Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Sister Carrie is a young woman who travels alone from a small town to the big city, Chicago, in 1889. This book, published in 1900, was considered shocking at the time due to the unconventional behavior of the title character. The narrative intertwines the story line with remarks about the human condition, such as “Our civilization is still in a middle age – scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that is not wholly guided by reason.” . I suppose I understand why this book is a milestone in popular fiction due to the fact that the heroine is not doomed to a life of abandonment and misery even though she flaunts all the rules of what is considered decency at the time. I must confess, however, that the verbose style of writing along with the tendency of Dreiser to give detailed descriptions of interactions with characters never to be seen again meant that on or about page 500 of this 600 page book I began to skim just to get through it. So I can check this one off – “one of the most influential American novels” – duly read.
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