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Blix
IT had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that hung over the mantelpiece in the dining-room when Victorine brought in the halved watermelon and set it in front of Mr. Bessemer’s plate.
150 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1899
3 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Frank Norris
359 books127 followersNaturalistic novels of noted American writer Benjamin Franklin Norris, Junior, brother of Charles Gilman Norris and sister-in-law of Kathleen Thompson Norris, about American life include
McTeague
in 1899.
This novelist during the Progressive era predominantly authored works that include The Octopus: A California Story (1901) and The Pit (1903). Although he not openly supported socialism as a political system, his work nevertheless evinces a socialist mentality and influenced socialist-progressive writers, such as Upton Beall Sinclair. Philosophical defense of Thomas Henry Huxley of the advent of Darwinism profoundly influenced him like many of his contemporaries. Norris studied under Joseph LeConte, who at the University of California, Berkeley, taught an optimistic strand of Darwinist philosophy that particularly influenced him. Through many of his novels, notably McTeague, runs a preoccupation with the notion of the civilized man overcoming the inner "brute," his animalistic tendencies. His peculiar and often confused brand of social Darwinism also bears the influence of the early criminologist Cesare Lombroso and the French naturalist Émile Zola.
This novelist during the Progressive era predominantly authored works that include The Octopus: A California Story (1901) and The Pit (1903). Although he not openly supported socialism as a political system, his work nevertheless evinces a socialist mentality and influenced socialist-progressive writers, such as Upton Beall Sinclair. Philosophical defense of Thomas Henry Huxley of the advent of Darwinism profoundly influenced him like many of his contemporaries. Norris studied under Joseph LeConte, who at the University of California, Berkeley, taught an optimistic strand of Darwinist philosophy that particularly influenced him. Through many of his novels, notably McTeague, runs a preoccupation with the notion of the civilized man overcoming the inner "brute," his animalistic tendencies. His peculiar and often confused brand of social Darwinism also bears the influence of the early criminologist Cesare Lombroso and the French naturalist Émile Zola.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 26, 2014
I am somewhat in denial that this was written by Frank Norris. For those unacquainted with his work, I consider "McTeague" to be a triumph of the English language, a book so amazing that it echos throughout fiction today (anytime you see two dudes handcuffed to each other in the desert, with one probably dead, that's Norris's influence). I was enthralled to finally get another book by him, granted not the lauded "Octopus" but hell, after "McTeague" I would have read a pamphlet written by him.
This book however is...Its a romance novel. Oh there's a great middle part where its clearly Norris at his most grim and insane, where a sailor tells his awesomely tragic tale, which should be published independently of this book. The rest of the book is about a gambling writer who falls in love with a well off chick in San Fran, they break up and decide to be friends, as friends they fall in love with each other, there is conflict, it is resolved.
I understand times were tough back then, there was probably some circumstance that necessitated this book, but this is so awful my mind rejects this being written by the same person who wrote "McTeague" the style is there, but the only horror you're going to get out of this book is that you just read a romance novel by Frank Norris.
This book however is...Its a romance novel. Oh there's a great middle part where its clearly Norris at his most grim and insane, where a sailor tells his awesomely tragic tale, which should be published independently of this book. The rest of the book is about a gambling writer who falls in love with a well off chick in San Fran, they break up and decide to be friends, as friends they fall in love with each other, there is conflict, it is resolved.
I understand times were tough back then, there was probably some circumstance that necessitated this book, but this is so awful my mind rejects this being written by the same person who wrote "McTeague" the style is there, but the only horror you're going to get out of this book is that you just read a romance novel by Frank Norris.
October 15, 2017
I periodically go to Project Gutenberg and click their "random" button, generating a list of book choices, all from the public domain. (You can do it here.. Refresh the page for more random selections.) I make myself choose one of the books listed, and I read it. It's a fun way to expand my literary horizons, and I've yet to land a complete dud.
Blix is a book I found using the Gutenberg lotto system, and I downloaded it without even searching for a description, Frank Norris' reputation from McTeague, etc. being enough. It's not quite what I expected (though I'm not sure what I expected, going in blind). It is, however, thoroughly charming, and I mean that in the best possible way. It has a Wodehousian vibe, though it's absent the belly laughs.
The male main character is a journalist, and I have to wonder if Norris modeled him after his own young self. His love interest—whom he nicknames Blix, but is actually named Travis—is a girl out of her time, full of stubbornness and ideas, but also wonder and optimism. It sounds dreadful, I know, but it's such a refreshing change from the dreary stuff I usually read.
Blix breaks Conde's heart by telling him that they should just be friends, because they both know, deep down, that they don't really love each other, but have only been following social conventions in their courtship. He agrees, and they embark on a series of friendly activities and adventures together. It's so simple that I feel like it must be partially true—that Norris wrote this for his own version of Blix.
It's a nice slice of life from 1899 that definitely feels historical, but deals with ideas and feelings that will never change. A palate cleanser between heavier (and darker) reading.
Blix is a book I found using the Gutenberg lotto system, and I downloaded it without even searching for a description, Frank Norris' reputation from McTeague, etc. being enough. It's not quite what I expected (though I'm not sure what I expected, going in blind). It is, however, thoroughly charming, and I mean that in the best possible way. It has a Wodehousian vibe, though it's absent the belly laughs.
The male main character is a journalist, and I have to wonder if Norris modeled him after his own young self. His love interest—whom he nicknames Blix, but is actually named Travis—is a girl out of her time, full of stubbornness and ideas, but also wonder and optimism. It sounds dreadful, I know, but it's such a refreshing change from the dreary stuff I usually read.
Blix breaks Conde's heart by telling him that they should just be friends, because they both know, deep down, that they don't really love each other, but have only been following social conventions in their courtship. He agrees, and they embark on a series of friendly activities and adventures together. It's so simple that I feel like it must be partially true—that Norris wrote this for his own version of Blix.
It's a nice slice of life from 1899 that definitely feels historical, but deals with ideas and feelings that will never change. A palate cleanser between heavier (and darker) reading.
August 7, 2008
Infinitely charming. Read after a number of depressing novels and histories, and it was a good spirit-lifter (until whatever I read next).
Boy and girl date. Boy and girl decide to be friends. Boy and girl realize they were in love all along. The End.
Boy and girl date. Boy and girl decide to be friends. Boy and girl realize they were in love all along. The End.
August 21, 2008
One of my all time favorite books and one I could recommend to just about anyone!
August 9, 2017
I read this out of an interest in American literary naturalism and having read 'The Octopus'. 'Blix', in sharp contrast to 'The Octopus', is a strange and rather clunky romance. The central theme is of the redemptive power of a good woman's love (Blix saves Conde from his one vice, gambling). It is a love, however, that only blossoms after the two central protagonists reject the formal idea of courtship and agree to be just friends, regressing to a childlike, pre-sexual condition. Their friendship is very playful and is carried out in an idealised setting where Conde's employment (as a journalist) and Blix's family responsibilities (to a briefly introduced father and two young siblings) offer no constraints to their otium. It comes as a surprise, therefore, at the conclusion of the book, for the theme of redemption to be complicated by ideas of the Christian Fall. Marriage and work (for both husband and wife) are represented in Biblical terms as requiring a move east of Eden (from San Francisco to New York) and entailing negotium: "Now for the future. The sterner note had struck - work was to be done [...] work for each of them, work and the world of men. For a moment they shrank from it, loth to take the first step beyond the confines of the garden". It is a jarring and confusing theme that I found difficult to reconcile with the other conventional themes of Romance that the book deploys.
April 11, 2009
Nice feel good book. Easy read.
August 3, 2011
Pure of heart and beautifully realized. (And written by my wife's great-Uncle!)
December 12, 2012
TERRIBLE BOOK ABOUT ONES GAMBLING ADDICTION
December 21, 2024
Consider screening your reading
I seldom read about authors or about an individual book before diving in. I mostly avoid introductions. Reason: I’d like to let each work speak for itself. This may be a mistake.
In the case of “Blix,” I didn’t learn until after finishing that the content was originally written as a weekly serial. That explains some of the book’s flaws. Some serials can become novels, but few satisfy me unless the author attends and adjusts them. I see no evidence that Frank Norris changed anything here.
The good
Frank gives us a look at life in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century, which is somewhat his specialty. His descriptions of land and see are still accurate today.
The eye followed [the Contra Costa coast’s] sky-line westward till it climbed, climbed, climbed up a long slope that suddenly leaped heavenward with the crest of Tamalpais, purple and still, looking always to the sunset like a great watching sphinx. Then, further on, the slope seemed to break like the breaking of an advancing billow, and go tumbling, crumbling downward to meet the Golden Gate—the narrow inlet of green tide-water with its flanking Presidio. But, further than this, the eye was stayed. Further than this there was nothing, nothing but a vast, illimitable plain of green—the open Pacific. But at this hour the color of the scene was its greatest charm. It glowed with all the sombre radiance of a cathedral.
The female romantic interest, a young woman who lives on Nob Hill experiences an epiphany at age 19. A boy in her social set goes too far one night with his drinking. It suddenly dawns on this girl that she doesn’t like most of her peers. She does not want to enter adulthood in their company, so she cancels her own debut. . . .
I’m not coming out. If that’s the sort of thing one has to put up with in society . . . I’m going to stop—right—there. It’s not . . . that I’m afraid of Jack Carter and his dirty stories; I simply don’t want to know the kind of people who have made Jack Carter possible. . . . I’ll find my amusements somewhere else. I’ll ride a wheel, take long walks, study something. But as for leading the life of a society girl—no! And whether I have a good time or not, I’ll keep my own self-respect. . . .
I’m not going to break with it because I have any ‘purpose in life,’ or that sort of thing. I want to have a good time, and I’m going to see if I can’t have it in my own way. If the kind of thing that makes Jack Carter possible is conventionality, then I’m done with conventionality for good. I’m going to try, from this time on, to be just as true to myself as I can be. I am going to be sincere, and not pretend to like people and things that I don’t like; and I’m going to do the things that I like to do—just so long as they are the things a good girl can do.
Frank’s use of words there touched something in me. Several times I had to make similar resolutions to separate from a social or business group, because continuing our association would prevent living life the way I wanted. My happiness depended on keeping them as far outside my consciousness as possible.
Even though Frank wrote those words more than 100 years ago, they carry a specific sensibility, which I have not experienced outside Northern California. He is part of my tribe, and I belonged in the city where he wrote those words.
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
The not so good
The love story is charming and ridiculous by turns. Again, it fails to reveal a structured purpose, as a novel should. Frank injected too much current usage, making for unintentional humor, 125 years later. When writer Condy Rivers reads the printed version of his story, “A Victory Over Death,” he treats us to this reaction:
Bully, bully! . . . It's a corker! If it's rejected everywhere, it's an out-of-sight yarn just the same.
Novelists take note: the current slang that makes your writing sound “of the moment” will soon stain it as a comic antique; better to steer a middle way, using the most direct, plain English you can muster.
Beyond language use, Frank’s plot wanders around, in search of coherence, and never finds it. The central romance smacks of insincerity on both parts. The couple decide they will never love each other, but will spend time as friends only, . . . later the erotic spark flares. I’ve heard tell of this kind of coupling, but I consider it rare and suspect. The old saying, “She knows in the first five minutes,” was true for me, 100% of the time.
I seldom read about authors or about an individual book before diving in. I mostly avoid introductions. Reason: I’d like to let each work speak for itself. This may be a mistake.
In the case of “Blix,” I didn’t learn until after finishing that the content was originally written as a weekly serial. That explains some of the book’s flaws. Some serials can become novels, but few satisfy me unless the author attends and adjusts them. I see no evidence that Frank Norris changed anything here.
The good
Frank gives us a look at life in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century, which is somewhat his specialty. His descriptions of land and see are still accurate today.
The eye followed [the Contra Costa coast’s] sky-line westward till it climbed, climbed, climbed up a long slope that suddenly leaped heavenward with the crest of Tamalpais, purple and still, looking always to the sunset like a great watching sphinx. Then, further on, the slope seemed to break like the breaking of an advancing billow, and go tumbling, crumbling downward to meet the Golden Gate—the narrow inlet of green tide-water with its flanking Presidio. But, further than this, the eye was stayed. Further than this there was nothing, nothing but a vast, illimitable plain of green—the open Pacific. But at this hour the color of the scene was its greatest charm. It glowed with all the sombre radiance of a cathedral.
The female romantic interest, a young woman who lives on Nob Hill experiences an epiphany at age 19. A boy in her social set goes too far one night with his drinking. It suddenly dawns on this girl that she doesn’t like most of her peers. She does not want to enter adulthood in their company, so she cancels her own debut. . . .
I’m not coming out. If that’s the sort of thing one has to put up with in society . . . I’m going to stop—right—there. It’s not . . . that I’m afraid of Jack Carter and his dirty stories; I simply don’t want to know the kind of people who have made Jack Carter possible. . . . I’ll find my amusements somewhere else. I’ll ride a wheel, take long walks, study something. But as for leading the life of a society girl—no! And whether I have a good time or not, I’ll keep my own self-respect. . . .
I’m not going to break with it because I have any ‘purpose in life,’ or that sort of thing. I want to have a good time, and I’m going to see if I can’t have it in my own way. If the kind of thing that makes Jack Carter possible is conventionality, then I’m done with conventionality for good. I’m going to try, from this time on, to be just as true to myself as I can be. I am going to be sincere, and not pretend to like people and things that I don’t like; and I’m going to do the things that I like to do—just so long as they are the things a good girl can do.
Frank’s use of words there touched something in me. Several times I had to make similar resolutions to separate from a social or business group, because continuing our association would prevent living life the way I wanted. My happiness depended on keeping them as far outside my consciousness as possible.
Even though Frank wrote those words more than 100 years ago, they carry a specific sensibility, which I have not experienced outside Northern California. He is part of my tribe, and I belonged in the city where he wrote those words.
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
The not so good
The love story is charming and ridiculous by turns. Again, it fails to reveal a structured purpose, as a novel should. Frank injected too much current usage, making for unintentional humor, 125 years later. When writer Condy Rivers reads the printed version of his story, “A Victory Over Death,” he treats us to this reaction:
Bully, bully! . . . It's a corker! If it's rejected everywhere, it's an out-of-sight yarn just the same.
Novelists take note: the current slang that makes your writing sound “of the moment” will soon stain it as a comic antique; better to steer a middle way, using the most direct, plain English you can muster.
Beyond language use, Frank’s plot wanders around, in search of coherence, and never finds it. The central romance smacks of insincerity on both parts. The couple decide they will never love each other, but will spend time as friends only, . . . later the erotic spark flares. I’ve heard tell of this kind of coupling, but I consider it rare and suspect. The old saying, “She knows in the first five minutes,” was true for me, 100% of the time.
October 29, 2017
Although it turns a little mushy at the end, this is generally such a superior example of romantic fiction as to make virtually all modern Hollywood rom-coms seem ridiculous. Norris describes the growing companionship between newspaperman and would-be novelist Condy Rivers, and doctor-to-be Travis Bessemer ("Blix"), in turn-of the-century San Francisco. They go beyond the social conventions of their day to simply have fun together. They treat each other as equals, and the educational and professional aspirations of the young woman are accepted without fuss. You can easily tell that this novel must have felt thoroughly fresh and contemporary when it was published, and it hasn't become musty in the years that have passed since then. Frank Norris's excellent prose style makes it a pleasure to read on a sentence-by-sentence basis. The Bay Area atmosphere is delightful, and a sub-plot about finding romance in the personal ads is neatly handled, introducing members of a different socio-economic class into the story-line.
This is a very autobiographical novel. Norris was the same age as Condy when he wrote about him, and was at that time involved in a romance which led to his marriage shortly after the book appeared. Blix pleased no less stringent a judge than Willa Cather, then a young reporter in Nebraska. It deserves another look by discerning readers.
This is a very autobiographical novel. Norris was the same age as Condy when he wrote about him, and was at that time involved in a romance which led to his marriage shortly after the book appeared. Blix pleased no less stringent a judge than Willa Cather, then a young reporter in Nebraska. It deserves another look by discerning readers.
August 10, 2020
2.5 stars. How did the author of
McTeague
and
Vandover and the Brute
suddenly transform into Booth Tarkington? This is not a great piece of literature by a long shot (how many times can Norris use the dialogue tag “vociferated”?); even so, one can’t help but be captivated by Norris’ lighthearted yarn of youthful hope and burgeoning love. And “yarn” is just the word, since the novel seems to emphasize the unifying power of storytelling: Condy is trying to begin his career as a writer of adventure stories, Blix invents stories in two letters to bring together two people who had published personal ads in the “lonely hearts” column of the paper, and Captain Jack captures the heart of his future wife (and captures the imagination of Condy and Blix) with his tall tales of the high seas. Norris’ short novel -- published in installments in a woman’s magazine -- is a love letter to romance, youth, and storytelling. It’s total escapist fluff, but at least it’s enjoyable fluff.
August 6, 2020
Okay, I read a comment in a review of books about San Francisco saying that the description of the Bay Area at sunset as being one of the most romantic ever. It was delightful and it's a charming story about San Francisco in 1899 (when you had to take the 7:45 am train to get to San Bruno in time to fish on Lake San Andreas). Really fun read.
November 21, 2023
Charming and delightful story!
I enjoy Norris's minor mentions of cats in every book he wrote.
I enjoy Norris's minor mentions of cats in every book he wrote.
Want to read
January 16, 2026A Book Owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu...
September 27, 2013
Another good Doc pulp story, this is one of those that feature Doc as a very fallible individual, as he nearly gets beaten to a pulp early on in the story. It's also one that again ties up all the loose ends real quickly in the last chapter, so much so that you kind of have to re-read that chapter twice to make sure you understood what was going on. The mystery in this one is a bit on the lame side, as there's really no way for a reader to guess anything or figure much out, but there's a lot of action and Doc has a couple of moments of actual vulnerability, a rarity for the pulps' favorite superman.
March 14, 2025
I found this tiny tome in my Half Price Books store a couple years ago and bought it on a whim. I believe it was originally published in 1899 so the writing style is not at all like what I’m used to reading. It was a slow tale and it took me a year to pick it back up and force myself to finish it. If I had been born in 1879, I probably would have swooned for this little love story. As I wasn’t born in that century, it just felt “old timey” and I know I’ll never read it again:)
March 13, 2020
A mystery involving a tough lady trucker, several tiny housing models and way too much of cowriter William Bogart waxing poetic about Lake Michigan, much as he did with Alaska in Fire And Ice. A very topical scheme by the crooks (stealing patents and designs for housing, lighting, heating to cash in on the post-war housing boom) but mediocre execution.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews