McTeague

By: Frank Norris

Narrated by: Wolfram Kandinsky

Few works have captured the seamy side of American urban life with such graphic immediacy as Frank Norris's McTeague. Heredity and environment play the role of fate in this portrayal of human degradation in turn-of-the-century San Francisco.

McTeague, a strong but stupid dentist, marries Trina, introduced to him by her cousin Marcus Schouler. When Trina wins $5,000 in a lottery and increases the sum by shrewd investment, Schouler, who had wanted to marry Trina himself, feels cheated. In revenge, he exposes McTeague's lack of diploma or license.

Forbidden to practice, McTeague becomes mean and surly, but the miserly Trina refuses to let him use her money, and they sink into poverty. What follows is a descent into the ultimate crime - murder - and life as a fugitive, in a tale that moves toward its harrowing conclusion with the grim power and inevitability of classic tragedy.

Public Domain (P)1993 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Wolfram Kandinsky's razor-sharp narration leaves one eager to hear more of Norris's few but outstanding productions as a novelist." (Library Journal)
"The first great tragic portrait in America of an acquisitive society." (Alfred Kazin)
"The writing is easy and natural, the moral earnestness refreshing and the construction masterful." (Kenneth Rexroth)

You Won't Make Small of McTeague

"Gold is where you find it." --McTeague

Oh Naturalism, how you speak to this card-carrying member of Generation X. How wildly important it is for us to make conscious, deliberate decisions for ourselves. How tragic is the alternative that human nature provides.

Sure: Norris' dialogs are long-winded, but this is offset by Kandinsky's lovely period narration. There's no in between with Kandinsky in this title: you will either love him or hate him.

Spoiler pocket notes (tl;dr) below.


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<SPOILERS>
Dentist - Sheltered from society. Giant. Simple minded.
Friend - Ebullient, drinking buddy. Half baked opinions.
dressmaker - sheltered.
Trina - unlocking his manhood in the dentist chair. Cousin of friend. Kissed by McTeague while under ether.
Rivalry with Friend for Trina.
Zirkov - gold gold gold!
Markus lets McT have Trina. Good friends. Dogs fight in backyard.
"The man desiring the woman only for what she withholds, the woman worshipping the man for that what she yields up to him."
"Er... I don't know what I want!" (at the ticket booth).
Enjoying projections of themselves at the theater.
"...the lottery was a great charity, the friend of the people, a vast beneficent machine that recognized neither rank nor wealth nor station."
Pole jealous of winnings. Marcus jealous that he isn't with Trina and the (more important!?) money.
Trina economical. Falling deeper in love.
Marcus pissed. Mac content with tooth gift. Starts losing the ability to sleep.
"An immense joy seized upon him: the joy of possession"
"Yielding all at once to that stage desire of being conquered and subdued."
"Trians affection for her old bear grew in spite of herself. She began to love him more and more, not for what he was but for what she had given up to him."
Mac and marcus fight. Mac breaks marcus' arm.
Maria and Zirkov marry. Baby born and died. There are no gold plates, Zirkov gets violent. Marcus protects Maria, takes Zs knife away.
Marcus moves away. Life is happy with Trina. Served quack notice, probably via Marcus. Trina wished Mac would have killed him.
Moved into flat. Keeps tooth, wedding photo and bouquet. Trina hordes money and lies. Mac took manufacturers job, but gets fired in hard times.
Trina takes his comp. Trina thinks hes hounding money. Mac outraged, soaking wet with whiskey from friend. It's all Trina's fault from Macs perspective.
Trina loves her money. Commiserate with Maria, both are abused. Maria now murdered, Zirkov apparent suicide.
Old neighbor crying over selling out book binding, but finds love with dressmaker.
Trina traumatized by nightmares, Mac hits her to fall asleep.
Mac walks alone all day, eats fish that he catches.
Murders Trina. Goes roaming to the coal mine, train south to ranch.
Death valley. Rattlesnake. Going mad in total silence.
</SPOILERS>

Wolfram Kandinsky At His Best

This novel is set primarily in 1890’s San Francisco, and Norris beautifully develops the characters, giving them wonderful dialogue. Polk Street and its denizens come alive, and the reader engages with the characters in their simple lives. The story turns dark, however, and there are not a few tediously grim passages. I came to detest McTeague’s wife, Trina, who carried a good bit of the plot in the second half of the book. I think the story loses its way somewhat as it leaves SF, ending up in Death Valley, with a very surprising twist ending.

For me the book was a wonderful treat because it was read the late Wolfram Kandinsky (Daniel Grace), who is the best voicer of characters, male and female, I ever have listened to. Unfortunately, this is the only book of his available on Audible — his masterpiece, from the old Books-on-Tape era, was “Lonesome Dove.” This book was recorded in 1993, so the quality of the audio is not great.

Great narrator!

Kandinsky did a great job narrating this book with multiple voices for each character. Highly recommend!

Mediocre

I kept hoping that this story would get better, but ended up disappointed. The narrator was excellent though

Vocal characterizations and story telling

Solidly paced and the right number of characters told in a period style and description

I like it

I like it. I read this decades ago. I think the narrator’s performance adds the the pleasure of the book this time.

A Cavity of the Soul that had me by the Crown

The first part of this novel was slow. I was frustrated enough (almost) to just pull the bookmark out and walk away. But soon Norris had me by the crown. Look people, if you are going to only read one literary work on Mammon's folly, on the parsimonious middle-child of the Seven Deadly Sins, THIS should to be the one. It focuses on McTeague and his wife Trina, but several other characters play almost equally important roles in examining avarice's many, obsessive faces. There are scavengers, hoarders, manipulators, thieves, etc.

Inserted into the novel, however, is one of the most beautiful and sad love stories in literature. Miss Baker and Mister Grannis, two older boarders and neighbors of the McTeagues, live in adjoining rooms in a boarding house. Each room has the same wallpaper, suggesting that the rooms used to be just one room. Mister Grannis spends his nights binding periodicals while Miss Baker makes tea and rocks near their shared wall. Each, silently, spends the evening sharing their divided space. Barely separated, each is comforted by the others presence. It is beautiful, a modern Pyramus and Thisbē, and a nice counterweight to all the gold lust and penny pinching. I don't know if I would have been able to survive the hardcore, step-by-step, drop of the McTeagues and their ilk into Dante's fourth circle without the uplifting, kind, and selfless older couple that shoots one warm ray into this novel's cold, dead roots.

Coaster Ride of One Man's Life

If you could sum up McTeague in three words, what would they be?

money corrupts all

Who was your favorite character and why?

McTeague's wife. Kept hoping she would do the right thing.

Which scene was your favorite?

When wife would not give McTeague any money, leaving him to walk the streets.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were a lot of twists and turns I did not expect. I liked that.

Any additional comments?

This is not a book you will play over and over in your mind. However, a good read none the less. Basically, a journey of one man's life....money....and choices.

brutal realism

I don't know when I've spent 14 hours with such unpleasant characters (probably not since I listened to Zola's _Nana_, q.v.). It took me halfway through the first part to get used to Kandinsky's style. Though I appreciated that he has the vocal range to do women's voices expressively, his rendition of McTeague reminded me of Ed Brown of Flumdiddle fame. The book picks up with a change of scene halfway through the second (last) part, and I hadn't expected the gut-wrenching ending, so Norris gets points there both for structure and emotion. (I was walking the dog as I listened to the end, and I do believe it made me "vociferate" aloud.) I live in the San Francisco bay area, so I enjoyed the description of the dogs sleeping on the sanded floor of the Cliff House while McTeague and Marcus enjoy their beers, and I could picture Trina taking a break from housework, leaning out the bay window of her flat to talk to a neighbor on Polk Street below. BTW, this is NOT a bedtime book, and as I listened, I thought "*this* will never be a screenplay," but I've since learned that Erich von Stroheim adapted the book for his 1924 "Greed," starring Gibson Gowland and Zasu Pitts, one of the most famous "lost films" of cinematic history.

Well read, well written, excruciating story

This novel is exceptionally well-read; Mr. Kandinsky performed voices (his accents brilliantly illustrated the author's focus on character and self-consciously "naturalistic" style) and brought great conviction to the entire endeavor. His enunciation was perfect; I never struggled to hear what he was saying. (The clarity was also helped by excellent recording.) His cadence mirrored beautifully the tone of the narrator.
The story begins pleasantly enough and, in spite of Norris's disgust with the main characters, I found most of them sympathetic, at the outset. But this story takes an exceptionally dark turn very quickly, and it only gets darker. I won't go into detail so as not to give away plot points; however, be forewarned that this novel describes domestic violence (and other brutalities) in unflinching detail. Norris apparently takes a very dim view of humanity, which makes this a hard novel to get through. His attention to quotidian details, however, provide a privileged and fascinating glimpse into middle-class life in late nineteenth-century San Francisco.
Approach with caution.