McTeague: a story of San Francisco by Frank Norris 1899

The only thing holding this novel back from being one of the greatest in American literature is probably the title. McTeague? What if Dostoevsky had called Crime and Punishment “Raskolinkov?” What if John Fante had called Ask the Dust “Bandini?” (I guess he sort of did that later with Wait Until Spring Bandini.)  “McTeague?”  When Eric von Stroheim decided to make the book into a silent movie in 1924 he changed the title to Greed, which is the force that drives many of the characters in the story over the edge. According to the back of the video box von Stroheim was angry about the way that his 9 hour movie was cut to 2 hours. I imagine that his director’s version was not only a great documentation of the landscape of California from old San Francisco to the mining camps in Placer County to Death Valley proper, but also contained all of the wonderful sub-plots excised from the studio version.

The first thing that strikes you about the book is the beautiful descriptions of old San Francisco, reminiscent of Peter Plate’s novels about the Mission District. Norris takes us into the old saloon with the sawdust floor and pours us a stein of steam beer. He does for San Francisco what Nelson Algren did later for Chicago in Man with the Golden Arm. Norris captures the sublime real dark side grit of working people. This is primarily a story of characters. McTeague  is a big dumb lug. A remake a few years ago might have cast Andre the Giant in the part. McTeague is a big slow mountain of a man. He’s more like an animal, a bull, than a man. He’s a dentist who pulls teeth with his bare hands. He’s slow to anger, but when he does, watch out! He falls in love (at least he feels something) with his friend Marcus Shouler’s girl, Trina Sieppe while she’s under sedation in his dentist’s chair. He does everything he can to restrain the brutish forces compelling him to rape her right in the chair. One of the creepiest scenes in American lit. Marcus is quick and sharp, an organizer of local socialist politics who works in a dog hospital. He’s not ready to settle down so he gives Trina up in what he thinks is a fine friendly gesture. But then Trina wins a fortune in the lottery. The money changes everybody. Trina marries McTeague but her determination never to spend that money, to save it for a rainy day, drives her insane. Her and her husband are forced to move to filthier quarters to still smaller and more filthy quarters as she refuses to spend the money to save their lives. Her greed is so insipid that she won’t send her parents a few dollars so they can eat. The novel ends hundreds of miles south in the middle of Death Valley’s 130 degree heat.
 
The book has a brilliantly crafted  structure full of delightful twists and multiple layers. The supporting cast is primarily composed of immigrants, old maids and curmudgeons who add infinite color and depth like Trina’s “mommer” and “popper,” Maria Macapa the latin American house keeper, and old Zerkow the junk collector . I am truly surprised that it hasn’t been made into a movie more often. Since McTeague was published in 1899 I think it qualifies as a millennium story-- one that ends with requisite apocalypse.
 

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