Four-hundred pages into Theodore Dreiser's novel, An American Tragedy, I realized with a sort of dread that I wasn't even half-way through the damn thing yet.
Look, I'm an avid reader and I certainly have nothing against a so-called "door-stopper" every now and then. However, the difference between An American Tragedy and, say, Anna Karenina is that Tolstoy's novel never felt long. I think a big reason why An American Tragedy does is the fact that Dreiser's prose frankly, isn't very good. In fact, I'd even daresay that my own prose is better (and that's not something you'll hear me say often in regards to professionally published authors) and its become more and more noticeable the further into the book I've progressed
"Wait", you protest. "There must be something worthwhile about this book? Otherwise, why would you have read so many pages of it already?"
You're absolutely correct, dear reader. I can, in fact, point to two positive things about this book: First of all, the main character, Clyde Griffiths, with his flaws and weaknesses, is portrayed well. Secondly, the central premise of the novel isn't bad, someone like Flannery O'Connor would have made a great novella out of it.
That said, its not really a story that needed over 800 pages to be told and quite frankly, there are other books more worthy of my time (and yours).
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