McTeague by Frank Norris

[Emil Miller]

I have recently finished my fourth reading of this neglected American classic: the reason for its neglect being because it scandalised Americans when it appeared in 1899 through its description of the dark side of human nature that contrasted unfavourably with the more genteel novels of Louisa May Alcott, and Booth Tarkington etc.
The eponymous protagonist is a quack dentist whose 'Dental Parlours' overlook a street in San Francisco peopled by small shopkeepers and artisans who are portrayed with masterly insight.
Norris uses the deus ex machina of a winning lottery ticket to tell an engrossing story of greed, envy, violence and murder in the petit bourgeois world he has created.
Frank Norris spent two years in Paris studying to be a painter where Emile Zola's writing had a major impact on him before he returned to the USA and began a literary career as a naturalist writer, where his artist's sense of the pictorial was employed to compliment the social aspects of his writing by his depiction of the various nationalities that went into the melting-pot of the USA as seen in his native San Francisco.

In my view, not to have read Norris is to be deficient in an overall appreciation of American literature.

[AuntShecky]

I read this one decades and decades ago as one of the books studied in a comic novel course. I don't remember much about it, and certainly can't recall anything particularly "comic" about it. Your review reminds me that maybe I should go back and re-read it.

I wonder, Emil, if you ever saw the movie version, entitled "Greed"? It's a silent film, as I recall. I seem to remember a scene in which the actress with the unusual name, ZaSu Pitts, rolls around a bed covered with coins. Come to thik of it, that was pretty funny.

[Emil Miller]

I read this one decades and decades ago as one of the books studied in a comic novel course. I don't remember much about it, and certainly can't recall anything particularly "comic" about it. Your review reminds me that maybe I should go back and re-read it.

I wonder, Emil, if you ever saw the movie version, entitled "Greed"? It's a silent film, as I recall. I seem to remember a scene in which the actress with the unusual name, Zazu Pitts, rolls around a bed covered with coins. Come to thik of it, that was pretty funny.

There were some amusing moments to contrast with the dramatic scenario but the author's handling of the story is, as I mentioned, masterly.
I have seen Greed in a truncated version that, in the original, lasted 10 hours: most of the film has been missing and believed destroyed
since it appeared in 1925. Zazu Pitts played McTeague's wife who takes to worshipping money from the day she wins $5000 in a lottery.
In 1899, the US was on the gold standard; the scene you have described happens when she finaly draws on her invested winnings and takes takes them home to luxuriate in rolling around among the gold coins.
Gold plays a central role in the story, from its beginning when McTeage works in a gold mine and later when he sets up as a dentist in San Francisco, putting gold fillings into his patients' teeth. He also erects a huge gilt molar as a sign outside of his dental practice.
A Mexican woman working as a maid of all work for the occupants of the apartment house where McTeague practices, is soft in the head and
believes she's descended from a rich family who once had a complete dinner service of solid gold.
Driven to distraction and having been pauperised by his wife's insane desire for money, McTeague eventually kills her in a scene of great brutality before going on the run with the gold.
I won't relate the rest of the story in case you decide to re-read it. Suffice to say that it's wonderful writing.

[AuntShecky]

I have seen Greed in a truncated version that, in the original, lasted 10 hours: most of the film has been missing and believed destroyed since it appeared in 1925.

I must've seen the truncated version as well. I can't imagine sitting through a 10-hour movie even one with ZaSu in it.
And contrary to popular belief, I wasn't around in 1925!

[Emil Miller]

I saw it about 20 years ago in the National Film Theatre in London. It lasted about two hours to my recollection and although a sub-plot was completely missing, most of the main story was retained and actually filmed in the part of San Francisco where it was set and also in Death Valley where the heat was so intense that one of the film crew died.
Because Erich von Stroheim insisted on directing it page for page, it almost bankrupted the film company and made studios very wary of using him afterwards.

[Emil Miller]

I discovered this item from an earlier post regarding McTeague. It highlights the almost fanatical desire of Erich von Stroheim to depict the novel in cinematic form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ek7bm5IRzA&feature=youtu.be