Norris is a particular favorite of mine, and his early death
at 32 in 1902 was as much a loss to American literature as
the early death of Stephen Crane two years earlier. Once you
have read *McTeague* (which is stupendous), you can continue
with another noir antecedent, Norris's much more neglected
*Vandover and the Brute*. Here is a good description from
Amazon.com:
<Posthumously published in 1914, *Vandover and the Brute*
is probably Frank Norris's first complete novel, much of it
written when he was a student at Harvard in 1894-1895. The
subject matter made it unacceptable to turn-of-the-century
taste, and when the book finally did appear one reviewer
declared that "it ought to have been issued for private
circulation only" (* Bookman*). The setting of the story is
San Francisco in the 1890s. Vandover, fresh out of college
and the son of a wealthy owner of slum properties, has dreams
of being an artist but lacks the discipline to fulfill them.
His seduction of a young woman results in her suicide and the
death of his own father. Cheated by false friends of part of
his patrimony, Vandover gambles away the rest. Finally, as
Warren French writes in *Frank Norris*, "he becomes a bum
reduced to cleaning the offal from the slum houses he once
owned. His degeneration has also been marked by attacks of
lycanthropy, during which he pads around on all fours, naked,
howling like a wolf.">
In addition to their other compelling qualities, the
evocation of* fin de siecle *San Francisco in these two
Norris novels is matchless.
Best, Mark Harris
On 10/18/07, bobav1 <
rav7@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> Miker:
>
> Did you ever get around to reading McTeague by Frank
Norris? Great
> characters, whopper ending. And since this list is
creeping closer and
> closer to films, Von Stroheim's creepy, fragmentary
Greed (McTeague)
> is worthwhile too.
>
> Best,
>
> Bob V in NJ
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
<rara-avis-l%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Michael Robison
> <miker_zspider@...> wrote:
> >
> > Over the past couple years I've been delving
back into
> > older literature looking for the origins
and
> > variations on the themes I see in the
hardboiled and
> > noir genre.
>
>
>
-- Mark R. Harris 2122 W. Russet Court #8 Appleton WI 54914 (920) 470-9855 brokerharris@gmail.com
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