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    Sister Carrie
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    Sister Carrie
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    Sister Carrie
    Ebook605 pages13 hours

    Sister Carrie

    By Theodore Dreiser

    4/5

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    "Sister Carrie … 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." — Sinclair Lewis
    "It is a great novel and belongs on anybody's list, absolutely." — Garrison Keillor
    An eighteen-year-old girl without money or connections ventures forth from her small town in search of a better life in Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel. The chronicle of Carrie Meeber's rise from obscurity to fame — and the effects of her progress on the men who use her and are used in turn — aroused a storm of controversy and debate upon its debut in 1900. The author's nonjudgmental portrait of a heroine who violates the contemporary moral code outraged some critics, including the book's publisher, Frank Doubleday, who tried to back out of his agreement his firm had made with Dreiser. But others were elated — and Dreiser's compelling plot and realistic characters continue to fascinate readers.
    "Sister Carrie stands outside the brief traffic of the customary stage. It leaves behind an inescapable impression of bigness, of epic sweep and dignity. It is not a mere story, not a novel in the customary American meaning of the word; it is at once a psalm of life and a criticism of life … [Dreiser's] aim is not merely to tell a tale; his aim is to show the vast ebb and flow of forces which sway and condition human destiny. The thing he seeks to do is to stir, to awaken, to move. One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched." — H. L. Mencken

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 5, 2012
    ISBN9780486114231
    Author

    Theodore Dreiser

    The Indiana-born Dreiser (1871-1945) has never cut a dashing or romantic swath through American literature. He has no Pulitzer or Nobel Prize to signify his importance. Yet he remains for myriad reasons: his novels are often larger than life, rugged, and defy the norms of conventional morality and organized religion. They are unapologetic in their sexual candor--in fact, outrightly frank--and challenge even modern readers. The brooding force of Dreiser’ s writing casts a dark shadow across American letters. Here in <i>An American Tragedy</i>, Dreiser shows us the flip side of The American Dream in a gathering storm that echoes with all of the power and force of Dostoevsky’ s <i>Crime and Punishment</i>. Inspired by the writings of Balzac and the ideas of Spenser and Freud, Dreiser went on to become one of America’ s best naturalist writers. <i>An American Tragedy</i> is testimony to the strength of Dreiser’ s work: it retains all of its original intensity and force.

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    Reviews for Sister Carrie

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    • 3/5
      [Contains some spoilers]Sister Carrie (1900) was Theodore Dreiser's first book, and the tale of the small-town girl coming to the big city was loosely based on the experiences of Dreiser's sister. In Sister Carrie our protagonist takes the train from her small town in Wisconsin to the big city of Chicago in order to take the extra room in the apartment of her older sister and her family and to make her way in the world. She is 18, very pretty, not very curious and more than a little naive.Carrie gets a job in a shoe factory, barely makes enough money to pay her rent, and pines for all the beautiful clothes she sees in the department stores on her long walk to work each morning. After losing her job due to illness, Carrie can't find more work and is on the verge of going back home when she reconnects with Charles Drouet, a dapper and smooth-talking salesman she met on the train to Chicago. Drouet sets Carrie up in an apartment and takes care of all her expenses. This seems to satisfy Carrie for awhile, but after meeting Drouet's much richer friend George Hurstwood, Carrie's eye begins to wander. Not really maliciously or hurtfully (since Carrie doesn't seem to think about anything strongly enough to really mean it), but enough to set Hurstwood on a path of adultery, crime and deception that eventually leads to a hasty retreat for both Carrie and Hurstwood from Chicago to the anonymity of New York.Although originally published in 1900, Sister Carrie was buried by its publisher and had little success. After an extensive editing by Dreiser and his wife, a new version was published in 1912 to wider acclaim. Even in its edited version, the contemporary audience was shocked by the implied sex in the book and the lack of comeuppance for the immoral characters. It all seems pretty mild today, but you can see how a character like Carrie, no matter how naive and well-meaning she is supposed to be, who basically sleeps her way to comfortable living and attains fame and riches, could rub a turn-of-the-century audience the wrong way.Although I loved the detailed descriptions of life in Chicago and New York, the philosophical/moralizing sections are insufferable, and the characterization is (probably intentionally) very two-dimensional. Carrie couldn't be more boring or unlikeable. The only things she gets excited about are new clothes and, to a lesser extent, her acting career (but really only to the extent that she can get more money). She lives with men for years without really seeming to care for them, to think about their pasts, or to ask any questions or show any interests in anything at all. So, when she is still melancholy at the end of the novel, despite her success on the stage (which is hilariously based on her ability to pout), I can't say I feel that bad for her.Sister Carrie is definitely worth reading if you have the time, but if you don't, I'd probably start with one of Dreiser's other books...
    • 4/5
      Definitely one of my favorite books; it was incredibly hard to put down once you get past the initial chapters. You find yourself loving and hating the characters all at the same time. Dreiser does not sugar coat anything in this novel. I feel that this book is one that everyone should read.
    • 3/5
      I had to work to get through this book. I'm not a big fan of Theodore Dreiser's work. I understood his point and there were a few instances where he was quite eloquent, but overall, it took an unnecessarily long time to get there.
    • 4/5
      Satisfying read by the time I got stuck into it. But the initial impression is odd. Though it was greeted at the time as rampantly realistic and steamily sexual , times have changed so much it now seems a bit of a eunuch. Characters meet and eye each other up and even end up living together but physical expression is never more than a chaste hug or kiss. so the impression is a bit like The Young Visiters; adult puppets without real motives. The characters are indeed at the whim of random events and driven by shallow desires, mainly materialistic, so by the end we get a sense of a society at the mercy of greed for fripperies and empty status. Other oddities: the title "Sister Carrie" makes it sound like she's a nun or a nurse; she's quite the reverse, a slightly loose woman with no inner life. Her name is what her family called her, but she has no contact or mention of the family at all once she leaves home early in the story. Another: the bar/club which the main male manages includes an extraordinarily wide range of classes. Could travelling salesmen and smalltimers frequent the same locales as politicians, leading actors and celebrities (yes, the word is used!)?All moves a bit slowly and there's more philosophic-moralising than I can use - and that's after advisers cut a lot out! - but there is a sense of a story, people rise and fall in ways that are credible but not obvious. Though none are sympathetic or likeable, there's a certain momentum in the story.
    • 3/5
      Sister Carrie offers insights into the lives of working men and women in late 1800s Chicago and New York City.Unfortunately, it becomes a painfully dreary story, relived only by a streetcar strike and The Captain sponsoring rooms forpoor men for 12 cents a night. Throughout, the main character, Carrie, remains tiresome, boring, superficial and self-centered.
    • 5/5
      Sister Carrie, Dreiser's first novel, tells the story of a young girl from a small town who moves to Chicago and is corrupted by the ills of the big city.
    • 4/5
      Theodore Dreiser was an accomplished journalist and it shows in the brisk, detailed style of this, his first novel. It is a novel with a theme: we are doomed to lead empty lives because all of our striving gets us no where. All of the characters are flawed, but some lead more successful lives than others. Carrie and Drouet achieve their dreams, but still feel empty. Hurstwood sinks into poverty, but that is more by chance than any moral failing on his part. You cannot read this book thinking that the good person will win in the end. There is no thing as justice. Hurstwood performs a criminal act, but he gives the money back and still he seems to be punished. Carrie is very lucky, but her good luck doesn't make her happy. No one can win in Dreiser's world because we are doomed to sit in our rocking chairs, moving back and forth but going no where. Trying to be a better person, like Ames does, is a good thing, but it won't make any difference to the outcome of your life.
    • 4/5
      Definitely one of my favorite books; it was incredibly hard to put down once you get past the initial chapters. You find yourself loving and hating the characters all at the same time. Dreiser does not sugar coat anything in this novel. I feel that this book is one that everyone should read.
    • 4/5
      There is nothing like going back and reading a classic to appreciate the back in the day American writers who had such a strong command of the English language.
    • 4/5
      The progression of a "Good Girl" down the primrose path to becoming a kept woman. If you have ever known an attractive girl, with a winning personality and an astute intelligence - who hasn't known such a person - and wonder what has become of her, hopefully she has not had a similar life as Carrie. Her devolution by incremental poor choices could happen to anyone. More is the pity. Very well written by one of my favorite authors.
    • 4/5
      Carrie lost my sympathy about halfway through when she rounds on Drouet and claims he never did anything for her. He supported her for several years while she didn't make any attempt to find work during this period!! This feeling turned to active dislike later when she dumps Hurstwood as soon as she starts earning some money.. She struck me as completely self-centered.I did find that this book kept me engaged more than "An American Tragedy" did but I think that I liked the plot of that book better.
    • 3/5
      A book that is awkward and stuttering in some places, and very interesting and insightful in others - characteristic Dreiser. The last 150 pages somehow redeem the first 350. If I were a less patient person, I probably would have given up on him long ago.
    • 4/5
      I was not familiar with this author, who lived around the late 19th, early 20th century, but spotted this novel at Barnes & Noble. It's published in B&N's classics series that I like because they are very reasonably priced. They seem to be well edited- very rarely I find typos or other mistakes and they contain an introductory essay by written currently; typically by a college professor that is an expert in that author's works and life.Sister Carrie is an interesting novel that traces the life-paths of two individuals. Carrie, whose life progresses from a poverty background growing up in Wisconsin, and moves to Chicago searching for a better life, and eventually becomes a successful actress in New York City. And George Hurtswood who is the manager of a respectable bar in Chicago and whose life ends by killing himself after his last years spent in poverty and destitution in New York City. Although Carrie is presumably the central character in the novel, after all it's eponimously named, Hurtswood may be the more interesting person. His gradual descent into deprivation, while remembering his former wealthy station, is depressing reading some times. Reading this brings to mind the comment that Francesca da Rimini says to Dante, when he encounters her in the second circle of hell:"Nessun maggior doloreche ricordarsi del tempo felicene la miseria; e cio` sa 'l tuo dottore"Longfellow's translation is: "There is no greater sorrow/ Than to be mindful of the happy time / In misery, and that thy Teacher knows"In any event, Francesca's statement fits very well the state that Hurtswood saw himself from time to time, as he descended into the hell of his own creation. I don't want to spell out the plot and its details, I let any person who wants to read the novel find it by him/herself. If you want to read an entertaining novel that carries (no pun intended) and keeps you interested for a couple of days, but has no overall redeeming value or no real discussion or consideration of ethical or moral issues, this is a good one for you. Also, I'm no prude but I find it refreshing to read a novel without overt sex and extreme use of foul language such as seems to be prevalent in most modern fiction. But, as one of our fellow LT readers puts it: "... people use foul language because their vocabulary is not extensive enough to express their feelings in any other way. I feel the same way about an author's gratuitous use of it."
    • 4/5
      When the heroine, Carrie, was first introduced as a naive small-town girl heading to Chicago and falling for the advances of a travelling salesman on the train, I was worried that this would be a simple tragedy, where the helpless Carrie gets chewed up by the big city and ruined.Fortunately, the book is a lot more interesting than that. Carrie does suffer, she does get disillusioned, but she also fights back and makes a concerted attempt to find happiness, and the results are far from predictable. Some of the men who try to prey on her end up as victims themselves, while Carrie experiences a real mix of good luck and bad. Dreiser's writing style is a little verbose by modern standards, but still the story moves along quickly enough. The author also puts in some moral judgments and quasi-scientific explanations for the characters' actions, things which a modern writer would leave out but which work fine as artefacts of the age. The story was compelling and unpredictable, and I'm glad I read it.
    • 4/5
      Theodore Dreiser's tale of rags to riches and at the same time riches to rags is definitely a worthy tale to be told, but it is saddled with some considerable drawbacks keeping it from perfection. The male protagonists talk similarly with little to distinguish them from each other, the prose is riddled with cliches, and there's enough passages that go cloud-gazing that things may appear to be more tightly handled than they otherwise would be. The piling up of details is a fun little thing, though, and the writing despite being published at the turn of the century (the 20th century) is thoroughly modern.
    • 4/5
      824 Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser (read 18 Oct 1965) I saw the 1952 movie based on this book, starring Jennifer Jones, on Sept 17, 1952, and confess I remember the movie better than I do the reading of this book. But I do recall that I liked the book, and in my mind it is the best Dreiser novel I have read.
    • 4/5
      Read by my main character, Gracie Antes in my novel, Crestmont.Carrie turned out not to be the role model Gracie had hoped for.
    • 4/5
      At the turn of the century, a country girl leaves home for the big city. At a time when the only choice for women was to marry well, Carrie shows us a different road. While her rabid ambition and vanity indicate her true nature, the society in which she navigates is harsh and unforgiving. Dreiser's portrait of the ugliness of human nature is stunning.
    • 5/5
      A naturalistic tour de force. A good girl is led astray, and there is a downward spiral, but not exactly as you might think. Very powerful and not the book to read if you are feeling down.
    • 5/5
      This classic first novel by Theodore Dreiser tells the unlikely rags to riches tale of Carrie Meeber. But unlike the Horatio Alger tales, this is an anti-morality tale. Carrie comes to the big city, Chicago, to make a living under the supervision of her older sister and her husband. Quickly, however, Carrie attracts the attention of a playboy suitor, who begins providing for her.While under his attention, Carrie crosses path with an even more well-to-do man who becomes infatuated with her, despite having a wife and daughter. After a while, he convinces Carrie to come away with him to the even larger city, New York, where they live as husband and wife, though they are not. However, this man left Chicago under dubious circumstances (he was guilty of theft from his employer), and he is unable to secure adequate employment in New York.Over time, Carrie discovers that she does not like her limited life and begins to look for work opportunities in the theater. She gains employment, based on her appearance, and gradually becomes a better known actress. At the same time, her supposed husband becomes stuck in unemployment and idleness.Throughout, morality plays little role in what happens. Carrie is successful, despite living a less than honorable lifestyle. Her compatriot falls completely from grace, in apparent disproportion to his crimes. Such moral ambiguity (though it is still clear Dreiser affirms the contemporary view of the city as an inherently corrupt place) was radical and abrasive at the time "Sister Carrie" was published, and is by far the most notable part of the book.Read over a century later, the tale is not nearly so bracing as it must have originally been. Instead, some of the novels flaws (which would have been mostly overlooked because of its scandalous narrative) are more apparent. Dreiser has an ear for the language and lifestyle of the city, and his words are powerful. But sometimes his description becomes cumbersome and intrusive. Still, a classic American novel.
    • 4/5
      Published in 1900, this book is credited with having an impact on the course of American literature. Dreiser's sparse style depicts the realities of everyday city life (Chicago and New York) at the turn of the 19th Century in a way that seems to hide nothing. It thus allows the reader to feel that they can see the characters as they really are. The novel does not judge the behavior of the characters in the story. But rather it simply lays out the story of their actions for the reader to ponder. Carrie is a woman dealt a bad hand, who determines to make the most of what she has, seizing opportunity when it is offered. Charles Drouet is a pleasure seeker, a mixture of the vulgar and the appealing. And George Hurstwood experiences what we now call a mid-life crisis and ends up losing everything in his pursuit of happiness. Of the three protagonists living in the big City, one is destroyed, one rises to the top, and the third passes through unscathed. Success appears to have nothing to do with being good or bad. But rather, people strive to do their best and things happen.Read in March, 2008
    • 4/5
      Definitely one of my favorite books; it was incredibly hard to put down once you get past the initial chapters. You find yourself loving and hating the characters all at the same time. Dreiser does not sugar coat anything in this novel. I feel that this book is one that everyone should read.
    • 3/5
      Sister Carrie is a great representation of the struggles and excitement of the early 20th century. The story revolves around Carrie a young girl going to the "Big City" to live with her sister and her family while she looks for work. Carrie's advantage is she is quite pretty. And as a result of this she falls into the hands of a handsome young man with money who is willing to "take care of her". The story doesn't end there though because Carrie becomes the prize in a very tragic game. Dreiser's writing style is contemporary and easy to read, although at times he can get a little wordy. He has created his characters so life like that they feel as though they will step out from the pages and continue there lives right before you. Their thoughts are realistic and their actions are believable. The work houses, the bread lines and the boarding houses create a scary image and you can't help feeling a bit of relief that we live in a different time. But to describe in more detail would give the story away , so believe me when I say if you like a good story you will enjoy this tale. I might call this early 20th century chick lit.
    • 5/5
      Sister Carrie is Dreiser's commentary on industrialized, urban life around the turn of the century and its effects on the typical American. The protaganist is Carrie Meeber, a young country girl determined to make it in the big city. A girl of any age can relate to her yearning for material things and her desire to achieve the American Dream. Dreiser's failure to judge Carrie's morality shocked publishers and readers when the book was first released in 1900 and it remains a superb example of literary realism.
    • 4/5
      Carrie is a country girl in the late 1800's who decides to move to Chicago. From the beginning Carrie is unhappy with the realization of how hard she will have to work just to get by, so she decides to let herself become a kept woman, all of the while dreaming of having nice things and pretty clothes. When she tires of one man she ends up taking off with his best friend. We are able to see the decline of the second man, both in stature and mentally, as we see Carrie rise to prominence and fame. At the end the only person to remain unscathed was the person who Carrie left.This book was a bit stiff at times, and the characters weren't developed as fully as they could have been, but it was a pretty ok read.
    • 5/5
      Wow! My favorite book since I was 14 has been Gone With the Wind, and now, it is Sister Carrie. This book was mesmerizing because of its cleaverly crafted prose, vivid imagery and historical detail about turn of the century Chicago. I wasn't sure how I would like it at first because a large portion of the book is told from a male perspective, but once I started reading it, I could not put it down for 3 days straight. The last line in the book really affected me, and the sense of self-reflection that this book brought about was intense. This was the first book I read by Dreiser and is now the most cherished in my collection. I hope they turn it into a movie someday, because I think Hollywood has overlooked an amazing gem in the "period-piece" genre!
    • 5/5
      Terrific! Begins as yuppie madness ends with exploration of homeless life in New York
    • 4/5
      A good, vivid portrayal of the Gilded age from high class to low. Echoes of Jude the Obscure in its unconventional relationships quite shocking for its time.
    • 3/5
      In Sister Carrie, Dreiser writes as an unflinching realist, and there seem to be two main thrusts to his message: first, that despite its democratic ideal, late 19th century America was still divided into classes – those that are very poor and struggling, and those that are affluent and comfortable within the “walled city”. Secondly, as Leibovitz states in this edition’s introduction, that “mankind is stranded in evolutionary limbo: too far removed from natural instinct to behaving according to its dictates, and too inchoate to govern the self according to the dictates of reason.” The result is erratic behavior, and people using one another while having pretensions to finer feelings. It’s a bleak view.After moving to Chicago to be with her sister and her brother-in-law, Carrie determines early on that the ‘hard life’ is not for her, and then resorts to using the attention of men to her advantage. The men end up making fools of themselves, in particular Hurstwoood, who goes from the suave manager at the Fitzgerald and Moy saloon to utter ruin, a portrayal that many believe is the best part of the book.That may be, but the problem I have with Sister Carrie is it’s poorly written. It’s not lyrical in the slightest and badly in need of editing; awkward prose abounds and is hard to get used to. An example, from the beginning of Chapter 17: “The, to Carrie, very important theatrical performance was to take place at the Avery on conditions which were to make it more noteworthy than was at first anticipated.” Another is this odd use of punctuation (what are the colon and the comma doing in this sentence?): “She might have been said to imagining: herself in love, when she was not.”Furthermore, Dreiser offers few pearls of wisdom, and I don’t think it took much skill to write this book. I would recommend Zola or Balzac if you want fiction of this type; they not only predate Dreiser but are better writers. And yet, I extract quotes nonetheless. :) On love:“A real flame of love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairy lands of delight. It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.”On marriage going stale:“On this trip he enjoyed himself thoroughly, and when it was over he was sorry to get back. He was not willingly a prevaricator, and hated thoroughly to make explanations concerning it. The whole incident was glossed over with general remarks, but Mrs. Hurstwood gave the subject considerable thought. She drove out more, dressed better, and attended theatres freely to make up for it.Such an atmosphere could hardly come under the category of home life. It ran along by force of habit, by force of conventional opinion. With the lapse of time it must necessarily become dryer and dryer – must eventually be tinder, easily lighted and destroyed.”On pathos, this while watching a stage performance:“Hurstwood began to feel a deep sympathy for her and for himself. He could almost feel that she was talking to him. He was, by a combination of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by the quality of voice and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a personal and intimate thing. Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever addressed to one alone.”On women, ok, on looking at women:“Drouet had a habit, characteristic of his kind, of looking after stylishly dressed or pretty women on the street and remarking upon them. He had just enough of the feminine love of dress to be a good judge – not of intellect, but of clothes. He saw how they set their little feet, how they carried their chins, with what grace and sinuosity they swung their bodies. A dainty, self-conscious swaying of the hips by a woman was to him as alluring as the glint of rare wine to a toper. He would turn and follow the disappearing vision with his eyes. He would thrill as a child with the unhindered passion that was in him. He loved the thing that women love in themselves, grace. At this, their own shrine, he knelt with them, an ardent devotee.”And:“She did not want anything to do with him. He was married, he had deceived her once, and now again, and she thought him terrible. Still there is something in such daring and power which is fascinating to a woman, especially if she can be made to feel that it is all prompted by love of her.”
    • 3/5
      Far easier to absorb than "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", but still a maddeningly slow read. Not to mention that Carrie was the first FICTIONAL character to make me SHOUT at the book since Phillip in "Of Human Bondage", and that's saying something. If they were real, Carrie and Phillip should have married each other. They both had precisely the same amount of brains and moral stamina...oh wait! They didn't have any brains and moral stamina! They were both pretty pitiful.