Twelve men E-Book

Theodore Dreiser

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

In 1919 the writer Dreiser proposed to publish a "character book" that collected twelve biographical sketches of individuals who were major influences on Dreiser, both as a man and as a writer. The resulting narratives combine the best attributes of the character’s sketch, the autobiography and the story in miniature prose masterpieces. The men described in Twelve Men are a varied and colorful group: from the equally famous brother of Dreiser, the singer-songwriter Paul Dresser ("My brother Paul"), to the railway foreman Michael Burke ("The Mighty Rourke"), whose work l The Dreiser crew had worked in 1903. The twelve narratives are convincing portraits of the men portrayed, but they also reveal many insights about Dreiser’s life and work. These factors elevate the meaning of Twelve Men to a level consistent with the other major works of the Dreiser canon.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

I - Peter

II - A Doer of the Word

III - My Brother Paul

IV - The Country Doctor

V - Culhane, the Solid Man

VI - A True Patriarch

VII - De Maupassant, Jr.

VIII - The Village Feudists

IX - Vanity, Vanity

X - The Mighty Rourke

XI - A Mayor and His People

XII - W.L.S.

Table of Contents

I - Peter

II - A Doer of the Word

III - My Brother Paul

IV - The Country Doctor

V - Culhane, the Solid Man

VI - A True Patriarch

VII - De Maupassant, Jr.

VIII - The Village Feudists

IX - Vanity, Vanity

X - The Mighty Rourke

XI - A Mayor and His People

XII - W.L.S.

TWELVE MEN

BY

Theodore Dreiser

First digital edition 2018 by Gianluca Ruffini

I - Peter

In any group of men, I have ever known, speaking from the point of view of character and not that of physical appearance, Peter would stand out as deliciously and irrefutably different. In the great waste of American intellectual dreariness, he was an oasis, a veritable spring in the desert. He understood life. He knew men. He was free, spiritually, morally, in a thousand ways, it seemed to me.

As one drags along through this inexplicable existence one realizes how such qualities stand out; not the pseudo freedom of strong men, financially or physically, but the real, internal, spiritual freedom, where the mind, as it were, stands up and looks at itself, faces Nature unafraid, is aware of its own weaknesses, its strengths; examines its own and the creative impulses of the universe and of men with a kindly and non-dogmatic eye, in fact kicks dogma out of doors, and yet deliberately and of choice holds fast to many, many simple and human things, and rounds out life, or would, in a natural, normal, courageous, healthy way.

The first time I ever saw Peter was in St. Louis in 1892; I had come down from Chicago to work on the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and he was a part of the art department force of that paper. At that time--and he never seemed to change later even so much as a hair’s worth until he died in 1908, he was short, stocky and yet quick and even jerky in his manner, with a bushy, tramp-like “get-up” of hair and beard, most swiftly and astonishingly disposed of at times only to be regrown at others, and always, and intentionally, I am sure, most amusing to contemplate. In addition to all this he had an air of well-being, force and alertness which belied the other surface characteristics as anything more than a genial pose or bit of idle gayety.

Plainly he took himself seriously and yet lightly, usually with an air of suppressed gayety, as though saying, “This whole business of living is a great joke.” He always wore good and yet exceedingly mussy clothes, at times bespattered with ink or, worse yet, even soup, an amazing grotesquery that was the dismay of all who knew him, friends and relatives especially. In addition, he was nearly always liberally besprinkled with tobacco dust, the source of which he used in all forms: in pipe, cigar and plug, even cigarettes when he could obtain nothing more substantial. One of the things about him which most impressed me at that time and later was this love of the ridiculous or the grotesque, in himself or others, which would not let him take anything in a dull or conventional mood, would not even permit him to appear normal at times but urged him on to all sorts of nonsense, in an effort, I suppose, to entertain himself and make life seem less commonplace.

And yet he loved life, in all its multiform and multiplex aspects and with no desire or tendency to sniff, reform or improve anything. It was good just as he found it, excellent. Life to Peter was indeed so splendid that he was always very much wrought up about it, eager to live, to study, to do a thousand things. For him it was a workshop for the artist, the thinker, as well as the mere grubber, and without really criticizing any one he was “for” the individual who is able to understand, to portray or to create life, either feelingly and artistically or with accuracy and discrimination. To him, as I saw then and see even more clearly now, there was no high and no low. All things were only relatively so. A thief was a thief, but he had his place. Ditto the murderer. Ditto the saint. Not man but Nature was planning, or at least doing, something which man could not understand, of which very likely he was a mere tool. Peter was as much thrilled and entendered by the brawling strumpet in the street or the bagnio as by the virgin with her starry crown. The rich were rich and the poor poor, but all were in the grip of imperial forces whose ruthless purposes or lack of them made all men ridiculous, pathetic or magnificent, as you choose. He pitied ignorance and necessity, and despised vanity and cruelty for cruelty’s sake, and the miserly hoarding of anything. He was liberal, material, sensual and yet spiritual; and although he never had more than a little money, out of the richness and fullness of his own temperament he seemed able to generate a kind of atmosphere and texture in his daily life which was rich and warm, splendid really in thought (the true reality) if not in fact, and most grateful to all. Yet also, as I have said, always he wished to seem the clown, the scapegrace, the wanton and the loon even, mouthing idle impossibilities at times and declaring his profoundest faith in the most fantastic things.

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollst?ndigen Ausgabe!