If it ends with Hurstwood, you've got one of the unexpurgated or repaired editions. I found the foreword of my edition by Alfred Kazin helpful in understanding the publishing history.)
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Great for all the wrong reasons, 2009-10-24
There are many well-deserved reasons as to why this novel is a classic, all of which have been discussed by other reviewers. However, if you tend to find most classics to be something "better to have read than to actually read", be aware that Sister Carrie really might bore you to tears. Dreiser's awful, heavy-handed writing style is legendary, the novel is at least twice as long as it honestly needs to be, the characters are all cliched stock figures whose passivity makes them even more tedious, and the subject matter, which had been so shocking at the time, has long since lost all impact.
Well, get over it. The real impact of the novel today is in the myriad little fascinating details of interest to anyone even remotely curious about daily life during the gaslight era of American history. Plus, of course, the realism. This had always been the point, but the fact that Carrie is based on Dreiser's real-life sister certainly adds a dimension. And while the story of Carrie Meeber's/Emma Dreiser's life would hardly be as scandalous today, the underlying emotions, ambitions and consequences are just as timelessly relevant.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Climbing Up, Falling Down, 2009-07-04
The 19th century marked the turning point, when mankind began to be urban rather than rural. All over the world, a process started of people abandoning their old homes and heading for the bright lights and the lure of fortune in town. It's still going on in much of the world. Similarly, writers of many nations traced the stories of such people, writers like Zola, Balzac, Dickens, and even Horatio Alger, who made a cliché out of it. (Nice work, Horatio !) Theodore Dreiser wrote this classic novel at the beginning of the 20th century, about a girl who leaves a Wisconsin backwater for Chicago. Unable to make ends meet through the drudgery of factory or shop work, she winds up as mistress to two men, the second of whom gives up home, good job, and family for her, committing a crime along the way. They flee to New York, where, as the long story unfolds, Carrie becomes a successful actress while Hurstwood, her star-crossed lover, slowly hits bottom, becoming a scab in a street car strike, having gambled away what little money he possessed.
This gripping tale will take you time. It is couched in 19th century terms, that is, while it is about sex and power relationships between men and women, it is anything but explicit. Carrie at first is just a kept woman, but after an unexpected success in an amateur theatrical, she gains power. The themes of instinct vs. reason and raw desire vs. understanding suffuse the book. Carrie seldom thinks her way out of any situation, she isn't a schemer, rather more of a dreamer; she falls into everything almost by accident, but uses her sexuality to succeed and climb out of poverty.
Unlike most literature of the time, and certainly unlike much of Hollywood's products over the years, a life of "sin" does pay here. Carrie climbs the social and economic ladder, despite her discontent with Hurstwood's lack of gumption. It's all quite the opposite of the American dream of Lincoln-like figures succeeding by dint of their hard work, study, and dedication. She merely longs for pleasure and luxury and through sex, clothes, and looks, plus taking advantage of small 'breaks', reaches her goals. She realizes along the way, though, that there is more to life, but she cannot conceive of what that might be. We leave her at last, a lonely, but successful figure, sitting at the window.
This is one of America's classic novels. It goes without saying that it's worth five stars. Great story, great writing; it evokes the times so well, you feel as if you knew them yourself.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 American literature at its best, 2009-06-30
There's nothing like good ol' American literature that you can just sink your teeth into. A brilliant illustration of a period in history with characters and situations that not only give meaning to today, but also embody a dark period in American History (the Gilded Age of Robber Barons and sweatshops). Carrie becomes the toy of two men, whom she eventually uses as her stepping stones out of the sweatshop and onto the stage and a life of ease and rich trinkets. The world of poverty and the "walled city" of riches are portrayed as symbols of the breakdown and failure of the American Dream for the first time in American history. Driesler's novel is no moral tale, but a naturalistic, amoral illustration of American lives. Brilliant novel, wonderful prose, introspective into fascinating and realistic characters against a desperate, tragic, urban landscape of the end of the 19th Century.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|