Jennie Gerhardt [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION It has sometimes been said that American Hterature has no second acts. Even though Hawthorne, James, and Faulkner (among others) roundly defy such a jlaim, it does describe a surprising number of writers whose first novels failed to lead to a second. Theodore Dreiser nearly added his name to this frustrated list after the publication in 1900 of his extraordinary debut effort, Sister Carrie. Disappointed at its effective 'suppression' by the publisher, Doubleday, Page; soon a victim of nervous breakdown, gradual impoverishment, and estrangement from his wife; steadily pressured in his subsequent career as a leading magazine editor in New York: Dreiser had reasons for leaving his second novel uncompleted for nearly a decade, before he was inspired to dash off an ending in a few months of creative energy. By April 1911, when Jennie Gerhardt had been accepted for publication, he was committed so fully to a literary career that a third novel was all but complete. And within the next four years, he had written two more massive books that would confirm his reputation as one of America's leading novelists. More importantly, as H. L. Mencken was shrewd enough to observe at the time, Dreiser's second novel represented a considerable 'advance above Sister Carrie', exhibiting a tighter structure and 'better form' as well as more complex characterization. If it has since enjoyed far less critical attention than Sister Carrie or An American Tragedy (1925), Mencken has been hardly alone in thinking Jennie Gerhardt Dreiser's finest achievement. Yet such invidious rankings invariably prove less useful than descriptive analysis, and what is most striking in the comparison of Dreiser's first two novels is how they orientate themselves in such opposed directions. Sister Carrie, like many first novels, drew heavily on the author's personal experience for plot complications and thematic development—especially his troubled family life growing up in Terre Haute, Indiana. Most readers familiar with Dreiser's history are struck by the characterizations of Carrie and Hurstwood—and not simply by the