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Bezig met laden... McTeague: a story of San Francisco (origineel 1899; editie 1899)door Frank Norris
Informatie over het werkMcTeague: A Story of San Francisco door Frank Norris (Author) (1899)
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Probably not a bad read for its time but it hasn't aged well. Simplistic and very sad depiction of a couple's self-induced deterioration and collapse. ( ) This is a book about what greed does to people. McTeague was raised by a miner in poverty conditions; he takes off with an itinerant dentist where he learns dentistry and settles in the late 1800's in San Francisco and builds up a practice. He meets Trina who right before they are married wins a $5000 lottery prize. He met Trina through her cousin, Marcus, who lived in McTeague's apartment building. Marcus was somewhat in love with Trina but "gives her over" to McTeague. The marriage is happy at first, but Trina refuses to use any of the $5000 and becomes ever more miserly. The greedier she becomes, things begin to fall apart. The marriage is eventually over, McTeague loses his position, and the ending is about as grim as it gets. A book about the stupidity, greed, and selfishness of humans. A pretty good story, but the narrative is dated with long sentences, too much detail, etc. A reread for me, but I got so much more out of it this time around. The characterization was entertaining: McTeague the brute and his wife Trina, Maria and Zerkow... these characters seemed to live their lives"like a candle in the wind," as Elton John would say. Motivated by greed, they fairly drive themselves towards self-destruction. The ending gave me a visual that I'll recall when remembering this book. I went into this blind but right from the start i had a prescience of evil, i could practically smell "The Dram Shop by Emile Zola", which is not the sort of thing one wants reminders of as that was GRIM! (but excellent) And i was not wrong, the two stories do share some common ground, what i was mistaken about however was thinking that its similarities would be a problem, were as it turned out it was quite the reverse. The writing isn't bad, its nicely descriptive if a little overly detailed at times, and all the characters are well... Characters. It took me some time to figure out why it was such work to get through and i finally pinned down the problem. While you occasionally hear the protagonists thoughts you still never feel like your in their head. The author constantly keeps them at arms length which makes it very hard to empathize or care about their struggles. This actually seems to get progressively worse throughout the novel. The longer it goes on the further i felt removed from the characters. I actually had to resort to LibriVox to help me through some of it as it became such a chore to read. Things pick up somewhat towards the end when the author completely gives up on the story he was writing and decides to change it into a western, 'Seraphrim Falls' to be precise, with some of 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' thrown in, and just a dash of Spider-Man (one of the characters unaccountably develops spidey-sense :P ). geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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Inspired by an actual crime sensationalized in the San Francisco press at the turn of the century, this riveting tale of avarice, degeneration, and death chronicles the demise of an ignorant charlatan and his avaricious wife. A compelling, realistic view of human nature at its most basic level. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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