Rating: 
Summary: Makes me want to learn more about "Old" California
Review: Today when we think of California we think of what else but Los Angeles and San Francisco. Many people forget that California has a rich history based in agriculure and mining. The Octopus tells a story about California's past and the epic struggle between the Wheat farmers and the all powerful railroads. The characters are dynamic and Norris has written the story so brilliantly that you actually feel for the characters. If you read this book you also must read "The Pit" also by Norris which tells the tale of the Chicago Commodities market and one mans overpowering desire to "corner" the wheat market.
Rating: 
Summary: dull
Review: Victimized farmers in Frank Norris's novel The Octopus are opinionated, vain, short-sighted, and irrational. Their decision to use the same unethical means as their enemies is understandable despite the wish of some to be honest because their enemies were not. Victimizing businessmen are opinionated and vain, but, they are far-sighted and rational. They know the law is on their side.Descriptions of room interiors, acres of wheat, deserts, and mission gardens help the author to secure his effects. Their too long speeches show how inept farmers are at understanding their predicaments. Force intrigues Norris. . . the wheat seed that germinates in the earth, the velocity of a railroad locomotive, the energy of a corporate machine. Norris sides with farmers (whom he says must be Anglo-Saxon!) and despises trusts --- the octopus --- composed of executives and their subordinates who make money and cause suffering by cheating their tenants and bribing court and government officials. Characters in The Octopus are larger than life, episodes go to excess in depicting man's cruelty to man, criticisms of city people who love art are derived from ignorance, interludes of caricature lack the bite of satire, and incidents, such as the floundering of a man overcome by desire who fears women or the pathos of a lover who wants to unite with his dead love, detract from themes of agricultural fertility as salvation and the pursuit of corporate profit as damnation. Norris scurries away from a summons to insurrection while his concluding sentence: "all things inevitably, resistlessly work together for good," calls for a faith in progress and God events in the novel disprove.
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