Review: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser

I had a tough time getting through this one. It is long (more than 850 pages), plodding, repetitive and dated as to language and subject matter. About one-third of the way through, I loaded an audio version onto my iPod and made it to the finish line listening as I drove and ran. Afterward, I read some criticism of the book. It is admired as a "masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape the [protagonist's] ambitions and seal his fate"...and as "an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American lifer and of the dark side of the American dream." Be that as it may, I would not recommend it