Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!!
Review: The truly amazing thing about this novel is it's relevancy even to the current day. The characters resonate in a very real and poignant way in this novel of a man who slides into debacle and treachery in his pursuit of the 'American Dream'. It is a long book, but I did not find it boring at all. It's a fascinating study of the confluence of character and circumstances eminent in one person's actions. I think everyone can relate, at least somewhat, to each of the characters in this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Much Information
Review: Theodore Dreisers massive book An American Tragedy is an almost complete life story of Clyde Griffiths, a man born into a poor relgious family who is corrupted by the society in which he lives and commits an outrageous crime in the name of money and success. Though Dreisers book has an important message, the story is just weighed down with unneccesary detail. Attempting to read this exhaustive book is a burden and I don't recommend picking it up unless you have to for some college or high school course. Dreiser feels the need to put every bit of information that he has researched into the novel. Granted it is exhaustive and paints an effective picture but it is hell on the reader. Dreiser also has to be one of the worst technical writers I have ever read. He is like the anti-Nabokov. He has absolutley no grasp of language or flow. Your taught in 11th grade english not to use however and also after every point. I would recommend the movie, A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. The movie was enjoyable and you get the message of the story without all the unneccesary typing. I would also recommend The Great Gatsby, which has the same message and is only around 200 pages long. I gave the book 2 stars because it does have a point, but I sure didn't enjoy reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A Tragic American Tale
Review: An American Tragedy is a lengthy book in which Dreiser refuses to leave out any detail. Although the underlying plot is intersting and suspenseful Dreiser manages to dull the story with lengthy descriptions. When one reads this book they are brought on the roller coaster of the contempelations of good and evil, fun and dull that Clyde Griffths, the main character, goes through. Dreiser also uses foreshadowing as a repetitive literary device. After the first of the three books, the reader feels as though they know what will happen through the many obvious forshadows. While I realize that this book is considered a book of good merit, I feel that after the fifth-hundred page I was ready to put the book to rest forever.
Rating:
Summary: Good Analysis, But No Summary!
Review: These Cliffs Notes provide no summary, but only an analysis for the book. It is very hard to follow if you have not read the book, which is the whole point of Cliffs Notes!
Rating: 
Summary: An American Classic
Review: An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser is a powerful novel of one's battle with self and the temptaions of society, something everyone faces. Clyde Griffiths, the main character, was raised by a religiou mother and father and taught to seek God for what he needs. Clyde desires more. His desire for riches and women leads to his greed and lust.
Dreiser uses and abundance of foreshadowing and symbolism in his novel. For instance, the Hotel Green-Davidson in which Clyde is employed at the beginning of the novel as a bellhop is is described as its "workers doing everything at the sound of a bell," like fighters do in a boxing ring. Dreiser also uses military words while describing the hotel. Together they represent battle, like the battle Clyde faces within himself.
This is a great novel. It is full os suspense and action. Dreiser incorperates many aspects of "American Tragedies" in this book. It contains lust, money, power, an illigitamate child, lying, cheating, and eventually even murder.
I strongly recommend this novel, An American Tragedy to everyone. It is a wonderful and enjoyable book for both men and women of all ages.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific American Story Teller
Review: It's a shame that more people haven't found Dreiser. He is truly one of the great American story tellers. From his first book "Sister Carrie", through a long listing of other works, as well as one trilogy, Dreiser shows what can happen when ordinary people make unordinary decisions. Although some of his books are rather long and descriptive, each one of them grips you and pulls you into the story. At first, American Tragedy starts off by following the trials and tribulations of the main character. Where Dreiser excels is in his ability to have the reader know not only what the characters are doing, but what they are thinking at the same time. It's as if the reader was inside the story, knowing all of the choices the character has to think through. This makes the characters all the more lifelike and real. American Tragedy makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you mad, and finally makes you feel that the ultimate outcome of the main character was brought about solely by his actions. England has Charles Dickens. Here in America, we have Theodore Dreiser. If you never read his works, start now. And start with Sister Carrie before this book. They were written years apart, and the knowledge Dreiser gained in the interim is very evident in this work. After reading these two books, you will certainly have the desire to read more of his works.
Rating:
Summary: I entered with low expectations . . .
Review: Perhaps this explains my enthusiasm for this book. It's odd, really, a curious text not so much poorly written as blunt, barrenly blunt, an underhanded mumble of sorts that drones out a story that is frankly quite shocking. The events aren't particularly new, or not really: a dumb but innocent jerk runs away from his parents ideas about life and finds a small success at first, not so much financially or socially, but with the unexpected enjoyment of his absolute freedom. Things run along for a time and then life changes, something happens, things or people change and nothing can ever be the same. Sometimes we pick ourselves up, usually we don't. This is the progress of inevitable plotting that made Drieser a master of a rigidly formated style called 'naturalism.' For make no doubts: this book is realistic. Regarding the insight into character the revelations of this book are profound, the work of a master. Every squeak and detail is ushered out of the mind of nearly every character in the book; the ones who are not explained are explained away with a reason why they aren't important. Every flake of ice and the reason for wearing their hair such a way is considered and itemized into the certain conviction that you are following the lives of people you might actually know-- It's a long, slow and turgid book that I found to be utterly engrossing and completely enthralling. Pardon me for simplifying a point with the resurrection of this variety of over-used cliches.
Rating: 
Summary: try reading the phonebook instead
Review: Theodore Dreiser is considered to be the leading American practitioner of Naturalism--which consists of writing about sex and violence in the lower classes in order to reveal what I gather were supposed to be shattering truths about the bleak aspects of modern industrial urban life. To that end, Sister Carrie tells the story of a pretty small town girl who uses her feminine wiles to sleep her way from the factories and saloons of Chicago to the New York stage. Along the way, the tavern owning married man who stole to fund their escape to Chicago, kills himself after being abandoned by Carrie and ending up in Bowery flophouses. Meanwhile, An American Tragedy tells the story, based on a sensational true crime, of a young man who is working his way towards the American dream and refuses to let a pregnant former girlfriend stand in the way of his chance for romance with a wealthy woman. He takes the slattern out in a boat & clobbers her, but is tried and executed for the crime. It is an open secret that even critics who admire Dreiser, consider him to be a horrible writer technically. American Tragedy has been called "the worst-written great novel in the world" and the otherwise loathsome Garrison Keillor has an amusing column about how bad he finds Sister Carrie on rereading it. His books have all the literary grace of the phone book. Thus, his reputation rests solely on the agreement of Left wing critics with his hatred of American capitalism. Well, 100 years on, I think we can safely say that the American system has served us pretty well and the Sister Carrie's of the world are not simply insignificant but, worse for a writer, uninteresting. GRADE: F
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This is a great novel. Dreiser has been knocked by critics as a clumsy writer whose over-all impact is brilliant. Sort of the Rolling Stones of literature. But I found the novel not only brilliant, but I did not find the writing at all clumsy. I kept waiting to frown at a sentence's construction. But I thought EVERYTHING about this book was great, including the word-for-word writing.
Rating:
Summary: What Happened?
Review: This novel baffles me. Dreiser is capable of so much more - read Sister Carrie for instance, written around 1900 but still capable of transfixing the reader today with one of the first (unpoliticized) portrayals of a woman transformed from suffering victim to survivor and victor. But while Sister Carrie shattered cliches which hadn't even been recognized yet, An American Tragedy is a long book that reads very much like an extended cliche.
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