Thursday, March 25, 2010

McTeague

I have to admit when I first started reading McTeague it was a little on the dull side for me. I understand the certain appeal of reading a more realistic view of daily life for someone living on Polk street, but it didn't really appeal to me as a reader. That is to say, the story was a little too dry, and the romance with Trina didn't really help that much.

It wasn't until around page 143 that things started to get interesting, McTeague losing his ability to practice dentistry without having gone to school seemed to start a train of events that really got me into the book so much so that I could hardly put it down without finishing it. I was quite surprised that Trina was killed by McTeague though, I was expecting someone like Marcus to be involved with something like that. Seeing as though Marcus and McTeague never got along very well, McTeague married Trina, who Marcus liked at first... and Marcus notified the Government that McTeague was practicing dentistry without a license... it sort of makes sense that Marcus would want to throw another wrench into McTeague's life. Though, I suppose one could argue that Marcus would never want to hurt Trina as he loved her as well.

All in all, I thought the book was a reasonably good read after the first few chapters. It starts off a little slow but it gets very interesting about halfway through.

1 comment:

  1. Norris lulls you with dullness before throwing shocking events at you in this novel, doesn't he?

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