The times., 1901-06-02
The Novel of the West.


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| The Novel of the West.
| When the name of Frank Norris ap-
peared among those of younger Ameri-
| can novelists two or three years ago,
| some of those who read his first
| romances prophesed that he would be
| great some day, and when his latest
! book, The Octopus, was announced as
| the first of a trilogy of novels dealing
with the development of wheat interests
/ in this country. it was awaited with
! considerable interest. The obvious thing
/ was that the young novelist had at
tempted something great; the thing
| which was not so certain was whether.
as the unconventional hero of his present
work would say. he had bit off more
than he could chew"
The salient quality of the book is that
nobody can help reading it through. 1t
| grasps the attention like tentacles and
has some of the uncanny fascination of
! it's namesake. 1t is not pleasant book.
| 1t is not cheerful book. It's language is
not classical, nor are it's characters con-
ventional and the author seems to be
| possessed by a sort of savage contempt
| for some of the people who are likely TO
form his public. There is public be
id way with him which is not in
gratiating Yet this is not a pose, and 1t
] can therefore be easily forgiven. He may
! have n contempt for society, but he does
not thrust 1t down your throat He is
| too much interested in business.
The octopus in question is the Pacific
and Southwestern Railroad, and the BOOK
( is history of the fight between this or
! ganization and the ranchers whom, one
! 10y one, it ruined, some of them body ana
! soul. Ii makes of one man murderer,
! of another a martyr, Of another corrupt
| politician; it wrecks the life of one wo-
man, drives another to life of shame,
and another to starvation in the street.
There is something like Zola about Mr..
Norris, as many of his critics have re-
marked; but it is Zola with all the Cal
licism taken out of him, purified.
| strengthened, set in the clean, fresh air
| of the West, which seems as good for cut
| tie fish and other anachronistic monsters
| as it is for wholesome things. Left alone
| with no adequate foe, the railroads COB
| bled Lower California, and grew large on
| their rich fare as the kangaroo developed
| in the isolated land of Australia, out OF
! all reason. 1t Is life which is the master,
! life and the principles of growth, and
! the silent ceaselessly growing wheat fat
tens the monster corporation as il might
have enriched the blood of the people, and
| in time past did so strengthen them. The
men of the West, when they fight, fight
great foes; they are not hampered by the
pettiness of a divided struggle. Possibly,
| to some such unhindered fight with gigan-
tic enemies Norris owes his own great
though crude strength. He impressed
many readers of his earlier books as
man who was stronger than his work, and
hence awkward; who was clumsy in ham
ding material sometimes from its very
richness. At any rate, this is the first of
his books In which he can be said to
have handled it easily and artistically,
missed no point, drifted into no vague
ness, allowed no worship of mere strength
to blind him to beauty.
The book is great. There is no doubt of
that. If II is not the best work its author
can do, he will be the great American
novelist when he comes into his own.
There is a reserve about it that hints
something more TO come.
Norris is a realist. in the most brutal,
uncompromising way; but he is also a
poet. The poetic touch in "McTeague"
was what saved the book; but he has
managed his Imagination in this book with
a surer and more skillful hand. He has
introduced an exquisite idyi OF the hills,
into refined, almost esoteric beauty, In the
story Of Vanamee and Angelo Varian. He
has, with a grim and stern determination.
sacrificed everything to the essential
strength and fineness of his plot; he has
let no touch of pathOs, OF cruelty or of
squalid coarseness escape which could
add to the force of his denouement; hence
the denouement is not only strong but
inevitable. II is one of those books for
which it is not possible TO ina CINE a
change in any detail of the plot The log
ic of events and of character make every
step necessary. In this the author has
Shown that power of lntuitive perception
which alone entities man TO be called
genius.
He has shown the same unerring in
stinct in the selection of his types. Mag
nus Derrick, the Southern man and nat
ural leader of men, holding to the ideals
of Calhoun's time, keeping the daring and
the gamblers instinct of Forty-nine; Ly-
man Derrick, the faciIe product OF new
conditions; Presley, the student and
dreamer; Annixter. the brutal, uncouth,
semi-savage man of the West, the spirit
of fight incarnate; Hilma, the primitive
peasant of the Old World with the re-
fnement Of the American girl giving her
charm indescribabe; Hooven, the IL
literate little German farmer; Dyke, en-
gineer and railroad man to the ends of |
his fingers, such a man as might have |
taken the yellow Mail" of Spearman's |
latest story over the mountains; Vana- |
NEE, the mystic shepherd, brooding under |
the shadow of a crime not his own; even |
Mrs. Cedarquist, the fashionable woman |
Of San Francisco, that city which is de- |
scribed in phrase as mot city, but a |
Midway Plaisance," by this free handed. |
cynical Westerner-there is not one of |
these people, or of the minor characters, |
in whom a note rings false.
AS for the descriptive passages and the |
dramatic scenes, the book is so crowded |
with them that it IS of no use TO quote.
In spite of its unusual length there is not |
an ounce of padding in it. The author. by |
contrast with more superficial writer's of |
romance, seems at first slow in getting |
into the swing of his narrative; but II is
like an ocean greyhound getting out of
the tangle of smaller craft around. All his
first chapter is necessary.
Above all, the thing is new, absolutely
new; theme, characters, material, style |
all are without dog-ears. There is no
previous novel which touches any of |
them. The subject has seemed too big to |
handle; the people are individuals as well |
as types, and an individual cannot be
conceived and drawn twice. There is !
but one Newcome; there is but one
Magnus Derrick.
An additional proof of the essentially
poetic truth of Norris conceptions liz the
fact that the fight with the Octopus puts
every Character, one after another to
the test. Whatever is mean, or cowardly,
or base. or weak in any man or woman