Genius

Written by Theodore Dreiser

Narrated by Richard Kilmer

The only figure of literary repute who ever rated The Genius" as first among the novels of Theodore Dreiser was Theodore Dreiser," literary historian Larzer Ziff observed. His fifth published novel, The "Genius" was actually the third novel Dreiser began work on and, as his most autobiographical work, remained the novel closest to his heart. He worked on it in stages over a four-year period. The credit he felt he deserved (and did not receive) for his honesty about sexual urges and damaged relationships and his original publisher's decision not to stand by the novel in the face of criticism contributed to his lifelong feeling that the book had never been given its due. After An American Tragedy, it is his longest book; the final draft ran to over 700 pages in a close-set type. While the protagonist of the book is in many ways a portrait of its author, Dreiser also loosely based Eugene Witla on some of the painters, artists working in an Ashcan realist style, whom he knew in New York at the time and whose studios he visited. The most likely candidate for a model is Everett Shinn, who painted urban scenes of the kind attributed to Witla and who was known as a promiscuous man.The novel is divided intro three sections: "Youth," "Struggle," and "Revolt." In Book I, Eugene Witla (like Sister Carrie, in Dreiser's earlier novel) escapes the confines of the small town in Illinois where he has been raised to make his way in Chicago. There he studies painting at the Chicago Art Institute and enjoys the excitement of the city and his first sexual experiences. He becomes engaged to a young woman, Angela Blue, with whom he is intimate before their marriage but, at all times, he finds it difficult to remain faithful. A life based on monogamy seems beyond him. In Book II, Eugene and Angela move to New York City, where he makes a name for himself in the art world as an urban realist but finds his marriage with the increasingly conventional Angela painfully limiting. They travel to Europe, he suffers a breakdown, and they return to New York where Eugene attempts to make a better living in the advertising world. Book III chronicles the deterioration of Eugene and Angela's marriage as he begins an affair with Suzanne Dale. (wikipedia)

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in Indiana, Dreiser was the son of John Paul Dreiser, a German immigrant, and Sarah Maria Schanab, a Mennonite from Ohio who converted to Catholicism and was banished by her community. Raised in a family of thirteen children, of which he was the twelfth, Dreiser attended Indiana University for a year before taking a job as a journalist for the Chicago Globe. While working for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dreiser wrote articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Dean Howells, as well as interviewed such figures as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison. In 1900, he published his debut novel Sister Carrie, a naturalist portrait of a young midwestern woman who travels to Chicago to become an actress. Despite poor reviews, he continued writing fiction, but failed to find real success until An American Tragedy (1925), a novel based on the 1906 murder of Grace Brown. Considered a masterpiece of American fiction, the novel grew his reputation immensely, leading to his nomination for the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, which ultimately went to fellow American Sinclair Lewis. Committed to socialism and atheism throughout his life, Dreiser was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and a lifelong champion of the working class.

Reviews for Genius

[RobertEckert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The narrator has a sing song delivery but the writing is good.