Sister Carrie

by Theodore Dreiser (Contributor)

A landmark in American literature, presented in its complete and unexpurgated version. Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. In this restored version, the truly revolutionary nature of Sister Carrie is made fully evident.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, American, Historical Fiction, Novels, Classic Literature

557 pages, Hardcover

First published November 8, 1900

About the author

Naturalistic novels of American writer and editor Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser portray life as a struggle against ungovernable forces. Value of his portrayed characters lies in their persistence against all obstacles, not their moral code, and literary situations more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency; this American novelist and journalist so pioneered the naturalist school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore...

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie was the first real book I've ever read in English. I was 11, my mother just bought me a brand-spanking-new English dictionary, and my school librarians finally let me roam the section of the library where normally kids were not allowed to wreak havoc in on their own. Awed by the idea of a big book in a language I just started to somewhat understand, I reached for it, just missing the much more age-appropriate Treasure Island - but then why'd you think I'd ever want to follow rules?

Needless to say, the combination of Dreiser being way over my head, my limited English skills and only so much patience an 11-year-old would have with a dictionary, I soon enough started getting distracted by the afternoon episodes of Duck Tales, and therefore my memory of this book has long been just a bit fuzzy.

And so I read it again with a set of grown-up eyeballs, sans dictionary this time, armed with a few more gray hairs (all twenty of them) and a hint of a wrinkle.
------

“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.”

This book was quite scandalous for its times - vulgar, immoral, risqué. It was ready to shake up the moral standards of its time with the unacceptable storyline: a young poor provincial woman Carrie Meeber comes to Chicago, gets disillusioned with "honest" overworked poverty, and before you know it, shacks up with first one man, then another (a married one, at that), and far from being suitably punished for such an immoral approach to life becomes a successful celebrated actress rolling in riches. Sordid, indeed!

It's the American Dream shown in all its dirty unattractiveness, nothing covered up by the gilded pretentiousness of class-correctness and faux piety, with the scathing understanding of the evils of desolate hopeless poverty. Dreiser does not hold back, casually telling it how it is, without any preachiness or squeamishness. Sordid, indeed!

“She knew that out in Chicago this very day the same factory chamber was full of poor homely-clad girls working in long lines at clattering machines; that at noon they would eat a miserable lunch in a half-hour; that Saturday they would gather, as they had when she was one of them, and accept the small pay for work a hundred times harder than she was now doing. Oh, it was so easy now! The world was so rosy and bright.”

Dreiser does not cut his heroine any slack. There are no illusions about the personality of Carrie Meeber. She has no redeeming qualities of excessive piety, unearthly compassion, admirable selflessness, exceptional kindness, awe-inspiring talent. She instead is a moderately-talented, practical and a bit selfish young woman longing for the beauty of life which to her quite circumscribed middle-class mind consists of comfortable life in pretty clothes and beautiful apartment, surrounded by everything that glitters but is not necessarily gold. Dreiser's descriptions of her mind and ambitions are frequently quite scathing:

“Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic.”

“And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things.”

“Her imagination trod a very narrow round, always winding up at points which concerned money, looks, clothes, or enjoyment.”

And yet Carrie does not need idealization or overwrought characterization to feel so real and alive through the pages of Dreiser's novel. And, unlike her almost-contemporaries Anna Karenina, Edna Pontellier and Emma Bovary, Carrie does not pay the price of death for daring to live the life that does not conform to the pre-defined ideal; instead, she thrives - even if it in Dreiser's wistful vision does not live up to any high standards:

“Know, then, that for you is neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.”

A woman without much agency, drifting on the waves of life that happen to take her into the direction of richness and fame? This was an accusation flung at Carrie from time to time. But consider that Carrie was never expected to have any agency whatsoever, instead expected to fulfill her role in society either as a pretty decoration or a choiceless drudge - and her refusal to accept these choices to me spells out enough agency to cause many a frown on the critics' faces in the early 1900s.

Not an ideal woman? No, of course. But the rebellious, tenacious even if simple personality of Carrie Meeber just highlights the ridiculousness of the ideal itself (meek, docile, forever understanding, endlessly supportive, quietly content). She will paddle out no matter into which depths you throw her to drown, regardless of what means she has to use.

-------
Besides Carrie, it's not the pathetic figures of her suitors, Drouet and Hurstwood, that are at the center of the novel. No, it's the idea of a big city - Chicago and New York - in the world just shaking off the confines of small towns in the agricultural society, the allure of fast life, of industry, of loud sounds and bright colors and frenzy of crowds of people, all in the several square miles of the vortex of human life, so beckoning and yet so coldly cruel.

"The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms."

The city beckons and seduces, but refuses to nurture those it attracts. Carrie is left on her own, to fend for herself, to make her way in life - or rather, to drift on the waves of the stubborn stream of life, busy paddling along and trying not to drown.

And so in Dreiser's description you can't help but feel both the alluring call and the warning caution of the fascinating world, still so new in those times, so fresh, so dangerous and so inevitable.
---------

There was something about this book from over a century ago that continued to speak to me through the years, to fascinate me, to make me think and feel and experience things it needed me to. And I loved it for all of that. 4 stars.

[Khover]

I can't believe I am actually trying to read this again. This is an oft-flung book, which has fair aerodynamics and, the hardcover copy of which makes a satisfying "thunk" as it hits the wall.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review
3 out of 5 stars to Sister Carrie, one of the greatest American novels of true realistic cum naturalistic tone, published in its final form in 1900 by Theodore Dreiser. Some of my favorite literature comes from this time period in American history. Writers took extreme liberties with creating the most realistic point of view and portrayal of characters who were living the American dream, or at least attempting to. All details were painfully described when it came to what was going on in their lives. It wasn't about how you brush your teeth from left to right, but it certainly came close. Feelings were clear. Words were prolific. It was less about the plot and drama, the shock and the surprise, but more about how people felt and interpreted all the actions around them. People wanted to know what was going on all over the city, the country and the world. Authors delivered. In this book, Carrie and her family, loved ones and friends, face all the experiences thrown at you when you become an adult. How you make decision. How you spend your day. It shows thru comparison and contrast what happened versus what could have happened. While I normally love this approach, this one was a tad bit dry for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was just a good book. I didn't feel connected to it as much as everyone else at the time. But if you want to know how things were during the 1870s - 1890s in American life, this book will show you.

About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

High school read. Recall it being extremely well-written albeit quite depressing - need to re-read!

[Samadrita · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

That I prioritized 'Sister Carrie' over at least fifty other books high on the ever-expanding tbr list can be imputed to a matter of false advertising. The blurb hails Carrie as a modern woman in American fiction, a first of her kind (think Kate Chopin's The Awakening released just a year prior to this). A heroine who may have plummeted to the depths of social and moral ignominy and eventually died or killed herself, following the inexorably harsh laws governing 'fallen women' in literature, had she not achieved independent success in the end. And as a woman I am interested in categorizing male authors according to their handling of women characters. Sue me!

Yet contrary to what indicated by the deceptive title, the book features very little of the eponymous heroine's trajectory often deviating to chronicle the narrative arcs of her lovers who, by turns, unwittingly aid and thwart her. In fact this is as much about Carrie Meeber's rise to prominence as a Broadway actress as it is about Hurstwood's downward spiral into eventual vagrancy and death on the streets of New York - a slow and gradual process which makes for a terrifying, bone-chilling spectacle and, for a while, threatens to steal the limelight from Carrie's growth story in entirety.

In the sunshine of the morning, beneath the wide, blue heavens, with a fresh wind astir, what fears, except the most desperate, can find a harbourage? In the night, or the gloomy chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

That a male author condemned a male character to a fate of complete but uneventful ruination while simultaneously elevating a woman to a position of significance in society is a literary feat worthy of applause. And yet something about this book leaves one unsatisfied, a little deceived, a little cheated, with a distinct feeling of 'isn't there more?'

She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be. Every hour the kaleidoscope of human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and therewith it became for her the desired-the all.

Carrie never acts out of her own conviction in any goals, always, inevitably letting circumstances coerce her into action when all other avenues which allow her to maintain a glamorous, hassle-free existence have been exhausted. She lets desperation be her guide instead of some 'soul hunger' (yes I am still suffering from a Middlemarch hangover) or a conscious desire for personal liberty. She is also never proactive in pursuing love, only ever responding to the advances of those who express romantic interest. Carrie's awakening is shown to be in its initial stages, never attaining maturation. And this is why I can't help but prefer assertive Edna over dilly-dallying, uncertain, easily-swayed-by-another's-opinion Carrie.

The pitfalls of a lack of narrative focus and the structurally awkward, dry, doctor's-prescription-like prose notwithstanding, the novel has its redeeming facets. Dreiser's gift for character analysis is astonishing. With surgical precision he exposes the motivation at work behind every action and thought. As a consequence, the inner lives of all the characters are brilliantly replicated for the reader's benefit. In addition, the novel seems like a mild indictment of the fatal lure of the big city with its frenetically-paced industrial hubs, jam-packed shopping districts and flourishing neighborhoods, the deceptive grandeur with its promise of wealth and social relevance to the starry-eyed, penniless newcomer that remains only ever that - a promise. Not all women are as lucky as Carrie, pretty enough to attract the attentions of rich men, willing to fund her wardrobe and house her, and eventually the stage.

Ah, she was in the walled city now! Its splendid gates had opened, admitting her from a cold, dreary outside. She seemed a creature afar off-like every other celebrity he had known.

That Carrie was created by a male novelist in 1900 remains an impressive fact though. For that, I doff my hat..er...hairband to you, Mr Dreiser!

____

P.S.:-From the desultory tone of my review and its utter lacklustreness you can probably infer how underwhelming I found the book.

[⚔Irunía⚔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those rare, unique ocassions when I genuinely liked what fate a male writer had in store for a heroine in the book. "Immoral" girl who hardly has any admirable features instead of getting her "deserved" comeuppance reaches astounding success and lives rolling in luxury and fame? Probably scandalous for the 1900s.

Don't we know now that good girls go to paradise and bad girls go wherever the hell they want 😌😇

[kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a classic that I could read over and over again. What a story! If you haven't read it, you should! The story not only captures the reader into the story, it gives you a deep sense of mans crazy nature.

I just finished reading this one again. I first read it 7 years ago, and felt is was time to try it again. Dreiser really speaks to my soul!!

"Oh Carrie, Carrie! Oh blind strivings of the human heart! Onward onward, it saith, and where beauty leads, there it follows. Whether it be the tinkle of a lone sheep bell o'er some quiet landscape, or the glimmer of beauty in sylvan places, or the show of soul in some passing eye, the heart knows and makes answer, following. It is when the feet weary and hope seems vain that the heartaches and the longing arises. Know, then, that for you it is neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel."

To me this books speaks deeply:
I must always warn myself against such blind strivings of the human heart. Focus on what is important. Our longings will tell us we want something that we do not have, but the truth is there if we realize it...if we do not want, we will have everything. Happiness is a state of mind, not a circumstance . Anyway I could go on and on, but I'll spare you my soap box. :)

[Evripidis Gousiaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μια ιστορία με μια νεαρή κοπέλα η οποία θα εγκαταλείψει την επαρχία και θα μετακομίσει στο Σικάγο θέλοντας να ζήσει και η ίδια το Αμερικάνικο Όνειρο.
Μια ιστορία αφύπνισης από το συγκεκριμένο όνειρο όπου η πραγματικότητα αποδεικνύει πόσο εύκολα το όνειρο γίνεται εφιάλτης.

Η Κάρι θα βρεθεί αντιμέτωπη με την ανεργία, το νοίκι και τους λογαριασμούς και την ώρα που είναι έτοιμη να εγκαταλείψει την προσπάθεια της θα βρεθεί ένας σωτήρας. Ένας νεαρός, όμορφος ευεργέτης ο οποίος είναι διατεθειμένος να της παρέχει σχεδόν κάθε άνεση με αντάλλαγμα μόνο την ομορφιά της.

Μια σχέση σαν αυτή -συγκατοίκηση θα το λέγαμε σήμερα- φαντάζει σκανδαλώδες για την κοινωνία του 1890 όπου διαδραματίζεται το βιβλίο.
Ο Dreiser όμως πετυχαίνει κάτι εξαιρετικό. Κάθε κίνηση από τους βασικούς του ήρωες (Υπάρχει άλλος ένας χαρακτήρας με πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο που εμφανίζεται αργότερα στο έργο), όσο ανήθικη και αν φαίνεται με μια πρώτη ματιά, δικαιολογείται απόλυτα από τις καταστάσεις. Επομένως δύσκολα αποδίδεις κατηγορίες στους ήρωες για την συμπεριφορά τους. Οι ήρωες διακατέχονται από ένα Δίκαιο το οποίο παραμένει αμετάβλητο στο χρόνο.

Παρ’ όλο που το έργο ονομάζεται "Η Κάρι μας" (Sister Carrie στο πρωτότυπο) και επομένως ίσως θεωρηθεί γυναικείο βιβλίο και απορριφθεί από το αντρικό αναγνωστικό κοινό, πρέπει να αναφερθεί ότι από την μέση του βιβλίου εμφανίζεται ένας δεύτερος ήρωας με πρωταγωνιστικό ρόλο, άντρας αύτη τη φορά.
Ο ήρωας αυτός έρχεται σε αντιδιαστολή με την Κάρι και ουσιαστικά αντιπροσωπεύει την άλλη πλευρά του νομίσματος. Οτιδήποτε προσωποποιεί η Κάρι στο έργο, ο δεύτερος αυτός ήρωας, χωρίς να επισκιάσει την Κάρι, ενσαρκώνει το αντίθετο.
Θα λέγαμε ότι αν η Κάρι είναι το όνειρο, αυτός είναι ο εφιάλτης.

Πολλοί έχουν πει ότι ο Dreiser χρησιμοποιεί σαν αφορμή την Κάρι προκειμένου να πει την Ιστορία του δεύτερου ήρωα και σε μερικές σελίδες ένιωσα ότι κάτι τέτοιο είναι αληθές. Παρ’ όλ’ αυτά διατηρώ τις αμφιβολίες μου καθώς η Κάρι είναι ουσιαστικά η ιστορία μιας από της αδερφές του συγγραφέα.

Προσωπικά το απόλαυσα με το παραπάνω το βιβλίο και το προτείνω σε όσους θέλουν να ρίξουν μια ματιά στο χρόνο: Στην καθημερινότητα της Αμερικής του 1890-1900, στις εργασιακές συνθήκες του τότε και κυρίως στην θέση της γυναίκας.

(4.5 αστέρια)

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the Blackstone Audiobook which came out Nov 18, 2005. It is not registered here at GR. There are two versions of Theodore Dreiser's book. The original "Doubleday Edition" was published in 1900. This, the original, was in fact edited by his wife. It has 47 chapters. It was considered more easily accessible to the public; the harsh message of new American Naturalism softened. The Blackstone audiobook uses this version.

80 years later, the "Pennsylvania Edition" of the book came out. It restored what had been cut or altered in the original version. It has 50 chapters. It is considered harsher in tone.

Having not read the "Pennsylvania Edition", I am unable to comment on that. What I can say is that the “Doubleday Edition” used by Blackstone is dark too. It takes a good hard look at human behavior. It is fully realistic. I think it magnificently portrays both human behavior and the reality of life in the 1890s of America as the nation moved from an agrarian existence toward urbanization.

The book focuses on three people: Carrie Meeber(actress), Charles Drouet(salesman) and George Hurstwood(familyman?,manager?). Three very different people. Each of these three is explored in depth. Their lives are intertwined, yet each chooses a different course to follow. Do we choose, or are we just unable to be other than ourselves? Life is hard for all three. This is a book that portrays reality. This book lies at the forefront of American Naturalism. Here is the gritty truth. For me each character was himself through and through, from start to finish. Wonderful character portrayal.

There is no humor. You don't need it in this book.

Magnificent dialog.

Do you like the works of Edward Hopper? You know you often look through a large window out into another world, be it a bar or a landscape or whatever. There is clarity to what you see. Sharp and clear and you watch. That is exactly how Dreiser's book affects me .....but through words.

The audiobook narration by C.M. Hebert was totally magnificent. Perfect in all ways - speed, tone, intonations. Feelings are expressed. A voice quavers, another is jolly. One has confidence. Each voice fit the character, the dialog, the words.

This book is not just about one woman and her determination to make her own life. It is also about what that demands. What are the consequences? How do we go after a goal with dignity? And Carrie is no more sure of herself than you or I. We are also given two others - Drouet and Hurstwood. I found them equally interesting! I really, really liked this book.

[Jan-Maat]

The more Effi Briest's, Anna Karenina's and Madame Bovarys' and their ilk I read the more Sister Carrie stands out as a thematically exciting book. The woman who makes a success of herself through an unconventional lifestyle but doesn't have to die is sharp and amusing departure from many earlier novels. Instead it is the men left in her wake who suffer. Hurstwood's collapse and inability to adapt from Chicago to New York is still fascinating.

Dresier's novel came a year too late to save Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, she still has to die.

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the words of Edmund Wilson, "Dreiser commands our respect; but the truth is he writes so badly that it is almost impossible to read him."

Sister Carrie is a bad book. Not morally bad, unfortunately. That at least would make it interesting. In that respect, nothing in this book would be out of place in a Progressive lecture on social purity. This line from the first page sets the tone: "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." Why anyone bothered to censor something this priggish is beyond me. No, I mean Sister Carrie is simply bad writing.

Dreiser never shows if he can tell, and he never tells if he can grandiloquesce.

Dreiser's characters are clichés. None ever has a fully formed, let alone interesting, thought; they limit themselves to dim impressions of either the obvious or the implausible. I am not sure that it is possible for a real human being to be as boring as these characters. In large part, I blame the boredom on Dreiser's evident belief that "the common type of mind" (340) is merely a bundle of instincts and impressions. This common type apparently can't think for herself, so Dreiser's narrator has to do all the thinking for her.

Humans are not actually like that.

In any case, Dreiser's prose is unpardonable. I marked down a few examples. "As a result, a train of gossip was set going which moved about the house in that secret manner common to gossip" (131). ... "In short, for the time being he walked in a lighter atmosphere and saw all things through a more rosy medium. It might have been said of him, under these circumstances, that he was truly in love" (132). ... "As he undid his collar and unfastened his studs preparatory to washing his face and changing his clothes, he dilated upon his trip" (135). ... "Oh, the drag of the culmination of the wearisome. How it delays, -- sapping the heart until it is dry" (140).

I gave up on page 345 of the Penguin edition, with 154 pages to go.

[julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something I liked about this book is that it reminds you of how life can change all the time. Sometimes we forget that, we think things will stay as they are, if only we don't move too much. I liked Carrie, although I find it kind of annoying that the author liked her so very much, sometimes you want to see not only how great a person can be, but also the really bad parts, when they're mean and terrible.
I liked the story a lot as a whole, it made me want to read more american classics, I love reading about Chicago and New York in the beginning of the 20th century. I must mention, though, the really annoying part was the whole "this is the lesson we learn part" it kind of makes you feel at times like you are reading the wrong book.

[Jacob Appel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I returned to this book after nearly two decades away and I found it as juicy and engrossing as ever.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that, as stylists go, Dreiser is among the least accomplished of major American novelists. Maybe only John O'Hara compares, if he's even still considered a major author. Dreiser's word choice is no more precise than that of a Ouija board, his sentences as vibrant as chewed galoshes. But reading Dreiser for his wordsmithery is like visiting Casablanca for the waters, or buying Playboy for the articles -- it rather misses the point. Similarly, Dreiser often relies upon too easy a plot device...the open safe in Sister Carrie, the identical initials in An American Tragedy, etc.. So I acknowledge all of that at the outset and still think this holds its own as a masterpiece more than a century after publication.

Sister Carrie is brilliant because few if any authors can capture atmosphere or character as well as Dreiser, and in this novel, he is at his wisest and most perceptive. Who but Dreiser could capture the silent oppression of Minnie Hanson's flat, the fragile coexistence that defines Hurstwood's domestic life, the befuddled romantic gamesmanship of Drouet...? It's all too easy to dismiss this work as a period piece or an historical artifact, when a reader willing to take the novel on its own terms will find a deeply insightful examination of human foibles and fantasies. This one is a classic for a reason!

[Axl Oswaldo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2024/36

Modern Library (and One Special Guest) Challenge with Alan [6]

Modern Library 100 Best Novels (33/100)

This was quite the journey. Sister Carrie is my second Dreiser, having read An American Tragedy last year, and at this point, I can only say that I liked the experience, although some obstacles on my way to the end made it a little bit disappointing. To begin with, the story is not as deep and complete as An American Tragedy, and the main characters, especially the protagonist, are not as likable and palpable as Clyde and Roberta, protagonists in the aforementioned novel. On top of that, Sister Carrie has another flaw: once the story moves to New York, so to speak, it is no longer as compelling and entertaining as it was in its first half. It is as though the author didn't know how to end this story, and was trying too hard to give his protagonist a proper ending. It didn't work.

I must confess my enthusiasm while reading Carrie's life was there for the most part, as I was fond of her at the very beginning, alas my fondness didn't last too long, especially when Carrie's actions were all over the place. I get it, honestly, the first chapters were like a punch in the face; seeing Carrie being rejected from one job to the other, the reason: she didn't have any experience! How was she supposed to have experience if no one was willing to give her a chance? It is like an endless cycle, no experience means no job, no job means no experience, and so on. I have been there before, and so have some of my friends. I remember calling my friend Julián—an old friend from college—a few months ago and asking him how life was treating him, 'I'm its bitch' he said with a little bit of anger in his tone, and with some further explanation he mentioned he hadn't found a job in the area he wanted, firstly, because they were asking for experience (five years or more, which was impossible for someone who finished college two years ago), and secondly, they were asking for a more 'extensive' resumé, whatever that means. 'As for me,' said I, somewhat dubiously, 'I'm not even an engineer! I have been trying to find a job related to my degree since I got my diploma back in 2022, but so far it's been unsuccessful. Every interview is the same, sometimes with different questions, but eventually the same result. No calls back. And it is not as if I have been trying too hard to be honest, just near my parents's home, near my city, but nothing comes. And I was so frustrated, you know, that things were not working as planned. Maybe if I move, but I am so tired of moving out, man. Five times in my life I have moved, and now that I am back where everything started I am not sure if I want to go through that experience one more time. Damn. Had I known this would happen, I would have pursued a different degree. Engineering, yes, but maybe a different one. One that could give me something in return, you know.'

Like in Carrie's story, things don't pan out at times, but eventually, you have to learn how to move on, rather than keep complaining about your life decisions that took you to the place you are. Maybe, instead of that, seeing the bright side is the only way to keep yourself on board. Carrie learned quite a few lessons through the novel, however, she also made some mistakes that put her through difficult situations. In the end, whether or not Carrie is a better person, whether or not she becomes the successful woman she wanted to be, is something that the reader must find out by themselves; I can only say that the journey is worth it, albeit the novel's flaws, and that it can be a great choice to kick off your journey on Dreiser's works.

My friend hung up the phone that afternoon, not without saying that I must not lose hope, that good opportunities are special, therefore they come once in a blue moon, and that I must keep trying. He called me 'an engineer' before saying that he wished we could hang out someday (he lives in the southernmost state in Mexico, so let's figure out when that will happen), that he will be traveling to Mexico City soon, the city of our old adventures and secrets, and that he was no longer the shy, chubby guy I met before. I was so happy that things were turning out great for him. Alas, and this is between us, I could not tell him I was no longer feeling 'an engineer.' Carrie would probably understand.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:

Quality of writing [3.5/5]
Pace [3.5/5]
Plot development [3/5]
Characters [3.5/5]
Enjoyability [4/5]
Insightfulness [3/5]
Easy of reading [4/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]

Total [24.5/7] = 3.5 rounded down

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

At age eighteen, Carrie Meeber moves from a small town to the big city of Chicago, where she tries to make a living. When she runs into difficulties, rather than return home, she accepts assistance from a man who leads her to believe they will marry. She eventually becomes involved with another man who, unbeknownst to her, is already married. Carrie drifts through life with no set goals, at times encountering failure and at other times finding success. One of the primary themes appears to be the role of chance in a person’s life, especially for those who, like Carrie, are initially not particularly assertive or decisive.

This book was published in 1900 and is set mostly in the 1890’s. In this book Dreiser illustrates major changes taking place in society at the time, such as the increase in industrialization, rise in consumerism, changes in traditional roles for women, improvement in mobility (via train travel), and shifts in moral standards. It is fascinating to me to read books written long ago, as it provides a true picture of what life was like in those days. One of Carrier's places of employment is described as:

“The place smelled of the oil of the machines and the new leather—a combination which, added to the stale odours of the building, was not pleasant even in cold weather. The floor, though regularly swept every evening, presented a littered surface. 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 and making the work as hard and unremunerative as possible. What we know of foot-rests, swivel-back chairs, dining-rooms for the girls, clean aprons and curling irons supplied free, and a decent cloak room, were unthought of. The washrooms were disagreeable, crude, if not foul places, and the whole atmosphere was sordid.”

The book is compelling and extremely well-constructed. It is structured around major set pieces, with natural transitions between them. The characters are realistic; they exhibit both virtues and flaws. Dreiser provides an unnamed narrator, who occasionally addresses the reader. This narrator occasionally indulges in generalizations about women and ethnic comments that may not sit well with a modern audience, though it is possible that Dreiser is showing that the narrator is a product of an earlier way of thinking, as Carrie’s trajectory diverges from the narrator’s rather generic observations.

This book is well worth reading for the way it brings to life the seeds of change that have become the norm today. It provides a vivid picture of the urban scene at the turn of the 20th century, and parts of it are very sad. Dreiser was ahead of the curve and roundly criticized, but this book stands the test of time and has become a classic.

[Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note, Oct. 27, 2021: Having discovered that the edition to which my review was linked (not sure how that happened!) has a Goodreads description in the Cyrillic alphabet, I switched it to an edition with a description in English. Accordingly, I edited the review slightly, to eliminate references to the description, without changing anything substantive. (I read the book in a nondescript library copy, and don't recall the actual edition.)

This is another book I read for background information on American Literature, back when we were homeschooling our girls. I hadn't read any of Dreiser's novels, and chose this over An American Tragedy since I'm not attracted to tragedy, as a rule. The plot here isn't without its tragic elements, but my three-star rating (which actually would be 3 1/2 if I could give half stars), which expresses solid liking, demonstrates that I don't regret the read!

The plot here concerns a young farm girl who comes to Chicago (where a married sister of hers already lives) to seek her fortune and is seduced, early on, into sexual sin. That isn't, however, the whole of the plot; and despite the 12-year delay in publishing the book, for fear its contents would cause "offense," this isn't pretentious smut nor propaganda for sexual licentiousness (quite the contrary, actually). Indeed, its treatment of sexual matters did not appear to me to be any more racy than that of some 19th-century classics that preceded it, and I was a bit at a loss to account for the censorious reaction. To be sure, this is a treatment not directly conceived in Christian terms; like the author, Carrie's orientation is pretty much secular ("Sister Carrie" is just a family nickname used by her siblings, not a religious reference), so unlike Hester in the The Scarlet Letter, for instance, she doesn't interpret her situation in spiritual terms. Also, unlike the female protagonists of some 19th-century cautionary tales, she isn't destroyed by the consequences of her lapse; instead, she learns from her mistakes and goes on to make something of herself; while a male's surrender to lust ruins him, which perhaps didn't suit the flagrant double standards of the day in literature and life. But Dreiser's treatment is completely tasteful and restrained, devoid of anything like explicit sex or obscenity. More importantly, while he isn't throwing stones at people, it's clear from the get-go that he doesn't sympathize with sexual predation, and that he regards some of Carrie's choices as mistaken.

That last clause leads into another point that struck me personally. The conventional critical wisdom is that Dreiser is a Naturalist, an exponent of a literary school that portrays humans as puppets of the same purely biological drives and instincts that rule the animals. As Goodreads' "About Theodore Dreiser" quotes Wikipedia, "He pioneered the naturalist [sic] school and is known for portraying... literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency." Now, this is the only Dreiser novel I've read; my prior acquaintance with him was limited to a couple of his short stories. His larger corpus, considered as a whole, might well place him in the Naturalist camp. But on the narrow evidence of this novel alone, his themes here strike me as, at the crucial points, aware of choice and agency. Of course, he makes the point that humans very often don't really think about their behavior (though he thinks they should), and may lack the psychological equipment to do so; and he doesn't doubt the role of "inborn desire" (referring to it twice in one page). But he also doesn't discount the role of free will; in one of his short philosophical digressions, he suggests that in humans today, it wars with instinct, neither of them having total mastery. (In Darwinist fashion, he looks for the day when "evolution" will give total victory to the will.) His characters here DO make choices, change directions, learn lessons (or fail to learn them); there is a kind of social and psychological inertia and force of habit that can carry them with it but doesn't have to. And the biggest factor in what happens to them is whether they make decisions for themselves --and what sort of decisions they make. So I'd argue that he comes across here as, perhaps, a qualified rather than an extreme Naturalist.

The literary style here is mostly straightforward, realistic narration and dialogue (the author makes a good use of a dream sequence in one place). Drieser's diction is that of the turn of the 20th century, still literate but more simple and direct than that of the early 19th century; it shouldn't be daunting to a modern reader, IMO. His storyline meets Thomas Hardy's dictum, that it must be "worth telling;" and it's told in a way that held my interest. All three main characters are well-drawn and three-dimensional. As a heroine, Carrie (like the rest of us) isn't perfect, and she's so naive in the first half or so of the book that I wanted to shake her by the shoulders a couple of times; but it was a friendly frustration, because I genuinely liked her, cared about her welfare and rooted for her, and greatly enjoyed her personal growth under Dreiser's deft hand. And perhaps ironically, given Dreiser's 12-year battle with censorship and the and the supposed "influence" critics claim for him on later 20th-century writers (whose reading of the book may have been more influenced by preconceived ideas about it than by what it actually says!), I found this a genuinely moral novel with a constructive message.

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, but grim story about love, innocence, morality and fidelity, but more importantly the story revolves around money, money and more money!
Dreiser's characters and their emotions are so vivid and real that one feels what they feel and sees what they see.
Thanks dear Aida, for recommending this book to me. It was such a long time ago, i don't know if you remember.

[Daniel Villines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Sister Carrie about thirty years ago as one of a series of books that started with The Jungle. At the time, I was a Young Republican of the Ronald Reagan ilk, and these books served to create a realization in my young and ignorantly conservative mind.

The books all presented a consistent picture of an American urban society where the economics of slavery still persisted after the Civil War. The only difference being that ownership, along with the responsibility for food and shelter, had been traded for the simple payment of a barely subsistence wage. This realization brought an appreciation for my then-and-now present-day working conditions and conjured up the struggle that had to have taken place since Sister Carrie’s publication.

Sister Carrie experienced a controversial existence when it was first published in 1900. Its depiction of Carrie shacking up with an unmarried man, and then shacking up with a married man raised the moral ire of those that demanded that the book be banned. In addition to these blatant acts of moral depravity, Carrie also presents herself as something of a selfish opportunist who is vain in her desires. She thinks nothing of acting innocently through dishonorable scenarios that lead to her advantage, and she has no sense of responsibility to those who helped her in her past.

This second time through the book led me to realize that the depiction of Carrie’s immoral character may have not been Dreiser’s direct intent. Rather, he used Carrie’s behavior as a reflection of American society at the time. Carrie succeeds in negotiating her way out, and to rise far above the pit of wage-slavery, and it's her immoral and self-centered behavior that grants her that success.

Condemning Sister Carrie for its immoral depictions was an act that also condemned American urban society for its immoral necessities. Dreiser may have had an ironic grin on his face every time the book was banned because such acts confirmed his message: this greatest point in American capitalism was inherently destructive and inherently immoral.

Thus, while my original understanding of this and other books that I read some thirty years ago still remains, Sister Carrie has now taken on an extra dimension. While society has struggled over the last century and has won some reforms, Carrie’s behavior still serves as a recipe for success; and there are many among us who, through ignorance or purpose, cry for America’s return to the "greatness" of Carrie’s time.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theodore Dreiser and Emile Zola are both in the naturalist camps of literature, and indeed, I found many similarities between Sister Carrie and Nana. The major difference however, is that Dreiser choses to lead Hurstwood, his formerly affluent male protagonist to a bitter, self-induced end in a flophouse (reminiscent of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth), while Carrie, a lowerclass woman who, it could be argued, does bad things for money and material gain, moves up the socio-econimic ladder to a position of security and respectable reknown. In contrast, Zola exemplifies the naturalist theory that heredity determines fate, and accordingly, his protagonist, the courtesan Nana, dies a horrific death, alone and unloved. While Dreiser certainly illustrates the precept of naturalist fiction to show the harshness of existence in the plight of Hurstwood, that HE dies in the end, as opposed to Carrie, I find slightly unusual for a novel of the time. Yay for one morally quesionable female protagonist making it to the end of a 19th-century novel alive!

[Cassy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that this book could have been so trashy, but transcended it all. Close your eyes and imagine this story: back in the olden days, an unsophisticated country girl goes to the big city and climbs the ranks of society as a rich man’s mistress. If a contemporary book boasted this plot, I’d pass. A lesson learned from Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber.

But that plot presented in a classic? Brilliant! Depressing, evocative, complex! Naturalist genius! Sure, it was scandalous when it was published in 1900. Now in the era of MTV’s Jersey Shore, this book looks pretty darn classy. I couldn’t discern the need for 1900’s censorship until midway through when the book started down an unexpected path.

The beginning and ending of the book reminded me of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. There is some moralizing and philosophy, but it is light-handed. The middle section was reminiscent of Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence. Just like Wharton and Tolstoy, Dreiser impressed me with his deep understanding of people. He nailed the human psyche. This book paints all its characters gray. You want to despise them, but they are not malicious enough to deserve it. You want to hug them, but keep them at arms' length because they still infuriate you.

Further evidence that the characters drove this book: I bought it at a used bookstore. I am sure I flipped through it to make sure it was not bleeding with highlighter ink. During this cursory glance, I didn’t notice that Jamie (the previous owner who had kindly written his/her androgynous name inside the cover) had written a handy summary at the start of the chapter he/she had just read. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but read the summaries in their red ink and tidy handwriting. So, I always knew what was coming. And guess what? It didn’t matter! These constant spoilers would probably have killed a Dan Brown book. But here it wasn’t about plot twists or action. It was about development! What was Carrie thinking to reach that decision? Or, okay, they become destitute in the next ten pages – how does that happen?!?

Minute annoyance and mild spoiler: Remember when Hurstwood estimated he needed to make $150 a week at the NYC salon in order to live comfortably? They had the nice six-room flat with a servant. They went to the theater occasionally. Things were good, right? Fast-forward to when Claire starts making $150 a week – and all of the sudden, she cannot afford to support Hurstwood in the smaller, crumbier flat? That made no sense to me. She must have been spending an exorbitant amount on clothing and/or cost of living sky-rocketed within a few years. Or Dreiser’s editor was distracted? Or Dreiser wanted to subtly point out that Carrie wasn’t so good natured after all? I am sticking to the sloppy editor theory.

[Stratos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Θα μπορούσε να είναι το Αρλεκιν της εποχής. Εν τούτοις οι αναλύσεις του συγγραφέα για τις κοινωνικές καταστάσεις της εποχής, το ψυχογράφημα της ηρωίδας, δημιούργησαν ένα θαυμάσιο βιβλίο. Ένα βιβλίο που δικαίως έχει διαβαστεί από χιλιάδες αναγνώστες διατηρώντας μέχρι και σήμερα την φρεσκάδα...

[Julie]

6.5/10

Certainly not as I remembered it! A few spoilers herein, so be warned.

This time 'round I would have welcomed a judicious editor who would have slashed 300 pages, without blinking.

Taking it all in context, I'm fairly confident this would have set America on its ear as Zola's naturalism swam across the ocean and landed its realistic little tugboat in New York and made fodder with George Hurstwood and hay with Carrie Meeber, aka Carrie Madenda, aka Sister Carrie.

And in context, I would have paid my dime to read this at the beginning of the 20th century to jump into the arms of the new literature which promised to clean up the archaic language of the Victorian era, and its obsolescent society, and show people what America was really like.

But even in context, I might have taken umbrage to the facile and almost reductionist history lived by George Hurstwood. In this second reading, after decades away from it, I realize what my younger self did not see at the time: Hurstwood's story just doesn't hang true to his character. This is not a plot rewrite on my part, but a failure of Dreiser to provide enough "context" to Hurstwood's about-face, unless it was one hell of a mid-life crisis. But even with that, one must at least give us a few indications that "Gee, George is having a mid-life crisis" before plunging us into this upside down world.

The book might have been better entitled "Brother George" for there is more of George's decline than Carrie's rise.

Carrie's rise is equally annoying from a novelistic point of view. Surely a young woman who spends two days working as a seamstress, and a couple of weeks being annoyed by her in-laws, cannot be said to have suffered all the poverty and degradation that was "on offer" in Chicago in 1900! From these few weeks, Dreiser builds an epic tale of destitution and hardship that Carrie must strive so valiantly to overcome, that it warrants almost 800 pages.

I realize I'm injecting more than a bit of 21st century cynicism, but "even in context" I think I'm being kind to this one.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Essay #31: Sister Carrie (1900), by Theodore Dreiser

The story in a nutshell:
One of the last Victorian-style morality tales to make a big splash, Theodore Dreiser's 1900 Sister Carrie tells the story of late teen and rural Wisconsinite Caroline Meeber, who at the beginning of the novel moves to bustling post-Fire Chicago to start making a name for herself, staying at first with her sister Minnie and her dour Swedish husband over in the city's blue-collar west side. But alas, life in the pre-workers-rights Windy City is not exactly the bed of roses she thought it would be, with Carrie finding herself slaving away in dangerous sweatshops for almost no pay on the rare occasions she can find any work at all, becoming more afraid each day of turning into the hard, humorless housewife her older sister has become; so when she starts receiving gifts and attention from local middle-class playboy Charles Drouet, Carrie jumps at the chance, eventually even agreeing to live with him and accept an allowance even though Drouet is in not much of a mood to marry (one of the many "shocking" details that got this book banned when it first came out).

Eventually, though, Carrie's charms become too tempting for Drouet's acquaintance George Hurstwood, a married retail manager living a comfortable existence up in Lincoln Park, who especially after watching Carrie's unexpectedly successful performance in a community play starts falling in love with her, eventually convincing her to leave Drouet on the promise that he will instead do the right thing and marry her (conveniently of course omitting the fact that he is already married and with children). Through a series of implausible plot developments, then (easy money stolen on a whim one night while drunk, flight from the law, a return of the money but subsequent social disgrace), the couple find themselves in 1890s New York, trying to resume a comfortable domestic life but with this becoming more and more difficult, due to the current recession and Hurstwood's lack of business contacts in this cold east-coast city. It's at this point that the plot essentially splits into two, as we watch Hurstwood's rather spectacular fall into destitution (the spending of his reserves, his stint as a train-conductor scab during a violent union strike, his eventual descent into homeless vagrancy), even as Carrie's fortunes improve just as dramatically, eventually leaving Hurstwood for a rising career on Broadway, the book ending with her rich and famous but still unhappy, and still unsure of what she wants out of life in the first place.

The argument for it being a classic:
The main reason this book should be considered a classic, argue its fans, is for the groundwork it laid for the literature that came right after it; because even though it was published right on the tail end of the Victorian Age, it in fact contains many of the seeds that would become the trademarks of Modernism a mere two decades later, things like an embrace of moral relativism and more prurient subject matter, not to mention a much more naturalistic writing style. In fact, it's no coincidence that Dreiser is considered one of the founders of the Naturalist school of literary thought (best typified anymore by European author Emile Zola, a writer Dreiser is often compared to), a movement similar to the Realism of Henry James and Edith Wharton of the same time period, in that both attempted to strip fiction of the flowery, overwritten purple prose so indicative of the Victorian Era. If not for the bold stylistic experiments of people like Dreiser, his fans argue, we would've never had the more perfected stylings of people like Henry Miller or William Faulkner just one generation later; and if not for his embrace of more modern subject matter (because let's never forget, this was one of the very first American novels to become known precisely for its sordid content and subsequent censorship), it would've never been possible for F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway to write their truly transgressive books a mere twenty years later.

The argument against:
Ironically, critics of this book argue nearly the exact opposite of its fans: that despite it being written a mere two decades before the explosive birth of Modernism, it remains a badly dated relic of Victorianism, not a harbinger of things to come but a perfect example of the kind of tripe the Modernists were precisely railing against. And indeed, no matter what you think of Dreiser's appropriate place in history, it's hard to deny that his actual prose is awfully heavy-handed; despite his embrace of such modern concepts as unmarried couples "living in sin" and that some women might actually be better off as entertainment-industry floozies, the actual writing found in Sister Carrie is riddled with the exact kind of ponderous, directly-talking-to-the-audience nonsense that makes up the worst of Victorian literature, the kind of Bible-quoting finger wagging that we now cite when making fun of the genre. There's a very good reason that Dreiser was such a polarizing figure during his own lifetime, with conservative professors extolling his work and young rabble-rousers thumbing their noses at it; and that's because, critics argue, Dreiser was the last gasp of a form of the arts violently killed off during the first half of the 20th century, making him merely a minor footnote in history whether one is discussing Romanticism or Modernism.

My verdict:
So before anything else, let me make it clear what a delight this book was from a purely historical standpoint, and especially as a fellow Chicagoan; his description of how chaotic and exciting the Loop is on a Monday morning, for example, is so spot-on perfect that it could've literally been written yesterday, while his description of a lonely Garfield Park existing out in the middle of the wilderness, nothing around it except for a series of dirt roads and an occasional farmhouse, will be enough to make most locals' hearts flutter in nostalgic wonder. But that said, Sister Carrie may be the best example yet of one of the surprising conclusions I've discovered while writing this "CCLaP 100" essay series -- of just how relative and transitory our entire definition of "literary classic" actually is, given that the term is supposed to denote books that have a timeless quality. Because the fact of the matter is that throughout the entire first half of the 20th century, Dresier was breathlessly revered by the academic community in the same way they currently fawn over, say, John Updike, and in fact it's rare to find someone over the age of 60 these days who wasn't forced to read one of Dreiser's books back in high school or college themselves (usually An American Tragedy, his most famous).

The reason, then, that in the early 2000s he is only known anymore by the most hardcore book-lovers out there is because what his critics claim is sadly but undeniably true: that although to Modernist eyes in the '50s and '60s Dreiser seemed merely stuffy and dated, to our own Postmodernist eyes his work is nearly unreadable, the exact kind of 19th-century fussy finery that 20th-century literature stamped out once and for all. It's nearly impossible in fact to read Sister Carrie anymore strictly for pleasure, with for example this book's listing at Goodreads littered with nightmarish accounts of people trying dozens of times to get through it, just to have the book disintegrate into pieces from the number of times they frustratingly threw it against the wall; like I said, although it was fascinating from a bibliophilic standpoint, and indeed did pave the way for the Modernist stories that came after it, it is in absolutely no way able to hold its own anymore as a simple tale to be enjoyed in a simple way. It's a perfect example of an argument I've been making more and more in this essay series, that the determination of whether or not a book is a "classic" is a much slippier notion than most of us realize; and that's why, although I myself personally enjoyed it, I have absolutely no hesitation in coming down on the "no" side of the classic question today.

Is it a classic? No

[aggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carrie's first vision of Chicago is something many of us experience on Friday nights while driving into the city, excited about whatever the night might hold. The rollercoaster of hope and desolation coursing throughout the book was as much a part of life at the turn of the 20th century as it is at the turn of the 21st.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I didn't quite got invested or liked the story but after I gave it some more effort I enjoyed it. Not a favorite but an interesting classic

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until a few weeks ago, Sister Carrie wasn’t even on my guilt pile. I was finally moved to pick the book up after seeing that it was at the top of a handwritten “you must read” list by William Faulkner. (A Facebook thing.) Until that time, I think I had always thought, vaguely, but also without reading experience proof, of Theodore Drieser as a dour sour writer from the depressing “Gilded Age.” And, now after the reading, especially after the last 75 pages or so death march of a major character, I guess I wasn’t far off the mark in that assessment. Still, that said, I view Sister Carrie as a first rate novel, an American classic in every sense of the word.

Drieser, it seems, was a great reader first. Hardy, Tolstoy, Balzac, and other masters of realism, were his guides. The influences are obvious, but the synthesis is complete. He was his own writer. Drieser’s artistic balance and eye for psychological detail and nuances were considerable, as displayed in the first remarkable paragraphs of the Sister Carriel, where the reader is first introduced to a young Wisconsin girl, Carrie Meeber, who is on a train, nervously heading toward Chicago.

It was in August, 1889. She was eighteen years or age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth. Whatever touch of regret at parting characterized her given up. A gush of tears at her mother's farewell kiss, mill where her father worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the familiar green environs of the village passed in review and the threads which bound her so lightly to girlhood and home were irretrievably broken.

To be sure there was always the next station, where one might descend and return. There was the great city, bound more closely by these very trains which came up daily. Columbia City was not so very far away, even once she was in Chicago. What pray, is a few hours a few hundred miles? She looked at the little slip bearing her sister's address and wondered. She gazed at the green landscape, now passing in swift review until her swifter thoughts replaced its impression with vague conjectures of what Chicago might be.

When a girls 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. Of an intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility. The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the soul fullness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of to the astonished scenes in equivocal terms. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretation what falsehoods may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognized for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then wakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions.

Caroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed by the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power of observation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the fancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative period, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye alight with certain native intelligence she was a fair example of the middle American class two generations removed from the emigrant. Books were beyond her interest knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive graces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her head gracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small were set flatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things. A half-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoiter the mysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy, which should make it prey and subject the proper penitent, groveling at a women's slipper.

Everything you need to know about Carrie, along with Drieser’s sense of what Art should be, is contained in these paragraphs. Carrie is a very real person, but Drieser, especially as the novel progresses also uses her as vehicle for his own thoughts on Naturalism or Realism (don’t get me started on THAT). This natural sense of self, uncluttered by romantic notions, will eventually be the source of Carrie’s power as an actress. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the very next lines, Carrie meets the drummer (sales man), Charles Drouet, a good looking, generally kind , but also selfish man who loves the girls. A dude. He flirts with Carrie, gets nowhere, but is able to give her his card, and get her address. That exchange of information will become useful shortly.

Carrie is met at the station by her sister, who takes her home. Carrie will live with her sister and brother-in-law while she gets herself established. But Carrie has no experience, and she’s not the most practical of girls. She gets off on the wrong foot with her sister and brother-in-law by wanting to go see a show at the theater. (Not nose-to-grindstone enough for those two pinched people.) She also takes a poorly paying, and physically demanding, job at a factory. She immediately starts thinking of Drouet. Carrie soon gets sick, loses her job, but also encounters Drouet, who basically takes her away to live with him (which must have been fairly daring at the time). Drouet is good to Carrie, giving her a place to live, and clothes to wear. What he won’t do is marry her. He keeps delaying this step, while at the same time introducing her to others as his “wife.” Carrie craves this one social anchor, and some resentment toward Drouet soon forms.

Drouet eventually introduces Carrie to G.W. Hurstwood (“George”), the manager of a prestigious Chicago bar. As a character, Hurstwood comes close to being the central character of the novel. He’s not very likable. Manipulative, bored with his home life, and well paid for not doing much, he initially strikes the reader as something of a predator. Hurstwood is basically an old bartender who made out. His employers trust him, and the high end bar he runs basically runs itself. His home life has grown static, as both his wife and kids look to him for money and little else. By the time Carrie comes along, Hurstwood, who is about 40, and seemingly buttoned down, is ready for some Middle Age Crazy. Carrie does intrigue him, and he nibbles and flirts around the edges of Drouet and Carrie’s relationship. What pushes it over the edge is an unforeseen opportunity for Carrie.

Drouet is a member of the Elk Club. The club, in a fund raising effort, needs an actress for an amateur production of a play. Unexpectedly, Carrie stands out, and powerfully. This is probably the weakest device in the novel. Dreiser would have us believe that Carrie is a natural at acting. Fair enough. But the rave, Jesus-on-the-Mount responses of the audience, not to mention Hurstwood’s throw-it-all to the wind decision, seem improbable. But this weakness is well cloaked in the characters he has already established, so it is totally believable that both Hurstwood and Drouet are seeing Carrie the person and not Carrie the pretty object for the first time. On that level, the performance, and the reactions it produces, is, I suppose, believable.

What follows is a love triangle, with the dim Drouet finally figuring out that something is going on. The not-so-dim Mrs. Hurstwood also figures out George has been up to something (though by modern day standards, it’s pretty mild stuff). It all quickly falls to ashes for Hurstwood, and he makes a bad decision involving $10,000 of bar money, and , via some artful lies, he essentially kidnaps Carrie and flees Chicago. A reluctant Carrie eventually settles for this arrangement, while finally exacting an exchange of wedding vows with Hurstwood. Curiously, Carrie never asks about whether Hurstwood is committing bigamy. I wondered, at the time, if this would be some sort of dark turn for Carrie’s character. Not so. For the next few years, the couple make a go of it in New York, with Hurstwood managing a bar – though it’s not the cushy arrangement he once had.
Eventually, that too falls apart, and Hurstwood loses his stake in the enterprise. Hurstwood and Carrie are now caught in a downward spiral, and Hurstwood is unwilling to work at jobs he considers beneath him. The one go-to, bar tending, he simply dismisses. Carrie however, via a pretty neighbor, meets Bob Ames, a scholar from Indiana (and probably an authorial stand-in for Dreiser). Ames is no phony, and his few comments regarding art and the theater, light a fire in Carrie. After the disappointments of life with Drouet and Hurstwood, Ames represents a truth and beauty that Carrie had, up until this point, only vaguely sensed. A sharper focus has now been provided. With it, Carrie tries to break in to acting. She eventually is able to land a job as a chorus girl, and it’s not long before she is recognized, and elevated. A star is born.

Meanwhile Hurstwood continues to goes downhill, and that process accelerates when Carrie finally leaves him. Drieser’s brick by brick dismantling of Hurstwood is one of the most thorough in literature. He’s one of those characters that at one point, earlier on, you want to see get some payback. Oh, he does, and more. You would have to have a heart of stone to be pulling against him by novel’s end. But Dreiser’s critique here is social – and inexorable. It’s not a matter of pulling for good guys or bad guys, it’s just reality of the late 19th Century American kind. There’s a poignant counterpoint toward the end of the story, that Dreiser frames beautifully. Carrie, in her high and luxurious tower, is trying to keep her connection with the natural world by reading Balzac (per Ames suggestion), while her former “husband” is struggling to survive in the mean streets below. One is doomed, and the other occupies a glittering, but also brittle and fragile world. One added irony, that goes beyond the boundaries of the novel, is that the actress Dreiser probably modeled Carrie after, Middie Maddern Fiske, would also die in poverty.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the description, I expected this to be a fallen woman story. It is so much more than that. Carrie was young and innocent when she escaped small town Wisconsin for big city Chicago. So young - and especially so timid - that she did not know she could have hopes and dreams, let alone fulfill them. It has been a few dozen years since I was Carrie's age, but I can relate fully to that not knowing.

Dreiser's prose is simple, but his dialogue realistic. In fact, I see he is listed at Writer's Home as being in the group of realism writers. I think I read somewhere that he was grouped with the naturalists, and I can see that also. At one point while reading, I thought of Zola.

The Zola analogy, though, is more due to the storyline. This is Dreiser's debut and it is one heck of a story. Unfortunately, Dreiser spoils the strength of his story by moralizing with the ending. It seems to me, that if you tell you story well enough, and you respect your readers enough, you do not need to spend the last half dozen pages explaining the meaning behind what you just said.

I will look for another Dreiser where I expect another strong story. This one was a solid four stars, but without pretensions of being five.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1900, this book is credited with having an impact on the course of American literature. Dreiser's sparse style depicts the realities of everyday city life (Chicago and New York) at the turn of the 19th Century in a way that seems to hide nothing. It thus allows the reader to feel that they can see the characters as they really are. The novel does not judge the behavior of the characters in the story. But rather it simply lays out the story of their actions for the reader to ponder. Carrie is a woman dealt a bad hand, who determines to make the most of what she has, seizing opportunity when it is offered. Charles Drouet is a pleasure seeker, a mixture of the vulgar and the appealing. And George Hurstwood experiences what we now call a mid-life crisis and ends up losing everything in his pursuit of happiness. Of the three protagonists living in the big City, one is destroyed, one rises to the top, and the third passes through unscathed. Success appears to have nothing to do with being good or bad. But rather, people strive to do their best and things happen.

[Josefina Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harika bir roman. Anlatım tarzı, konuyu işleyişi ile okuyucusunu içine çekiyor elinizden bırakmanız zor açıkcası. Yıllar oldu ilk gençlik yıllarımda okumama rağmen ilerde ki yıllardada tekrar tekrar okuduğum eserlerden. Türkçesi ''Kızkardeşim Carrie''. En eskilerden var kitaplığımda da.Herkese tavsiye edeceğim eserlerden.

[Erasmia Kritikou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Α star is born ή Η ανοδος και η πτώση των κοινωνικών στρωμάτων.
Μια πολύ διεισδυτική μελέτη εποχής, διανθισμένη με λογοτεχνια, κατα περιόδους συγκλονιστική.

Αυτό το έργο, παρά τον όγκο του (750+ σελιδες) και παρά το είδος του (εποχής, οχι το αγαπημενο μου ειδος) και λαμβανοντας υποψιν και την εποχη που γραφτηκε (τελη 1800) κατάφερε να μου κρατήσει το ενδιαφέρον σε ολη τη μακρα διαρκεια αναγνωσης του αμείωτο, κι αυτο ειναι κατι αξιοσημείωτο και σπανιο, τουλαχιστον για τα βιβλια που επιλεγω να φτασω ως το τελος τους και τον τροπο που διαβαζω, με τη μειωμενη μου πια ανοχή στις μετριοτητες.

Αυτο το βιβλιο ειναι μια εξαιρετική προσωπογραφία εποχης και πισω απο αυτο εμβαθυνει σε μυχια ψυχαναλυτικά χωρις να εχει τονο διδακτικό ή να θελει να υποδειξει τα καλως και τα κακως κειμενα μιας κοινωνιας που ελαχιστη ανοχη εχει για τους απενταρους και δυστυχισμενους και μεγαλο θάμπος για τους σταρ και τους λεφταδες.

Με εντυπωσιασε το νευρο του και η ζωηραδα της αφηγησης, η λεπτομερεια στους χαρακτηρες και στις πραξεις τους, το πώς ενας ανθρωπος μπορει να ειναι και το ενα και το αλλο, και ποτέ μα ποτέ μονοπλευρος, το πως η μοιρα σου αλλαζει οταν αλλαζεις πρωτα εσυ εσωτερικά, τις συνεπειες των λογων και των πραξεων των ανθρωπων, τοσο προς τον εαυτο τους εσωτερικα οσο και αλληλεπιδρώντας.

Συνολικα ειναι ενα βαθια φιλοσοφημενο εργο που δεν του λειπει καμια στιγμη η γρηγορη εξελιξη της πλοκης - κατι που το εκανε αναλαφρο, και ταυτυχρονα, στον αποηχο των οσων διαβασα με κανει να τα σκεφτομαι και να τ' αναλυω ακομα.

Καθολου παραξενο που αντεξε ενα τετοιο εργο μεσα στους αιωνες και μεταφραστηκε σε τοσες γλωσσες. Μαθαινω οτι διδασκεται και στα αγγλοφωνα σχολεια, κατι που το κανει ακομη πιο σημαντικο και αξιοσεβαστο.

Η απροσδοκητη πλοκη - το 'που ξεκινησαμε και πως φτασαμε ως εδω' των ηρωων - προσωπικα μου θυμισε δομη αρχαιοελληνικης τραγωδιας σε εκμοντερνισμενο φοντο και το εξαιρετικο καφκικο τελος ¨τι νοημα εχει πια;" με εντυπωσιασε και με εριξε σε βαθια περισυλλογη.
Κι ακομη δεν εχω συνελθει.

Μου αρεσε το slowburn της φασης του εργου αυτου, χωρις συγκλονιστικες κορώνες να καταφερει να κρατησει το ενδιαφερον σε σχεδον χιλιες σελιδες και να σε αφηνει και να σκεφτεσαι στα διαλειμματα αναμεσα στα διαβασματα. Ενδιαμεσα θαυμαστές σκεψεις διανθιζουν το εργο με στιγμες εξαιρετικης λογοτεχνιας, οπως προανεφερα. Συνεχως αναφερω το εξαιρετικα, στην αρχη αυθορμητα και τωρα πια συνειδητά, γιατι νομιζω οτι ειναι η πιο στοχευμενη λεξη γι αυτο το εργο συνολικα: Εξαιρετικό


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"Μια σκέψη μπορεί να μας αλλάξει τον κόσμο"

Γυρω απο αυτο τον αξονα, μιας απλης σειρας, μιας αράδας που αναφερεται στην αρχη του βιβλίου, στρεφεται, νομιζω ολοκληρο το μεγαλο εργο αυτο, μεγαλο σε ογκο και σε πνευμα, και το αποδεικνυει με παραδειγματα ανθρωπων, με το παραδειγμα της ζωής τους, σαν μεγάλες παραβολές. Υπέροχο.
Εξαιρετικο.