One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by
his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers. A Dreiser novel,
at least of the later canon, cannot be read as other novels are read--on
a winter evening or summer afternoon, between meal and meal, travelling
from New York to Boston. It demands the attention for almost a week, and
uses up the faculties for a month. If, reading "The 'Genius,'" one were
to become engrossed in the fabulous manner described in the publishers'
advertisements, and so find oneself unable to put it down and go to bed
before the end, one would get no sleep for three days and three nights.
Worse, there are no charms of style to mitigate the rigours of these
vast steppes and pampas of narration. Joseph Joubert's saying that
"words should stand out well from the paper" is quite incomprehensible
to Dreiser; he never imitates Flaubert by writing for "_la respiration
et l'oreille_." There is no painful groping for the inevitable word, or
for what Walter Pater called "the gipsy phrase"; the common, even the
commonplace, coin of speech is good enough.
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