Thursday, May 22, 2014

Dusk--of a summer night


The Plane Book is, as I have mentioned before in this here space, a Genre Worthy of Note (though given the definition, soon to be provided (or more technically reprovided), it is not a Genre Publishers will rush to put on the covers of the books which merit that description).  The Plane Book is long, the longer the better, and something which simultaneously promises to be worth reading but not exhilarating enough to actually imagine picking up and reading hour after hour, day after day, when surrounded by other distractions (like other books).  Such books are perfect for long plane trips.  Ensconced in a chunk of metal hurling itself through the air, there is little to do other than keep turning the pages.  It is a perfect place to read many books.  As I have also mentioned before, sometimes, a book which seems like it might be a Plane Book isn’t (here’s looking at you Confederacy of Dunces).  But, I am happy to report that the book soon to be mentioned not only had the appearance of a Plane Book, but may very well be the Planiest Plane Book (or should that be Plane Bookiest Plane Book?  Sometimes, the vagaries of nonce words are hard to master) I have ever read.  And I did read it.  All of it.  Which, to be honest, I would have never done, had it not been for a plane trip, including a cancelled flight necessitating an extra 24 hours of travel.

An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser, is a Gilded Age Novel, which like all Gilded Age novels, is a long rambling story about how miserable life is in a nation of growing prosperity.  Before getting to An American Tragedy itself, a digression on Henry James.  I have long noted that since everyone is entitled to hate one Great Books author, I hate Henry James.  A Tedious Bore, beloved, by English Professors who like perfectly crafted and thoroughly bloodless sentences and perfectly predictable and thoroughly bloodless plots full of perfectly bloodless symbolism and thoroughly bloodless metaphors.  Given the lack of blood, one could say that there is no life in a Henry James novel.  They bore me.  After finishing An American Tragedy, I am now convinced I should go back and read Henry James again.  After all, he can’t be as bad as Dreiser.  Maybe my problem is that I read James when I was too young to appreciate him.  (I think I last read him three or four years ago.)  Maybe now that I am older, I will realize that a lifeless novel is not as bad as I thought it was.  Sometime in the not too distant future, the Library of America is going to sell one of the many Henry James books to me.  I will read him again.  Maybe I will stop hating him.  Maybe.

And speaking of the Gilded Age, why is everyone so down on it, anyway?  Does anyone really want to live in the world before the Gilded Age?  Does anyone really want to live in a pre-industrial society?  Sure, there is some fascination there, but I daresay there are very few people living in the 21st century who would actually prefer life, on the whole, in the 19th century.  But to get from the 19th to the 21st century, the 20th century is rather essential, isn’t it?  So, yes there was a great deal of disruption and some of that disruption was unpleasant, but all in all, why would anyone think that the transformation of America in the early 20th century is a tragedy?

And speaking of Different Ages, one thing that doesn’t seem to have changed is the sensational courtroom trial.  Sure we have Court TV now, but Guy drowns Pregnant Girlfriend in Remote Lake was every bit as sensational in the early 20th century as it would be today.  Prurience has existed long before OJ met Nicole and Ronald that night in Brentwood

And…alright, enough with the asides...the book.  Did I mention that An American Tragedy is long, not terribly exhilarating, and seems like a book a literate person should have read?  Well, the first two are accurate.  You, Dear Reader, can safely skip this book and still be well-read.  Yes, you should read at least one Dreiser novel in your life—pick Sister Carrie—it’s better, shorter, and more depressing.  An American Tragedy is not well named.  At half its length, maybe it would be well named.  But, at its current length (934 pages in the Library of America volume), the title is a bit of a misnomer.  The book drags far too much; by the end, my overwhelming feeling was relief that the thing was over.  Not only is the book long in page length, it is long in tedium.  Dreiser is a very tedious (a very, very tedious) writer.  I opened the book at random (truly, I just opened it at random right now) and this is the first sentence I saw (truly, first sentence):
“For there was that in Clyde’s manner the instant he learned that it was due to a mistake that he had been recognized which caused even her to understand that he was hurt, abashed and disappointed.” 
Nine hundred and thirty four pages of prose like that.

But, it’s not all bad; indeed on balance, it’s not actually a bad book.  Dreiser is attentive to details—you actually can feel the locales of this novel.  He also sketches his characters swiftly and deftly; one feels like one knows the people in this book, even the relatively minor characters have definition and three dimensions.  The fall of Clyde is interesting; he was never at a great height, so the tragedy is the death of potential, not the Fall of a King to the gutter.  Clyde could have made a happy life out of nothing.  Instead, he made a miserable life out of nothing.  At place after place, he turns away from the happy, settled life into a life of aspirations which will never, indeed could never, be fulfilled.  For Dreiser, that is the story of America, right there.  A grasping, greedy nation which will ultimately find itself mired in depression and woe. 

It is worth nothing that there were lots of Clyde’s in the early 20th century.  Far more Clydes than Andrew Carnegies.  But, to return to the point made above, is the existence of individual tragedy enough to wish away the aspiration for something better?  If given the choice between a) the tragedy of Clyde and the promise of the 20th century America or b) both Clyde and all of us living today leading lives on a 19th century farm with no hopes of a fabulously wealthy life, which would you pick?  It is immoral to pick the sacrifice of Clyde’s happiness for the hope for something better for millions?

Another way of saying the same thing: This is far more tragic than anything in Dreier.


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