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jerrica's review against another edition
3.0
This is an unfinished manuscript of Norris's that was published posthumously. The book has marks of that; some descriptions and monologues of characters go nowhere. Norris LOVES describing a place down to its minutest detail, so I wonder if he had more time he would've cut down on a few of them. I skimmed many of them without missing out on much.
This is a DARK book about one man's degradation into animalistic madness through the syphilis he got sleeping with prostitutes. Moral of the story: Life sucks, but don't sleep with prostitutes. Like, it might seem cool and all when you're hanging out with your Harvard buddies but actually you'll get an STD and your "friends" will rob you of your fortune and then you'll really be in a pickle, man.
This is a DARK book about one man's degradation into animalistic madness through the syphilis he got sleeping with prostitutes. Moral of the story: Life sucks, but don't sleep with prostitutes. Like, it might seem cool and all when you're hanging out with your Harvard buddies but actually you'll get an STD and your "friends" will rob you of your fortune and then you'll really be in a pickle, man.
msand3's review
4.0
I’m in awe that Norris wrote this novel at the age of 24, as it contains the world-weary wisdom of a novelist twice his age, even as it has the shock value that can only come from a younger writer. The content isn’t anything more sensational than might be found in Zola, Maupassant, or Ibsen, but leave it to the United States to deem it too risqué for publication in the 1890s. The narrative is tighter and more straightforward than [b:McTeague|168655|McTeague|Frank Norris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203270l/168655._SY75_.jpg|2749418], as Norris charts the rapid downfall of a young man who is a slave to the brutish side of his nature. The “brute” of the title is the shadow side of Vandover -- a sort of inner Mr. Hyde that constantly upsets his higher aspirations to move to Paris to pursue his art and marry a nice society girl. Instead, his drinking, sexual cravings, and gambling lead him into a pit of despair, misery, poverty, and physical/psychological deterioration.
Norris seems preoccupied with sight (or lack thereof) as he writes several times that Vandover looked with “eyes that saw nothing.” One of Vandover’s favorite expressions is “out of sight!” -- which reinforces his own blindness to events right in front of his face, but also provides an amusing bit of linguistic history for those who thought that phrase was coined decades later. (Stephen Crane also uses the phrase in [b:Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York|40209|Maggie A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York|Stephen Crane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1416790856l/40209._SY75_.jpg|15828774] -- both writers were using their own generation's latest slang.) I liked this novel better than [b:McTeague|168655|McTeague|Frank Norris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203270l/168655._SY75_.jpg|2749418] and [b:The Octopus|876843|The Octopus A Story of California|Frank Norris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348726269l/876843._SY75_.jpg|151337], although I only read the first third of that one before having to give it up for schoolwork; I can’t wait to read the entire thing one day. If Norris had lived a full life, he likely would have been one of the greats rather than merely a representative of American Naturalism to be mentioned after Crane, London, and Dreiser.
Norris seems preoccupied with sight (or lack thereof) as he writes several times that Vandover looked with “eyes that saw nothing.” One of Vandover’s favorite expressions is “out of sight!” -- which reinforces his own blindness to events right in front of his face, but also provides an amusing bit of linguistic history for those who thought that phrase was coined decades later. (Stephen Crane also uses the phrase in [b:Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York|40209|Maggie A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York|Stephen Crane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1416790856l/40209._SY75_.jpg|15828774] -- both writers were using their own generation's latest slang.) I liked this novel better than [b:McTeague|168655|McTeague|Frank Norris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203270l/168655._SY75_.jpg|2749418] and [b:The Octopus|876843|The Octopus A Story of California|Frank Norris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348726269l/876843._SY75_.jpg|151337], although I only read the first third of that one before having to give it up for schoolwork; I can’t wait to read the entire thing one day. If Norris had lived a full life, he likely would have been one of the greats rather than merely a representative of American Naturalism to be mentioned after Crane, London, and Dreiser.
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