James Lundquist
Autor(a) de Kurt Vonnegut
Obras de James Lundquist
London 1 exemplar(es)
Associated Works
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) (1963) — Contribuinte — 389 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome de batismo
- Lundquist, James Carl
- Data de nascimento
- 1941-09-24
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- USA
- Local de nascimento
- Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Membros
Resenhas
Listas
Best Biographies (1)
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 7
- Also by
- 1
- Membros
- 62
- Popularidade
- #271,094
- Avaliação
- 4.3
- Resenhas
- 2
- ISBNs
- 10
In this 1974 contribution to the Modern Literature Monographs series, James Lundquist (a former US professor of English) describes and discusses Dreiser's literary contributions in the context of his life, career, and times. Following a biographical chapter (Chapter 1: Dreiser Himself), the book first explores the characters in his books (Ch. 2: Dreiser's Women and Ch. 3: Dreiser's Men), then discusses his best - known novel (Ch. 4: Dreiser's Explanation: An American Tragedy). Subsequent chapters consider his philosophy and politics, and finally, his legacy.
Lundquist’s portrayal of Dreiser is sympathetic but unflattering. Dreiser is described as an “uncouth, nervous, and somewhat misshapened man who… had a raging desire to get ahead.” He was “a fighter, a bore… often cruel to people who had befriended and helped him.” He was moody, manic – depressive, and superstitious, and reportedly, no attractive woman in his presence was safe from his advances. What’s more, at the age of 30 (when he began his first novel), Dreiser was poorly educated, inexperienced, and unfamiliar with the literary world. That such a man could produce such astonishing novels as Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy seems nearly miraculous, but reflects Dreiser’s deep compassion and understanding of the hardships of urban poverty. Lundquist describes him as “a sentimentalist, despite the moral detachment that he strove to affect.”
In considering his novels, Lundquist notes: “Theodore Dreiser’s achievement as a writer is generally understood in terms of the despair, futility, and moral negativism concentrated in much of what he wrote… (H)is characters painfully discover that love is an illusion, that it is easy to wind up alone and abandoned, and that body chemistry has a greater influence on events than do abstractions such as conscience, mind, or spirit… Yet strangely enough… his richness of language and his powerful enthusiasm for and curiosity about human existence leave the student of Dreiser with anything but a surfeit of despair.” In Lundquist’s analysis, none of Dreiser’s other works remotely approach the quality of his two famous novels. His novel The Genius is "deservedly unread"; his plays are forgettable (and forgotten); and his writings on philosophy and politics unoriginal and cliché- ridden.
Overall, Lundquist presents Theodore Dreiser as “a man of contradiction and great inconsistency,” a true enigma. A marginally educated man with no literary experience, he produced one novel that ushered American literature into the 20th century, and another that made him a strong contender for the Nobel Prize. Yet his work remains controversial among critics, some of whom find the prose turgid and clumsy. Readers interested in understanding the strange fascination of Dreiser's novels and the peculiar character who wrote them will likely find James Lundquist's analysis a useful place to begin.… (mais)