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CraftyRole4567 t1_jaxgp4d wrote

Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald. Personally I think it’s a lot better than Gatsby, but it’s been forgotten.

Frank Norris’ McTeague is still read, but I love his book Vandover and the Brute. It’s a sort of fantasy story about social Darwinism in action where a pampered, wealthy man begins devolving as he loses his housing and begins to spiral down through worse and worse living conditions, eventually >!becoming a werewolf!<

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Ineffable7980x t1_jaxv1vt wrote

I love McTeague! But very few people other than literature majors seem to know it

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CraftyRole4567 t1_jb0ltrd wrote

We read it in high school! I sometimes think of it when I’m being cheap about something… don’t be like Trina!

But I always thought it’s weird that of his books, McTeague is the only one that blames the individual more than it does capitalism – he mainly critiqued capitalism but somehow that’s not the famous book. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy but…

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Ineffable7980x t1_jb1dr1d wrote

It's a great book. I don't think of Norris as anti-capitalist as much as a proponent of naturalism. McTeague is a great example of that

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