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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
Read this in HS, re-read as I'm doing with a bunch of "classics," this and The Jungle are two timeless novels about American history that will resonate forever (in a good way insofar as "the more things change," in a bad way insofar as "the more they remain the same"). Wonderfully written, grindingly depressing.
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was looking at my list of books read this year and I realized I hadn’t read anything published before 1950. As a fan of 20th Century literature of all time periods and cultures I was kind of let down with myself for not expanding my reading pick this year and decided to finally pick up The Octopus.
I acquired this copy of The Octopus (and its sequel The Pit) at the beginning of the year mainly due to my interest in The Pit rather than The Octopus. I believe I found out about these books when looking for literary depictions of Chicago, which is where the sequel takes place. While more of my interest initially laid in The Pit, I was interested in The Octopus as well.
The Octopus is the first book of an unfinished trilogy entitled “The Epic of the Wheat” Trilogy. The Octopus takes place in California, in the agricultural areas beyond San Francisco. Based on the real events of the Mussel Slough Tragedy of 1880, in which a land dispute between settlers and the South Pacific Railroad led to a violent altercation. This book is a fictitious retelling of these events that sets the tone for this trilogy focusing on the production of wheat. The Pit then goes on to follow the sale of wheat on the trade floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, and the unreleased third book, The Wolf, was to cover the utilization of this wheat in Europe.
This expansive scope of a trilogy was also what drew my attention to these books. These kinds of maximalist, sprawling narratives, micro focusing on a niche element of a larger issue to comment on American society and global commerce definitely piqued my interest. Especially given its publication year of 1901, I was curious to see how these concepts were explored at the turn of the 20th Century, especially since I usually associate these kinds of books with the postmodern movement of the latter half of the century.
The Octopus is a wide sprawling novel, almost to a fault. Its main narrative looks to follow the disagreement between the ranchers and the railroad. In line with the historic event, the railroad leased this land out to the ranchers, originally only $1-2 an acre, once the land was improved and the farms established they decided to sell the land at $20-30 an acre, against what the ranchers had been told. This leads to the disagreement between the two parties. The ranchers form a loose collective called “The League” and decide to work together to take on the railroad. Failing at taking legal action to find justice, they take up arms, to their own demise.
This novel is a violent and romanticized account of the events that transpired. Considering the time period it was written in the language used is quite easy to follow. Pacing wise, it is a little slow and there definitely is an argument for significantly cutting down the page count of this work. Many chapters stray from this main plot and while some of it offers a better vision of the world of late 19th Century California, a lot of it feels superfluous and loses track of the overall goal of the novel. Sometimes you will even forget that this is a book about the railroad and wheat, until it is drastically revisited for a few pages.
“The octopus” of the novel refers to an analogy made for the railroad. That its monopolistic goals stretch in all different directions, controlling all elements of society. There are some sections that utilize this analogy well using subterranean verbage to describe the injustice and overwhelming control placed on the ranchers by the railroad but many times this is a forgotten element.
This analogy also opens up the discussion of this book to a wider discourse around the novel and its author, Frank Norris. Norris, born in 1870 and died in 1902 at age 32, was a child of wealth and a social darwinist. There are many criticisms of his beliefs and depictions of non Anglo Saxon, male characters. Primarily of his antisemitic beliefs. Multiple critics have criticized him for his anti immigrant and antisemitic depictions. Often these critics are looking at his works as a whole and his place in the grander Naturalist movement, which often had these antisemitic connotations. Anitisemitism is the most prominent criticism around this author and it is not hard to find these claims.
I have not read any other work from this author, so I don’t make this assessment based on anything other than my reading of this book and criticisms of it but for a book titled “The Octopus” there really isn’t anything strikingly antisemitic about this.
I take claims of antisemitism pretty seriously and when I first was made aware of this reputation, about 250 pages into this book I was set on trying to figure out what might be the issue here. Most obviously might be the trope of the octopus in antisemitic caricatures. While the subject of utilizing an octopus to depict monopolistic greed runs dangerously close to the depiction of an octopus as a symbol for a Jewish cabal controlling the world, I don’t see strong evidence that that was the intention here. In fact, I’m not even sure the trope of the octopus was as widely known in 1901 as it has become in the decades since. Most often these depictions are associated with Henry Ford and Nazi Germany and don’t really come to prominence until the 1920s-1930s. That is not to say that these sentiments weren’t forming in the late 19th century but I’m left without clear evidence that this specific trope existed at this time. I can see how someone reading this book in later decades, who’s very knowledgeable of this trope, could draw parallels but I have failed to see any claims that this book is instrumental in formulating or popularizing this trope, something that I think would offer a valid reason leaving this book in the past.
These claims also center around the character of S Behrman, who is a representative of the railroad and in a sense the main villain due to his direct interaction with the ranchers. He is a vague financial representative of the railroad, dealing with the real estate of the land and the cost of transit of wheat. Never is this character explicitly stated as being Jewish nor is he described in a “stereotypically Jewish” way. You would have to be aware of the ancestral ties of the name Behrman to associate this character with the antisemitic stereotype of a greedy banker and tie his actions to the octopus trope.
I focused a lot of my analysis of this claim on this character as it seems this is where most of these critics connect these claims of antisemitism in his work with this specific novel. There really isn’t much in terms of characterization for any character in this novel but I tried to keep an eye open for any specific dialogue or description that might enlighten me to this argument because I found myself perplexed more than anything. I can see if you are well versed in Norris’ work, this checking the box for you as enough of a red flag but on its own, I’m hard pressed to find that anyone would read this book and think “the Jews are to blame” unless they already thought that going into the book.
I don’t want to discredit this being a negative depiction of a specific ethnic group, especially when so many of the other characters are far worse, more directly negative depictions. Here’s a quick rundown. Black people are non existent in this book, Native Americans are non existent in this book (considering it's a western), the Chinese immigrants (that are most notable in San Francisco ethnic demography) are relegated to non speaking subservient roles, Portuguese immigrants are referred to by ethnic slurs.
The most characterization given to of any of these ethnic characters is Hooven. A (German?) immigrant rancher who should be seen on the same level as his Anglo counterparts yet is looked down upon. Personally, I don’t associate Hooven as a German name and would consider it to be Dutch. Norris often has him referred to as a German but also a Dutchman, nicknaming him Bismark. This is very in line with American ignorance of the time (Pennsylvania Dutch). Hooven and his wife speak in a phoneticized “old world” accent.
I bring this up not to add to the pearl clutching but to point out just how direct Norris is with his views of non Anglo characters and I feel that if he wanted to say something explicitly about Jews, he would have. I don’t deny claims that Norris was an antisemite but I think a better analysis is that he just didn’t like anybody who wasn’t a white, American born, male.
This isn’t even to address women in this book. None of which exist outside of their sexualization and domestic roles. Multiple girls (his words) are pursued by rancher characters, the guys who are our protagonists. It isn’t until the end that these women are given more character emphasis in the plot but none of these depictions are particularly inspiring.
This comes with the territory when reading a book from 1901 and something I was fully prepared for. I’m mainly addressing this now because there seems to be such an off kilter analysis of this work because when I hear that someone was a “rampant antisemite” I’m expecting more than just a vague association that I’m sure most readers didn’t even catch.
Truthfully, this work is incredibly tame. The opening chapter to Hemingway’s To Have and to Have Not is worse than anything in these 550 pages. I’ve read works published after the Civil Rights Act that offer a worse understanding of American diversity.
I bring all this up because I wonder why Frank Norris is not as well known in today’s studying of American Literature. I feel this book, with all its flaws, to be a great step in the legacy of the American novel, bridging the gap between Melville and Hemingway. Reading this you will see its influence on authors such as Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and McCarthy. It would be a disservice to write off this author and his contributions to American literature just because of certain criticisms. Not even all of the critics of Norris’ antisemitism call for his relegation to the trash bin of time. Many find value in reckoning with his flaws while admiring his skills as a writer. Which is that stance I feel is most appropriate.
There truly are some amazingly written passages in this book and the scope of this book feels far beyond its time period, more akin to the American analysis works of Delillo and Pynchon. But beyond the beliefs of the author this work does suffer from drastically shifting pacing and weak characters. The plot shifts around rapidly and some sections are clearly more developed than others and aside from ethnic stereotypes there really isn’t much memorable about these characters individually.
The overall scope and its intentions of this novel feel like a little bit of a mess, particularly compared to more contemporary works. Norris came from wealth and was an educated man, yet he is writing a story from the perspective of the working class. He spent time in this area of the country researching for this novel but it's clear he is not of this world. He tries to offer a more proletariat perspective in this book but he ends up more on the end of “lone wolf libertarianism”.
This is the kind of book Theodore Roosevelt would read. In fact, he did read it. He was quoted as being “inclined to believe conditions in California were worse than elsewhere” after reading it. If the sitting president, with all the information at his disposal, was swept up in the romanization of this retelling, it's clear that this is the work of an unreliable author. The messaging is heavy handed and the thrill of it can definitely distract from real ramifications. In the end nearly all the characters face some sort of downfall but yet the wheat persists. The railroad persists. These institutions outlive individuals. Many of the issues attempted to be reckoned with in this novel still exist today and maybe that is why it should still have value in American Literature. This just isn’t the best attempt at analyzing them. I can see why this book is often discussed in the rankings of “Great American Novel” but it's far from my pick. Anyone claiming this as their pick might catch the question “why haven’t you read anything released more recently?
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"[Discussing 1 Corinthians 15 with Vanamee]...Your grain of wheat is your symbol of immortality. You bury it in the earth. It dies, and rises again a thousand times more beautiful. Vanamee, your dear girl was only a grain of humanity that we have buried here, and the end is not yet. But all this is so old, so old. The world learned it a thousand years ago, and yet each man that has ever stood by the open grave of anyone he loved must learn it all over again from the beginning."
"Every state has its own grievance. If it is not a railroad trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil trust, or an industrial trust that exploits the people, because the people allow it."
"Every state has its own grievance. If it is not a railroad trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil trust, or an industrial trust that exploits the people, because the people allow it."