![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Mencken, although he was Dreiser’s friend, nevertheless referred to the “mirthless, sedulous, repellent manner” of the author’s work, and, throughout his reviewing career, Mencken made gleeful lists of Dreiser’s blunders. In a groundbreaking appreciation published in 1916, H. L. Dreiser’s reputation has always been vexed, and the long debate over his stature has been accompanied by a secondary debate-a malignant shadow of the first-devoted to the question of whether he could write at all. My suspicion is that Dreiser’s books (with the exception of “Sister Carrie”) are now considered too long for high-school students, too earnest for college literature classes, and too odd for many common readers. The novel’s appearance under these auspices is, of course, an effort to consecrate it as a classic, but the attempt may have come too late. With its usual impassivity, the Library of America has reissued a strange and awkward book, Theodore Dreiser’s nine-hundred-and-thirty-page realist epic of 1925, “An American Tragedy.” As with all the Library’s volumes, no celebratory essay accompanies the beautifully printed text. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |