I really enjoyed Dreiser’s other books Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, but didn’t like this one so much. I’m only now learning that this is a sequel to a previous book, which makes me feel kind of stupid. It’s about a man named Cowperwood who wants to become really rich and successful. At the opening of the book, he’s just getting out of the penitentiary for stock exchange fraud or something along that line. His mistress Aileen has been waiting for him. He moves to Chicago, divorces his wife, marries Aileen, and makes a ton of money by hook or by crook buying up the streetcar system and other concerns. The financial/political part was not very appealing to me but that’s just a matter of taste. The one element that was interesting to me was how much homo-eroticism plays into business and finance in this book. All these different men meet Cowperwood and are magnetised by how handsome and charismatic and commanding he is, and they end up supporting him in his schemes. The back of the book promises that his every triumph will become a hollow defeat, but they read as hollow to me all the way through.

Cowperwood cheats on Aileen with a lot of different women, but the one he is really in love with he has known since she was a teen, which is pretty gross. Aileen is angry and decides she will cheat too to get back at Cowperwood and picks out an idle society man. When she invites the man to her house, he date rapes her. They end up “having an affair,” but Cowperwood doesn’t care. Aileen is also disappointed that she’s not a social success. Cowperwood was a pretty unlikeable character.

Even though the Enneagram (a personality typing system) is not really my thing, I couldn’t help seeing Cowperwood as a 3 with a 4 wing (because all he cares about is status and success, but he has an artistic side.) So I kept trying to picture him as David Bowie, a legendary 3 with a 4 wing, to make myself like him more, but it didn’t work. At the end of the book, Aileen slits her wrists and Cowperwood stops her and scolds her. He resolves to avoid her as much as possible in the future and decides that she won’t try again. I feel Dreiser’s female characters are more real and easier to relate to, which is probably why I enjoyed those other two books. So you can imagine how surprised I was to read in the afterword that Cowperwood was very similar to Dreiser himself and that Dreiser’s women characters are “unconvincing.” My other complaint about this book is that there are one million minor characters and they all have funny names. But I have to take my hat off to Dreiser for not being a racist as so many other writers of 1914 are. He has a couple of Jewish characters who speak with an accent, but not offensively so, and they are no more money-grubbing than every other single character in the book. ( )

Maybe not as good as Sister Carrie but still worth reading. The many times the main character gets off the mat after he's been pinned is quite something. ( )

Мельчает драйзер. Вторая часть ничего нового не привнесла. Меньше деталей больше воды. Еще кое-как держится в хвосте у первой. ( )

"I satisfy myself" says Frank Cowperwood the Titan in this story of one man's rise to power in the financial world of Chicago in the 1880's. Written in a realist style the book has been said to provide an interpretation of American Public Morality. This is a world where making money matters above all else, but Dreiser invests his hero Cowperwood with a rich understanding of the human psyche and this gives him an advantage over his competitors. Every man has his price and everyman has a limit as to how far he is prepared to go and Cowperwood's knowledge of this and his willingness to use every means at his disposal to succeed makes him appear either, as a monster or superhero; the line is really that blurred in Dreiser's excellent characterisation.

The Titan is the second book of a trilogy and we learn that Cowperwood had recently been released from prison where he served a sentence for illegal financial dealing in Philadelphia. During his time in jail his investments have made him a rich man and with the support of his mistress the beautiful Aileen Butler, of good family, he is prepared to take on the world again. He sees Chicago as his kind of town, a place seething with energy and expanding at a colossal rate. It is controlled by men representing old American money, families that form a close knit society whose financial dealings enable them to control city hall and the local politicians. Cowperwood's methods of buying his way into this society are resisted by the old elite and his aggressive financial dealings soon make enemies of the old patriarchs. His seduction of one of their wives and his refusal to be bested, stir up a hatred that becomes intensely personal and he finds himself in a battle for control of the city. Bribery, corruption and the pursuit of money is the oil that makes the machinery of government work smoothly and Cowperwood knows how to make the wheels turn. He gathers around himself a coterie of lawyers, financial men and crooked politicians and with his financial acumen and his ability to seize on opportunity he takes on the old guard. Cowperwood's power plays in the financial world are offset by his power plays in the bedroom. He is a strong man and in Dreiser's world sexual potency is an essential requirement.:

"Sex interest in all strong men usually endures unto the end, governed by a stoic resignation"

Cowperwood enjoys his conquests, but he is questing as always and it is for the perfect partner, this is one that will provide him with the stimulus he needs and also the intelligence to be able to make it in society. He blames Aileen (whom he marries) for his failure to break into the Chicagoan high society and his relationship with his wife and his desire for a younger more intelligent model, is a second strand in the novel to his financial dealings.

Dreiser's book and in fact the whole trilogy is based on the character of Frank Cowperwood and ultimately its success or failure depends on whether we can believe in the man as much as we can the world that he inhabits. Cowperwood is not one for naval gazing and so while he does feel guilt for the way he treats Aileen and some of his business rivals, he can offset this with largesse: money gives him power to fix things and while his understanding of human nature makes him realise that this is not always enough at least it can ameliorate the guilt that he does feel. Cowperwood's human side and and his at times warped sense of fair play coupled with his fight against a society whose values are at a similar pitch or worse than his own make this self made man into a hero that some of us may want to see succeed. Dreiser wants us to admire the man; after all he is the kind of person that made America into a country whose values and beliefs dominate much of the Western world today. Chicago in the period of its rapacious growth from 1880 until 1905 when this novel ends is vividly portrayed especially in the early part of the book. The vibrancy, the energy the feel of a town that is on the verge of becoming a great city is well caught. Cowperwood makes his money by buying up gas companies and then street cars and Dreiser manages to portray both services desperately trying to keep pace with change, growth and new technologies. One gets the feeling in the best parts of this novel of a pulsating life that is messy, almost out of control, but boisterously overcoming all barriers in its will to succeed.

The novel does go into some detail about the financial dealings of the period and much of this I do not pretend to understand, it may or may not be of interest to other readers. The boodling politicians and their ways and means of stuffing ballot boxes are all too familiar and I felt on safer ground with this aspect. Dreiser's writing was considered to be part of the Literary Naturalism movement and so the reader would expect to find a certain amount of realism, which can be detailed. One would also expect to see how social conditions, heredity and the environment shapes human character and this is a major theme in the novel. Although in this case the environment is the financial and political world and some aspects of high society, there is precious little about the "great unwashed": the working classes: they are seen primarily as a barrier to progress then as a threat to society itself giving the novel a right wing perspective. However while one may admire Cowperwood, one certainly can't admire the world that he inhabits and this brings out the dichotomy that is inherent throughout the novel. The reader is torn between wanting to admire Cowperwood and all he represents; as he battles to get to the top in a society that has many of the faults of rampant capitalism, with the ways and corrupt means that he gleefully uses. There is the dichotomy of his relationships with women, who are depicted no more unkindly than their men. There is also a further dichotomy between the world of finance and the world of art. Cowperwood is portrayed as a genuine lover of art, he is collecting pictures for his gallery, which will of course be investments and a legacy to the nation. He admires some artists and will accept their different outlook on the world, although he struggles to see their place in it, he wants the women in his life to be both intelligent, to appreciate, or be artists themselves as long as they remain true to his vision of the world.

Dreiser's novel was published in 1914 and it depicts a time in America's history twenty years previously and so the reader will look in vain for progressive modern ideas. It is concerned with giving an accurate portrayal of the emergence of a powerful nation and the forces and men that brought this into being. This it does admirably. It also has a fascinating portrait of a powerful, successful man perfectly attuned to the times in which he lives. You may admire him or you may not, that will probably depend on your own view of the world, but there is enough of a dichotomy in his character to make him more than just a product of his times. I found this an absorbing read and while this is by no means anything like a perfect novel it was well worth the time spent reading, perhaps it also gives an insight into the American psyche. (which is something else I don't pretend to understand.) I am tempted to read Dreiser's American Tragedy which is considered to be his most successful novel and I would rate this at 3.5 stars. ( )

One of my favorite book series of all time. The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic