Forging an Art

 ”Clyde had a soul that was not destined to grow up.”

It has been nearly 85 years since Theodore Dreiser’s greatest success was published, but the infantile and selfish motives behind Clyde Griffiths’ behavior have run rampant since the beginning of time, so An American Tragedy will always carry an appeal to those of us interested in psychological drama.  Much like the title character of the author’s rather boring Sister Carrie, Clyde is incapable of considering others within his view of the world.  When his deeds carry harm to those around him, in particular those who trust and care about him, he shrugs and thinks, why should he care?  The young woman he seduces, sweet-talking her into actions she would never consider on her own, is discarded like dirty laundry when he discovers something, or someone better – Sondra, who is like “a bright colored bird.”  Her father’s fortune and the family’s carefree, expensive lifestyle are a large part of the attraction.  Clyde is one of those people who want something, everything, for nothing, and feels a sense of entitlement to it.  Why him and not others?  Who knows. 

Raised by street evangelists, he hates poverty and labor and begrudges the insinuation that he should work for his supper.  An unwanted pregnancy leads him to contemplate the unthinkable – but for Clyde, there is no unthinkable.  He can and does rationalize every sort of behavior in the name of serving his own desires. 

The book, which is long but riveting, is considerably different from the pretty 1951 Hollywood film, A Place in the Sun, directed by George Stevens and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and Shelley Winters.   The movie is heavy on the second half of the book, obviously due to time constraints, but there are details that change characters and relationships to an almost unrecognizable extent.  Clyde is not so cold in person, the handsome face of Montgomery Clift not so easily condemned as the Clyde of the vast explication at the hands of Dreiser.  He is immature, but murderous?  It isn’t so clear; and neither is the vapid nature of Sondra, who is called Angela in the film, and carried regally by the glorious Taylor.  Angela visits Clyde in prison, where he awaits his death, while in the book, Sondra and Clyde never see each other again after his arrest.  Angela takes pains to have access to her love and to reassure him of her affections; Sondra never would have compromised herself in such a way. 

There is a disturbing Oedipal situation between Clyde and his mother in the film, while Dresier alludes to nothing of the sort.  If, in my close reading, I have missed it, then it is so carefully hidden as to not attract the attention it does in the film.  Clyde’s mother is strangely nervous during phone conversations, admonishing him to be good, which she does in the book but still seems bizarrely unnatural doing so in the film.  Before Clyde kisses Angela for the first time, Taylor gazes lovingly, obsessively at Clift and croons, “Tell Mama all.”   This brief moment was a huge shift in tone from the book, and what I would assume, Dreiser’s intent.  That aside, it is shocking and strange. 

Winters, who does not have a glamorous part, absolutely steals the show from Taylor and Clift with her fussy, annoying Alice.  Yes, Roberta is a crabby creature in the novel, but understandably so.  Roberta is a girl true to her principles and her family, and her fall from grace and concern for her future lead her to badger Clyde for help and fulfillment of promises made and ignored.  Alice, the Roberta of the film, is dull and whiny, and one can imagine how Clyde could wish her harm, although not necessarily how he could perpetuate murder on the girl and his unborn child.  The camera angled from Clyde’s point of view as she harasses him, focusing on her monotonous, perpetual questions (“You wish I was dead, don’t you?”) is enough to make the audience scream in frustration, but one doesn’t deserve a death sentence for annoying behavior.

Forget Sister Carrie; readers turned off by Miss Meeber will find a meaty scandal in the pages of Tragedy and lustrous color wash of Sun.  Read first, watch second – the details make interesting detective work for discerning readers and viewers.

Destruction and ruin.  Money lending, dance halls, gambling, drinking, and assorted vices unmentionable in 1895 when this entertaining novel was published contribute to the fortune that tempts and destroys generation upon generation of the Burley family.  When Lucien’s dying father reveals the existence of a grandfather rife with immorality and money contaminated by the notorious behavior of his forebears, Lucien cannot hold himself to the deathbed promise he makes to his father, who worries that his only son will be ruined by the temptations of unlimited wealth.  Lucien, of course, has a fiancee who insists he keep his hands clean of the lot, but she is, after all, just a woman, and blindly follows as he stumbles headfirst into disaster.  The portraits of the Burley clan that hang on the walls of the old family mansion torment both husband and wife.  “Those portraits drag you to the house?” the poor girl asks her love, who admits their lure.  She, in contrast, is “weighed down by the sins of all these ancestors.”  He may be destined as a “darling of fortune,” but in the end, he escapes moral ruin through a twist that none of the characters foresaw.  Or so it seems.
What fun it is to be so entertained not just by the story but the writing, which is clever and sarcastic and absolutely hysterical.  This was like crunching Pop Rocks on a summer day back when I was a child, a spark of laughter on every page.  I was sorry to reach the end, and wished I could ring Walter Besant to tell him how happy I am that he wrote this book.

My pick for today is Guard of Honor, a Pulitzer Prize (1949) winning novel by James Gould Cozzens. 

Cozzens served as a liaison between the military and the civilian press in the U.S. Army Air Forces durign World War II .  His experiences in that capacity served as the basis for this clear, concise (yes, even at 631 pages) and sometimes brutal look at the conflict between duty and emotion, the professional and the personal, and often, the huge difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.  Cozzens reminds us that we, as individuals, are most certainly not the center of the universe, and in a society where the acceptance of personal responsibility is the exception rather than the rule, this unromantic view of life is a welcome discourse.  This honesty might be hard to swallow, but Cozzens does not leave us without a rope to grasp.  After all, we are still capable of recognizing what we can do in any given situation, and the key to surviving and possibly succeeding is noting not the best way to handle life as it comes, but what options are available within each situation and choosing from those options.  Beating our heads against the wall over things that cannot be changed is a waste of time and effort, but giving up because the only options we have take time and effort is pathetic.  Cozzens is conservative and sarcastic, and in Guard of Honor offers believable characters in tough situations that are relevant in any day and age.