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Dreiser
The first comprehensive biography of a great American writer, the story of a tormented life. A fabulous yarn of Theodore Dreiser's life (1871-1945), and passions among the literati of early twentieth century America.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
614 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
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About the author
W.A. Swanberg
28 books1 followerA graduate of the University of Minnesota, William Andrew Swanberg worked as a journalist for newspapers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and as an editor for Dell Publishing. After serving in the Office of War Information during World War II, Swanberg worked as a freelance writer and an author of a number of scholarly biographies.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 19, 2013
Swanberg's is an example of the higher gossip.
It was the third biography of Dreiser in twenty years after the writer's death. Largely it followed the first two, Robert Elias's Theodore Dreiser: Apostle of Nature and Dorothy Dudley's Forgotten Frontiers (not to mention Helen Dreiser's My life with Dreiser.) But it could--and does--go into much greater and much more graphic detail on Dreiser's very, very extensive sex life. (It must have been so exhausting, all the affairs.) Swanberg also follows pretty closely H. L. Mencken's evaluation of Dreiser, that he was a great artist--though a horrible stylist--until 1925, at which time he became involved with politics and social justice movements but without any great understanding of politics or social movements. He kind of backed into communism, with the communists using him more than him embracing communism.
At times, Swanberg's biography is almost a day-by-day account with paragraphs often containing a random assemblage of Dreiser's activities. Swanberg is very quick to make cases against Dreiser--pointing out his (many) hypocrisies and peccadillos. He makes the case pretty clearly that Dreiser did not understand politics and was a horndog of Wilt Chamberlain proportions--and an eye that gazed even upon the quite young. A more modern biographer would have said that at least some of Dreiser's exploits were, um, rather non-consensual. Swanberg also never really provides readings of Dreiser's work, preferring the personal to the professional.
Yet despite dwelling on the negative and a sometimes surprising lack of discretion (did we really need to know Dreiser was arguing about a gas bill--we've already established that he was quite cheap and irascible), the book is very readable. I cruised through it in a couple of days. And it can be enlightening.
Swanberg's attempt to distill Dreiser's essence into a "law"--that anything widely believed was likely to be wrong--doesn't really work as the unifying theme he had hoped. But he does do a nice job showing Dreiser balanced between his various passions--capitalist hating rich man, hypocrisy hating hypocrite, truth valuing liar, materialistic spiritual seeker. And at times a sympathy for Dreiser does appear, as when Swanberg notes, “The astonishing thing about Dreiser’s philosophy was not its profundity but the vast hunger it revealed.”
Dreiser here is the orectic, uneducated author, Henry Miller before Henry Miller.
It was the third biography of Dreiser in twenty years after the writer's death. Largely it followed the first two, Robert Elias's Theodore Dreiser: Apostle of Nature and Dorothy Dudley's Forgotten Frontiers (not to mention Helen Dreiser's My life with Dreiser.) But it could--and does--go into much greater and much more graphic detail on Dreiser's very, very extensive sex life. (It must have been so exhausting, all the affairs.) Swanberg also follows pretty closely H. L. Mencken's evaluation of Dreiser, that he was a great artist--though a horrible stylist--until 1925, at which time he became involved with politics and social justice movements but without any great understanding of politics or social movements. He kind of backed into communism, with the communists using him more than him embracing communism.
At times, Swanberg's biography is almost a day-by-day account with paragraphs often containing a random assemblage of Dreiser's activities. Swanberg is very quick to make cases against Dreiser--pointing out his (many) hypocrisies and peccadillos. He makes the case pretty clearly that Dreiser did not understand politics and was a horndog of Wilt Chamberlain proportions--and an eye that gazed even upon the quite young. A more modern biographer would have said that at least some of Dreiser's exploits were, um, rather non-consensual. Swanberg also never really provides readings of Dreiser's work, preferring the personal to the professional.
Yet despite dwelling on the negative and a sometimes surprising lack of discretion (did we really need to know Dreiser was arguing about a gas bill--we've already established that he was quite cheap and irascible), the book is very readable. I cruised through it in a couple of days. And it can be enlightening.
Swanberg's attempt to distill Dreiser's essence into a "law"--that anything widely believed was likely to be wrong--doesn't really work as the unifying theme he had hoped. But he does do a nice job showing Dreiser balanced between his various passions--capitalist hating rich man, hypocrisy hating hypocrite, truth valuing liar, materialistic spiritual seeker. And at times a sympathy for Dreiser does appear, as when Swanberg notes, “The astonishing thing about Dreiser’s philosophy was not its profundity but the vast hunger it revealed.”
Dreiser here is the orectic, uneducated author, Henry Miller before Henry Miller.
November 25, 2010
Grabbed this without thinking much of it but once inside was unable to put it down until finished. Absolutely fascinating, not only for the bio of Dreiser but also for the story of his times.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews