An American Tragedy

By: Theodore Dreiser

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 34 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

An American Tragedy is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as Theodore Dreiser's supreme achievement.

First published in 1925 and based on an actual criminal case, An American Tragedy was the inspiration for the 1951 film A Place in the Sun, which won six Academy Awards and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

©1925 Theodore Dreiser (P)2011 Tantor

Dreiser the Clumsy Genius

Crudely written, just as was Sister Carrie and The Financier, but as gripping as Carrie. Vastly ambitious.
Sympathetically and intelligently recited, but the women's voices are dubious. A very big ask.

good read

really good book. kept me interested the whole time even though it is a long one. the writing is eloquent.

Insightful story, not much of a classic

The book provides a lot of insight on why it's so important to have a good influence in one's life. The main character essentially ends up a jerk because he just doesn't know any better.

But the book reads like a series of examples from a grammar textbook. Even for highly emotional passages, he uses constructions such as (to paraphrase): "the girl to which he, in a previous such case, had denied killing, and about which he felt most terrible, was also such a girl that..." Ugh.

Surprisingly Good

I was surprised at how drawn in I was with this story.It's over slow moving but enthralling. I found myself anxious to get back to it when reading something else.The characters are fascinating. The book could have been shorter and therefore would have been better, but I still had to give it five stars.

The wages of sin

From start to finish, this very long, very exhaustive autopsy of a crime and punishment makes clear the destructive nature of puritanical expectation. While one can attribute it to period, the overarching influence of evangelical repressiveness and the tendency towards sexual and social ignorance makes people like Clyde Griffiths all too common in even modern society.

Based on an actual 1906 murder case, Dreiser became obsessed with the trial, studying every aspect of the murder of a young woman by her soft headed but cold hearted paramour. It was 19 years after the murder that Dreiser finally released the novel which closely followed the actual case.

While religious zealots are well intended in their attempts to shield their children from secular and humanistic realities they do neither their offspring or society at large any favors by unleashing these simple minded naves into the world ill prepared to deal with the ways of the flesh. That point is made clear in the end to my satisfaction.

It is a long work but, if you have patience and an appreciation for meticulous dissection of a human psyche, it's well worth the investment of time.

Great except for the female voices

Dreiser's novel is wonderful and this performance is very good, except for the voices of the female characters. Without exception the women's voices are delivered in an irritating falsetto. It didn't spoil the experience for me, but it was a distraction. Five stars were it not for that.

very detailed

it was a very detailed story of the life of Clyde and his ultimatly death

An American Tragedy

I started reading this book, and very quickly
Remembered the film with Monty Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. I loved the book and the film. Of course the book is always better. It's a must read.

Very long, but if you stick with it,,,

... you'll be rewarded. I had to fight to keep listening. I thought of quitting many times until I got to the middle. Feels like the first half is all set up. We learn about Clyde, his goals, the situation he's in, the woman he wants to marry, the woman who's in the way. All necessary to the plot, sure, but it's difficult for a reader in 2022 to be interested in all that detail. Once the plot you remember from the movie (A Place in the Sun) kicks in, this becomes very absorbing. I know it might be blasphemous to call the second half a mystery, but that's what it felt like. I'm a huge mystery fan; this was one of the best mysteries I've ever listened to or read.

I have two ratings for the story, really. First half: 3 stars. Second half: 5+ stars.

A story that lives forever

Certain stories never change through the ages. Human nature is what it is. Dreiser did a great job describing the conflict of good and evil a person faces in life.