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`When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.' The tale of Carrie Meeber's rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood's slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before. The premier example of American naturalism, Dreiser's remarkable first novel has deeply influenced such key writers as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, and Joyce Carol Oates. This edition uses the 1900 text, which is regarded as the author's final version.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a 21 year old I was hugely impressed by Laurence Olivier's tragic Hurstwood in William Wyler's film 'Carrie' Carrie [DVD] [1952] and even now I'm haunted by his fate, selling matches on street corners! With the luminous Jennifer Jones as (Sister) Carrie, a euphoric Eddie Albert as the salesman Drouet and icy Miriam Hopkins as Hurstwood's wife it is superbly acted and beautifully photographed in black-and-white. More than 50 years later I've read the book and found it often ponderous and preachy, while the characters have little depth. Frankly, it's not that well written. Great American novel? I don't think so! But it is a page-turner!
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3 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Speckled with moments of brilliance
7 Jun 2011
Format:Paperback
Carrie Meeber leaves her small-town home in Wisconsin to try to make a life in Chicago. After unsuccessfully searching for steady employment, she gives up and becomes the "kept woman" of a male acquaintance, Charles Drouet. She finds her life with Drouet satisfactory for a while, but when she meets his friend George Hurstwood, a wealthier and more sophisticated gentleman, she begins a secret love affair with this older, married man.
I'm a big fan of the naturalist novel, and Dreiser is renowned as one of the best American practitioners of this literary style. Even so, I was disappointed with this book. Though Dreiser, like an exemplary naturalist, brilliantly captures the naked reality of social conditions and human behavior, that alone doesn't make a great novel. A great novel requires characters that the reader actually cares about, and that's what I felt was lacking from this book. It's unfortunate that Dreiser chose a female protagonist, because he doesn't display a whole lot of insight into the feminine mind. Based on this book alone, one would think his conception of womankind could be summed up in the phrase, "They like shiny things." Carrie comes across as shallow and stupid from chapter one. She continually makes life-changing decisions based on her desire for fancier clothing. In the second half of the book we gain more respect for her as she shows some competence in her chosen vocation, but it's too little too late, and her basic nature doesn't change. Hurstwood is a far more sympathetic character, but he exhibits his own frustrating assortment of unforgivable faults.
The best portions of the book succeed in spite of the characters and plot, rather than because of them. The expository comments Dreiser makes on human nature are far more insightful than anything being acted out by the book's cast. The more documentary portions of the book are brilliantly drawn, for example an account of a transit workers' strike, or the portrayal of the plight of the homeless. Unfortunately it's difficult to feel much pathos for the one poor character in the book because his fall from riches to rags is brought about by extraordinarily bad decisions. Instead of a "this could happen to anyone" feeling toward poverty, the tragic downfall of the character leaves the reader with the attitude of "that would never happen to me" and "serves him right."
Sister Carrie is to be commended for its groundbreaking lack of sentimentality and its disregard for the puritanical morality of its day. Its liberating influence on American literature is unquestionable. Enough moments of brilliance shine through this flawed book to show me that Dreiser did have the great American novel within him, and I'm going to keep reading his work until I find it.
I'm a big fan of the naturalist novel, and Dreiser is renowned as one of the best American practitioners of this literary style. Even so, I was disappointed with this book. Though Dreiser, like an exemplary naturalist, brilliantly captures the naked reality of social conditions and human behavior, that alone doesn't make a great novel. A great novel requires characters that the reader actually cares about, and that's what I felt was lacking from this book. It's unfortunate that Dreiser chose a female protagonist, because he doesn't display a whole lot of insight into the feminine mind. Based on this book alone, one would think his conception of womankind could be summed up in the phrase, "They like shiny things." Carrie comes across as shallow and stupid from chapter one. She continually makes life-changing decisions based on her desire for fancier clothing. In the second half of the book we gain more respect for her as she shows some competence in her chosen vocation, but it's too little too late, and her basic nature doesn't change. Hurstwood is a far more sympathetic character, but he exhibits his own frustrating assortment of unforgivable faults.
The best portions of the book succeed in spite of the characters and plot, rather than because of them. The expository comments Dreiser makes on human nature are far more insightful than anything being acted out by the book's cast. The more documentary portions of the book are brilliantly drawn, for example an account of a transit workers' strike, or the portrayal of the plight of the homeless. Unfortunately it's difficult to feel much pathos for the one poor character in the book because his fall from riches to rags is brought about by extraordinarily bad decisions. Instead of a "this could happen to anyone" feeling toward poverty, the tragic downfall of the character leaves the reader with the attitude of "that would never happen to me" and "serves him right."
Sister Carrie is to be commended for its groundbreaking lack of sentimentality and its disregard for the puritanical morality of its day. Its liberating influence on American literature is unquestionable. Enough moments of brilliance shine through this flawed book to show me that Dreiser did have the great American novel within him, and I'm going to keep reading his work until I find it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Theater makes any book better :)
28 Jan 2011
Format:Paperback
Actually enjoyed this book quite a bit more than i expected to. I had read an American Tragedy and did not enjoy the read at all. This one had a few advantages over that one. 1- it is only about half as long 2- it has a theater twist and 3- was in a Lit analysis class as i was reading it and it was fun to see what each critical approach (feminist, marxist, psychoanalytic, and formalist) brought out in the book. Dreiser is a thorough enough author that reading this book through any lens brings new issues and view points to the surface. It would be fine to read just straight through, in fact still enriching and enjoyable, but for a good book to read with literary theory in mind or write a paper on this is a good one to choose...
Sister Carrie
4 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great local color regarding Chicago at the turn of the century (1890). Very descriptive. Modern in that the woman doesn't get punished for being superficial and materialistic.
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