THEODORE DREISER: GOING BEYOND NATURALISM

Last year when I was invited by Fairleigh- Dickinson University I met Dr. Janet Boyd Director of the School of Humanities and Chair English Department who was very enthusiastic about my Post Doctoral and Doctoral research respectively on Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. She came to know about my M. Phil research on the comparative study of ‘Great Expectations of Dickens and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and also about my book on Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Since then I started writing the draft for the present book for which I am fully indebted to Dr. Laxmi Parasuram Professor of American Literature of the University of Burdwan. I am unable to forget the indebtedness to Dr. Bhabatosh Chatterjee, Sir Gurudas Banerjee Professor of University of Calcutta who was my first Ph.D. guide for my registration in C.U. rousing in me the interest in American Literature for the first time and Professor Dipendu Chakraborty of University of Calcutta the ever intellectual mentor for me used to inspire me in American literature. Theodore Dreiser was closest to my heart because his transcendental vision was so profoundly expressed in his novels that the tag of Naturalism to his writings and perception seemed to me fully meaningless. I was surprised when I read his novels thoroughly and discovered in them a celebration of Individualism in the most positive way and what is more there was a clear message that he was a critic of American materialistic dream and in the trilogy he transcended all that he depicted of animalism and dollar craze in his earlier novels. In fact, it was a long journey steady and continuous from dark human desires to the spiritual and divine aspirations. Human imagination was celebrated in Fitzgerald’s novels and in this Dreiser seemed to be a pioneer in American fiction of the times. With journalistic accuracy and a creative writer’s imagination Theodore Dreiser recorded his perception of life and more important here is the pattern of his novels. The concept of ‘Anti-Romance’ or Counter-Romance’ excited him long before Raymond Williams talked about it in Country and the City. His conception of Tragedy is devolved a unique pattern in all his novels which added to them a new dimension. I hope this book will reach out distant shores of academic thinking and intellectual response. I never claim to be a scholar though I specialized in my doctoral days on Dreiser. But one thing I can tell here for my readers that I wrote this book out of joyous involvement in the mysterious workings of a creative mind of American literature and culture.

During the preparation of the draft I missed loving company of my dear granddaughter Renee, my daughter Ritu and Son in law Rohan and above all to say that I could not give time to my lonely wife in the lockdown days when day and night I had to revise the manuscript. I am grateful to INSC for inspiring me to publish my research books. I am thankful to my parents for their blessed company and my little friend Samadrita and Swastika whom I could not give time. I am thankful to Dr Kamal Sarkar and Dr. Mousumi Mullick for their help and support to my book in many ways.  Finally I cannot but say more words of appreciation for my too close European scholars and academicians devoted to American and British literature my precious friends Dr. Elisabetta Marino of University of Rome and Dr. Daniela Rogobete University of Craiova.