Rating: 
Summary: Well-evoked hatred
Review: Norris wrote well. He managed to create characters who were realistic and didn't live a storybook life. He also managed to create a book where the characters are impossible to identify with, who do such stupid and dreadful things that by the end of the book a strange mixture of pity, revulsion, and hatred for the characters results. A savage joy is evoked at the terrible deaths that moves and frightens the reader. Truly it is a thought-provoking book, and as such does Norris credit, but do not read it for other than sadistic pleasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Norris not forgotten!
Review: Norris forgotten? Not quite. I wrote my master's thesis on his work. This is his best work and a stirring example of American naturalism...a must read for any student of American literature. McTeague was a groundbreaking novel, and paved the way for American literature in the 20th Century.
Rating:
Summary: McTeague Review
Review: This book begins much like a work by Dreiser or Lewis, but soon turns cynical in a way that can only work if the style is also sneeringly funny. An acknowledgment of that wicked humor is what is missing from many of the other reviews here. The characters are all selfish in their own way rather than truly greedy. (The movie "Greed" took "McTeague" as its inspiration.) They are also grotesques, which allows for the humor to work its magic without alienating us; something keeps us from wholly identifying with them, thus, we don't really feel their pain, but instead shake our heads at their miserable actions, all brought about by deficiencies of character. They want love and happiness and imagine stupidly that it is through wealth that they can achieve or be worthy of such virtues. This is the theme: wealth and security as misplaced substitutes for love and happiness in the modern world. Indeed, the image of gold spins through the novel in various contexts. I am not going to repeat the plot outline because some other reviews here have done that well. When I finished this, I was convinced that it is one of the ten best American novels I have ever read, and that includes a lot of so-called "great" works. However, there is a reason this book is not mentioned in the same breath as "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Great Gatsby." There are truths here that high school teachers would perhaps not want their students to face; namely that acquisitiveness in its extremes can become a rather disturbing mental sickness. In our consumer culture, I think many are made uncomfortable by that possibility. I am reminded of the great Native American chiefs who stated that the pursuit of gold had made white men crazy. I forget who said that an author in his work should be like God in the universe: everywhere present but visible nowhere. This novel reaffirmed that for me after reading so many painfully overwrought-- and overpraised-- postmodernist failures of the last thirty years or so. Agree or not, I won't mention their names: if you've read them, you know what I'm talking about. They're not for me. McTeague is fresh, funny, meaningful, and plot-driven. Would that those qualities returned to contemporary American fiction, and the age of sententiousness, victimization, and "style" over substance would end.
Rating:
Summary: Like a symphony
Review: To me this first realistic and naturalistic American novel is like a three-movement classical symphony, the first movement (chapters 1 - 12) being a relatively light-hearted Allegro picturing the friendship of McTeague and Marcus and McTeague's marriage to Trina. There would be a few dissonances foreshadowing the events to come. The second movement(chapters 13 - 19), a funeral march, Marcia funebre, would then represent the progressive souring of McTeague's relationship to Trina and his friendship to Marcus, beginning with McTeague's loss of his job as a dentist and ending with the terrible detection of Trina's body by a schoolgirl. A funeral march would express the initial catastrophe as well as the final death appropriately. The last movement (from chapter 20 to the catastrophic end) would be a Prestissimo ghost dance appropriate to the desolate scene of Death Valley, and dying away in pianissimo dissonances....What would I like this music to sound? There is one example I could think of, which is Prokofiev's ballet music to Romeo and Juliet. Everything is there---gaiety, love, hate, catastrophe, fate, death. Unfortunately, no living composer, American or otherwise, seems equal to the task, but perhaps in the future.....
Rating:
Summary: my favorite novel
Review: i came across mcteague by accident. through silent film study as a matter of fact. when i saw GREED the eric von stroheim masterpiece based on the novel i went and bought it instantly. since then i have read mcteacue 4 times and each time getting a bit more out of it. the world is full of constant tragedy that a lot of people dont want to hear so many will find this novel tasteless. it is the structure of the writing and the habit of routine that sticks out in my mind in mcteague. it is a tragic story like the writings of THEODORE DREISSER ,EDITH WHARTON , SINCLAIR LEWIS and specifically EMILE ZOLA whom norris idolized and copied. the tale is a strange one of how people lost in theire daily little routines and what can happen to them when those routines are suddenly interupted. it is grim and fascinating at the same time and when i see the endless police television shows of spouses murdering each other on a daily basis i am reminded of how "true" to life mcteague is. read it slowly and study the structure of norris phrases . the book was first made in to a film in 1919 i beleive in fort lee new jersey and it was titled LIFES WHIRPOOL. it is probably here where eric von stroheim first saw the film and then read the novel before he made his version of it in 1924. too bad that frank norris died unexpectedly who knows what was still in him as time went on??
Rating: 
Summary: Frank Norris needed a better editor
Review: I have just finished up this book in my senior AP lit class. Reading it was excruciating. The first bit of the book moves very slowly (well, I admit, the scene where McTeague asks Trina to marry him did crack me up, though I'm not entirely sure that that was what was intended) and the second half is even worse because by then I hated every single character in the book. Yes, I'm aware they're SUPPOSED to be over the top, but I feel that Norris could have gotten his point across much better if he had been more subtle. I don't really enjoy being beaten over the head with imagery. Homer Simpson could have understood this novel fully with ease.
Another thing: Frank Norris is not that good of a writer. So much stuff his narrator said was entirely unnecessary. Laughably
unnecessary. It's honestly just like, god, we get it already! Shut up!
But then, naturalism isn't really my cup of tea. I find it melodramtic (a soap opera, if you will) and extremely depressing. I don't like Social Darwinism, either, which is basically one of the messages Norris is trying sell. Also, he's a pretty racist S.O.B.
Lastly, why does he spell Owgooste out phonetically sometimes in the narration, and then spell it August other times? ?? Yeesh.
Rating:
Summary: McTeague Review
Review: This book begins much like a work by Dreiser or Lewis, but soon turns cynical in a way that can only work if the style is also sneeringly funny. An acknowledgment of that wicked humor is what is missing from many of the other reviews here. The characters are all selfish in their own way rather than truly greedy. (The movie "Greed" took "McTeague" as its inspiration.) They are also grotesques, which allows for the humor to work its magic without alienating us; something keeps us from wholly identifying with them, thus, we don't really feel their pain, but instead shake our heads at their miserable actions, all brought about by deficiencies of character. They want love and happiness and imagine stupidly that it is through wealth that they can achieve or be worthy of such virtues. This is the theme: wealth and security as misplaced substitutes for love and happiness in the modern world. Indeed, the image of gold spins through the novel in various contexts. I am not going to repeat the plot outline because some other reviews here have done that well. When I finished this, I was convinced that it is one of the ten best American novels I have ever read, and that includes a lot of so-called "great" works. However, there is a reason this book is not mentioned in the same breath as "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Great Gatsby." There are truths here that high school teachers would perhaps not want their students to face; namely that acquisitiveness in its extremes can become a rather disturbing mental sickness. In our consumer culture, I think many are made uncomfortable by that possibility. I am reminded of the great Native American chiefs who stated that the pursuit of gold had made white men crazy. I forget who said that an author in his work should be like God in the universe: everywhere present but visible nowhere. This novel reaffirmed that for me after reading so many painfully overwrought-- and overpraised-- postmodernist failures of the last thirty years or so. Agree or not, I won't mention their names: if you've read them, you know what I'm talking about. They're not for me. McTeague is fresh, funny, meaningful, and plot-driven. Would that those qualities returned to contemporary American fiction, and the age of sententiousness, victimization, and "style" over substance would end.
Rating:
Summary: Remorseless, brutal, utterly necessary
Review: Some aspects of McTeague are a little on the amateurish side; it can be psychologically clumsy, and some of the symbolism seems a bit labored (hey, Norris was in his twenties, whaddaya expect?). This, however, is irrelevant, because, truly, it is the most visceral novel I've read in ages, pulling no punches, and with easily the most nightmarish ending I've ever encountered in a 'realistic' novel (whatever you do, don't spoil it for yourself). Norris's single token attempt at lightening the mood is a secondary romantic subplot, but really, you'll be so overwhelmed by the novel's main thread, you'll barely notice. Norris was heavily, heavily influenced by Zola, and it shows on ever page. And, while his writing might not be up to that of The Man at his height (though if he hadn't died at thirty-two...the mind reels at the possibilities), he nonetheless displays all of Emile's best tendencies: the talent for atmosphere, the firm refusal to ever relent, the simply-drawn but deeply memorable characters...it's all there. Written in English, by an American. One of those things that might contribute to my being proud of my country, if not for various other issues. Seriously, dudes and dudesses...it's difficult for me to imagine how one could fail to be awestruck by this novel. Anyone interested in American fiction, naturalism, or just kickass writing in general should most definitely not miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Hidden Masterpiece
Review: This is, hands down, the best book I have read in all of my 10 years in college. It was first forced upon me in American Realism 340, alongside Chopin and Dreiser, but Norris shined above them all. The characters are incredible over the top examples of the absurd, brilliant in their simplicity and endearing because of their sincerity. The story is unpredictable, the ending is shocking, brutal, and will stick with you. There is so much to think about and decipher: ie. McTeague's canary, Marcus, the old couple; every facet of this book is fascinating, every page inticing. It had me up till four in the morning finishing it. An addictive treasure I recommend to everyone.
|
