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Free And Other Stories By Theodore Dreiser
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
- GenresShort StoriesClassics
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1918
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 12, 2018
Rating: 3* of five
Dreiser had a good storytelling eye; he didn't have a deft hand at fiction. His prose is lumpen, his point of view conventional, his turns of phrase, at their most inspiring, aphoristic:
and
and
As I think these quotes demonstrate, this doesn't stop his work from being emotionally resonant, it just stops the reader from freeing the experience of reading from the physical act the way that the English language's truly gifted authors can do (eg, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Colum McCann, from my personal pantheon). It isn't somehow inferior for this. I find that form of lit'ry snobbery irksome. Dreiser's writing is not what he offers to a discerning reader. His stories must needs speak for themselves, as his telling of them doesn't mask their thin patches or downright bald spots. It's why his two famous novels, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, remain canonical Dead White Male literature. The stories are compelling, even to their detractors, who frequently trumpet the sexism, the retrograde tilt of their take on unconventional choices. What that viewpoint doesn't include is the realization that, a hundred years ago, writing about unconventional choices made by modern people was pretty damned revolutionary.
But, the derisive voices say, why should we read this tedious, stodgy prose now? Aren't there many better versions of these same stories told in quicker, more deft strokes of the pen/pixel? Sure, any number of them...Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Donald Ray Pollock...but they're tilling the same field that Dreiser did, not breaking fairly new ground the way he did. (I'm excluding Émile Zola and Honoré de Balzac et alii because I'm limiting myself to authors I can fluently read in their original language, though clearly these two giants of realism were there pre-Dreiser and were gifted far beyond his reach. I'd say L'Assomoir is a gorgeous example of this, Cousin Bette another.)
Prior to Dreiser, English-language literary realists were largely also firm moralists. George Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray are excellent and enduring examples of this...their unhappy outcomes for transgressive behavior against social norms, their emphasis on the consequences instead of the sins with their concomitant pleasures, are indigestible to me in a way that Dreiser's equally stodgy sentences are not.
I won't try to change hearts and minds into Dreiser lovers (goddesses know I'm not his biggest fan). I think the day has passed where a book lover needs to have a wide experience of the second-tier authors of a given era, school, trend, movement's output. Scholars alone are expected to make such deep dives into this part of our collective past. I'd encourage pearl-diving among the curious, however, as I am among those curious about out-of-the-way corners and moldering undusted shelves.
The stories (whose Bryce Method reviews I'll add to as I'm inspired to do so) are:
Free...Mr. Haymaker faces his wife of more than thirty years' imminent, if not immediate, demise with a self-pitying look back at his unhappy life with a conventional woman when what he fancied was La Vie Bohème with a passionate, ardent girl at his side, ever young and supple and pliant. Demands of propriety, family, and conscience rendered him unfit for such shenanigans and he faces up to himself in the mirror of his failures and disappointments. No word on Mrs. Haymaker's thoughts, feelings, regrets, etc etc. Tediously sexist? Permaybehaps, I'm thinking, but also honest in its forthright presentation of a thwarted soul's unquenchable yearning for what was always beyond its grasp. 4 stars for the palpable ache of a second-rate being smart enough to know what first-rate is but not able to reach it.
Dreiser had a good storytelling eye; he didn't have a deft hand at fiction. His prose is lumpen, his point of view conventional, his turns of phrase, at their most inspiring, aphoristic:
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
and
Art is the stored honey of the human soul.
and
In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking- chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.
As I think these quotes demonstrate, this doesn't stop his work from being emotionally resonant, it just stops the reader from freeing the experience of reading from the physical act the way that the English language's truly gifted authors can do (eg, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Colum McCann, from my personal pantheon). It isn't somehow inferior for this. I find that form of lit'ry snobbery irksome. Dreiser's writing is not what he offers to a discerning reader. His stories must needs speak for themselves, as his telling of them doesn't mask their thin patches or downright bald spots. It's why his two famous novels, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, remain canonical Dead White Male literature. The stories are compelling, even to their detractors, who frequently trumpet the sexism, the retrograde tilt of their take on unconventional choices. What that viewpoint doesn't include is the realization that, a hundred years ago, writing about unconventional choices made by modern people was pretty damned revolutionary.
But, the derisive voices say, why should we read this tedious, stodgy prose now? Aren't there many better versions of these same stories told in quicker, more deft strokes of the pen/pixel? Sure, any number of them...Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Donald Ray Pollock...but they're tilling the same field that Dreiser did, not breaking fairly new ground the way he did. (I'm excluding Émile Zola and Honoré de Balzac et alii because I'm limiting myself to authors I can fluently read in their original language, though clearly these two giants of realism were there pre-Dreiser and were gifted far beyond his reach. I'd say L'Assomoir is a gorgeous example of this, Cousin Bette another.)
Prior to Dreiser, English-language literary realists were largely also firm moralists. George Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray are excellent and enduring examples of this...their unhappy outcomes for transgressive behavior against social norms, their emphasis on the consequences instead of the sins with their concomitant pleasures, are indigestible to me in a way that Dreiser's equally stodgy sentences are not.
I won't try to change hearts and minds into Dreiser lovers (goddesses know I'm not his biggest fan). I think the day has passed where a book lover needs to have a wide experience of the second-tier authors of a given era, school, trend, movement's output. Scholars alone are expected to make such deep dives into this part of our collective past. I'd encourage pearl-diving among the curious, however, as I am among those curious about out-of-the-way corners and moldering undusted shelves.
The stories (whose Bryce Method reviews I'll add to as I'm inspired to do so) are:
Free...Mr. Haymaker faces his wife of more than thirty years' imminent, if not immediate, demise with a self-pitying look back at his unhappy life with a conventional woman when what he fancied was La Vie Bohème with a passionate, ardent girl at his side, ever young and supple and pliant. Demands of propriety, family, and conscience rendered him unfit for such shenanigans and he faces up to himself in the mirror of his failures and disappointments. No word on Mrs. Haymaker's thoughts, feelings, regrets, etc etc. Tediously sexist? Permaybehaps, I'm thinking, but also honest in its forthright presentation of a thwarted soul's unquenchable yearning for what was always beyond its grasp. 4 stars for the palpable ache of a second-rate being smart enough to know what first-rate is but not able to reach it.
October 2, 2024
3.5
Вони круто написані, класичні собі класичні оповідання, які я люблю як жанр, але який же вони неприємний післясмак залишають 😕 злої згорьованості
Вони круто написані, класичні собі класичні оповідання, які я люблю як жанр, але який же вони неприємний післясмак залишають 😕 злої згорьованості
August 18, 2019
I love reading about New York. People speak of this city with such passion unlike any other place. Whether they love it or hate it, they all agree on one thing: the city is something more than to admire or hate. Once you visit, it becomes something personified.
In "Free," Haymaker falls in love with "the silvery scene" and "the pinking dawn" of New York's passion. But NY promises him and promises him and promises him a life of so MUCH and Haymaker falls short. So he becomes bitter, and despises the place.
This short story sends the vibrations of New York that you hope you feel when you visit for the first time--the ones you can't feel anywhere else. And it doesn't matter that Haymaker now hates the city, because he felt the vibrations, too. It's a story about the vibrations, K?
In "Free," Haymaker falls in love with "the silvery scene" and "the pinking dawn" of New York's passion. But NY promises him and promises him and promises him a life of so MUCH and Haymaker falls short. So he becomes bitter, and despises the place.
This short story sends the vibrations of New York that you hope you feel when you visit for the first time--the ones you can't feel anywhere else. And it doesn't matter that Haymaker now hates the city, because he felt the vibrations, too. It's a story about the vibrations, K?
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August 12, 2024I recorded this as an audiobook for LibriVox.org.
https://librivox.org/search/?q=James%...
https://librivox.org/search/?q=James%...
February 13, 2023
I admire the despair of a husband who wants to be "set free" from a dying wife. Clearly we are led to see him both as deranged, as definitely petty, and, as heartbreaking at it may sound, as empathetic in other points. When the ultimate climax came, he reverts to the old adage about old couples. And yet this encapsulates the despondent view that he experiences - and we as well.
February 13, 2020
Free at last of this stupid book
I suppose we are to gulp and gasp over this entirely predictable and meaningless ending. The poor guy was depressed and needed to be on Prozac. That would have fixed him right up. The woman died b /c the MD transfused her with horse blood. Who does that? The husband believed his super power was murder by confused thinking. Divorce her already you nitwit, it's not that hard, everybody wins.
I suppose we are to gulp and gasp over this entirely predictable and meaningless ending. The poor guy was depressed and needed to be on Prozac. That would have fixed him right up. The woman died b /c the MD transfused her with horse blood. Who does that? The husband believed his super power was murder by confused thinking. Divorce her already you nitwit, it's not that hard, everybody wins.
January 12, 2026
The novelette is somewhat disturbing and leaves the reader with an unpleasant feeling. Partly this is because it’s thought-provoking on some sensitive topics, but that is also one of the book’s merits. What part of our identity is shaped by inner feelings we cannot control? And how should a community set boundaries on their expression?
January 4, 2015
The only words to describe Theodore Dreiser and 'droll' and 'rambling.' His stories could have easily been much shorter which would have served as a reprieve from his content.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews