Currently Reading: Sister Carrie

  Image from Amazon.

I decided to go back to my old list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century according to a handful of professors, so I'm currently reading Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. This book just barely makes it onto the list, having been written in 1900, and it does feel very quaint and Victorian at times. However, there are a few interesting touches that make it intriguingly modern.

For one thing, this is a thoroughly urban text, rather than being about the country or small towns. It's about Chicago beginning to boom, rise, and rival New York in its glamor and cultural offerings. Also, the treatment of sexuality and acceptable social mores have changed dramatically from the Dickensian tales of a few short decades earlier. Our main character, Carrie, is a "kept woman" of sorts, being paid to live in an apartment and entertain herself, while being the unmarried "companion" of a man who fancies her. The sense of nineteenth-century modesty is still present in that Dreiser never makes it clear whether the couple is having sex or not. Similarly, when Carrie meets another man later on, it hasn't been made clear whether they have an affair or not. It's frustrating at times that this old-fashioned novel won't divulge exactly what is happening in the relationships, and we are left guessing.

Although that's a minus for the novel, I'm still enjoying it a lot because the story and characters are interesting and the writing is lovely. I have yet to discover if Dreiser will stop writing in such a secretive way.