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Loading... Õde Carrie : romaan (original 1900; edition 1960)by Theodore Dreiser, Paul kujundaja. Reeveer
Work InformationSister Carrie by Theodore DREISER (Author) (1900)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Reason read: Reading 1001, TBR takedown, TIOLI, Chicago This has been on the shelf for awhile. It was published in 1900 and is an example of "naturalism" or realism. The story is of a country girl who flees rural life, going to Chicago but not finding work. She falls into a relationship of mistress to a single man and then runs to Canada and New York with married man. Carrie is eventually successful on the stage but comes to realize that happiness is not in Success. The characters in Dreisser's book can succeed without a firm moral code but there is also examples where not having a moral code does lead to ruin in the case of another. It has been called the "greatest urban novel". It was #33 on the Modern Library list of 100 best English novels of 20th century (1998).; I don't particularly like the novels title. Not sure if I think it is a great novel but perhaps it did contribute to the development of the novel with its naturalism/realism on the eve of The Victorian novel. A surprisingly modern novel, except for its reliance on exposition, originally published 1900 to a problematic reception due to its descriptions of very flawed characters without an ‘uplifting’ message; a cross between Sinclair Lewis (Babbitt) and a dash of Dickens, although the author may have aimed for Balzac. Reprinted in 19927 and currently regarded as an American classic: a precursor to A Man In Full in some ways. The main protagonist, Carrie, flees rural WI in the late 1800s for Chicago looking for work and faces the harsh working conditions of factory life while aching for the beautiful things offered to the fortunate. Via her impoverished sister, her aspiring middle class lover and then her upper middle class lover, she is a reflection of the different socioeconomic sectors in a rapidly industrialized and urban culture. A committed socialist, Dreiser takes aim at the ultimately vacuous goals presented as the golden life while frankly displaying the untenable realities in not achieving those goals. There is no Hollywood ending, the message is never too bluntly struck and the pace keeps a good momentum; the characters are mostly presented as real people not one-dimensional. The problem is there are no brief paragraphs or even summary sentences to indicate what would have sent the characters along their paths in the first place: they become stock not because of a lack of description but because their actions appear too random. This isn’t an issue with minor characters, but for Carrie (the rise) and Hurstwood (the fall) the book would have benefited from a very modest amount of backstory, especially for Hurstwood. Dreiser has sympathy for his characters and refrains from overt moralizing. Through the character Ames, the reader is given a “Third Way”, but with zero information on what this might actually entail. ‘Sister Carrie’ is one of those books that was important to have been written, very good to have read and will stay in the canon for a long time, but I suspect not a book to be reread. This book is about a woman who winds up with a rather modern lifestyle, never marrying or having children, having a series of serious and casual romantic attachments and even living with her lovers, and eventually setting herself up in a successful entertainment career to the extent that instead of her deadbeat boyfriend supporting her on whatever cash he had not gambled away yet, she could support him. Dreiser writes her story as if it is a subtle tragedy in which despite gaining wealth, fame, financial security, and all the finer things in life, she was missing a certain 'something', perhaps the traditional life of wife/mother. This lament coming from the narrator never rang particularly true when considering the character of Carrie though. I could not imagine Carrie, as written, actually wanting traditional marriage or babies. Dreiser also glosses over all the preparatory work that would have gone on during Carrie's younger life for her to be able to join in with a chorus line in a ballet so easily near the end of the book. If she is able to excel as a dancer and stage performer, surely she has had some training in the past. Dreiser portrays her stage career as if there is really no skill to it, merely innate talent and an artistic mind, plus luck that lands Carrie at the right place and time to get the right opportunities to make it big. So, her success is portrayed as almost dumb luck, unearned except perhaps in some way to atone for the messy past fate gave her by that point. Meanwhile her boyfriend, who kidnapped her and took her away to a new city to live with him, is portrayed as if his choice to not look for work seriously and his choices to gamble with the money he had left were not as important as the waves of fate that turned him into a pathetic beggar. He seems clinically depressed, as a result of chronic unemployment, sure, but I still could not really care about his demise. So, while the story was entertaining, and I could definitely relate to some of the characters, my interpretation of the situations in this novel is not quite Dreiser's. In my reading of it, Carrie gets a happy ending, albeit a realistic one where she might be a little lonely right now, but where life really is good. This is the second place most depressing book I have ever read. It loses out to the first place book because that one could easily drive someone to suicide. This one just gives you a really terrible round of guilt trips. It is the story of Carrie, who is a younger sister - not a nun - and goes into the city of Chicago for the first time. Following is her journey to, well... what she thinks she wants, due to social constructions and peer pressure and ridiculous societal expectations. Firstly: the prose was well-written. The dialogue between characters, descriptions, and philosophical musings were interesting. I often felt like I was reading situations from different philosophical perspectives (e.g., this is why this side disapproves, and this is why this side approves), which was a nice, mostly unbiased way to look at things. The characters were specific, but vague. That's the best I can come up with. I didn't like any of them, but I blame that partially on the fact that they are human, and partially on the fact that I was so bored the whole book that I lose any interest in them I might have had. Because that's what this book is. Boring. I just finished "The Country of the Pointed Firs" - I know boring by now. Amazingly enough, a book where a relatively great deal happens, like "Sister Carrie" can be as equally boring as "The Country of the Pointed Firs". This is how the book reads: "So all this happened, and it was kind of bad, kind of okay. And then it all happened again." "But wait, we're not done yet." The book could have ended so many times that I was shocked when I saw my Kindle indicating that I wasn't yet halfway through the thing. The novel is almost a response to readers clamoring for more after "THE END" comes up at the end of a story: "Look, here's what happened to them! See? You happy? No? Good!" You weren't bored enough yet? Well, prepare to discover just HOW bored a human being can get! It's a good study of life in New York and Chicago in the late 19th century, but if you're just looking for an interesting read and don't really hate yourself, go somewhere else.
I believe the novel Sister Carrie helps to describe the life of young girls in the turn of the century. The confusion of what to do, who to be with, who to trust.. running into problems, this story touches bases with all of these. The novel Sister Carrie was a great book to read if your into sneaky ways and like reading about Drama. The book shows how you shouldnt always base your opinions on what you see because that may lead you in the way of false pretences. Over all I enjoyed reading the book and it also gave me an outlook on how the 1900's really is not that different from the present time we live in. The novel teaches you inner morals to go with what your heart desires Carrie made her life the way she dreamed by following what she knew and working hard for it. Belongs to Publisher SeriesDie Andere Bibliothek (392) — 10 more Is contained inIs expanded inInspiredHas as a student's study guideDistinctionsNotable Lists
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
HTML: A country girl moves to the big city and lives her own version of the American Dream by becoming mistress to the men of her choice and so working her way to fame as an actress. Sinclair Lewis said of the novel in 1930, "Dreiser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he dared to publish thirty long years ago and which I read twenty-five years ago, came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman." .No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Character development takes a backseat to social conditions and environment in this novel. For the most part, its focus is on the lowest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for food and shelter. Carrie doesn’t seem to aspire to anything more than improving her food, clothing, and housing situation. I might have abandoned the print version. The audio narrator made it interesting enough to keep me listening to the end. ( )