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The Octopus:a Story Of California
[Paperback - 1994]
frank norris
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Category: Fiction
Sub-category: Classics
Additional Category: Historical Fiction - Literary Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Classics | ISBN: 9780140187700 | Pages: 688
Shipping Weight: .533 | Dimensions: 5.28 x 1.56 x 7.75 inches

Description

Like the tentacles of an octopus, the tracks of the railroad reached out across California, as if to grasp everything of value in the state Based on an actual, bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880, The Octopus is a stunning novel of the waning days of the frontier West. To the tough-minded and self-reliant farmers, the monopolistic, land-grabbing railroad represented everything they despised: consolidation, organization, conformity. But Norris idealizes no one in this epic depiction of the volatile situation, for the farmers themselves ruthlessly exploited the land, and in their hunger for larger holdings they resorted to the same tactics used by the railroad: subversion, coercion and outright violence. In his introduction, Kevin Starr discusses Norris's debt to Zola for the novel's extraordinary sweep, scale and abundance of characters and details.

About the Author

Naturalistic novels of noted American writerBenjamin Franklin Norris, Junior, brother ofCharles Gilman Norrisand sister-in-law ofKathleen Thompson Norris, about American life includeMcTeaguein 1899.This novelist during the Progressive era predominantly authored works that includeThe Octopus: A California Story(1901) andThe Pit(1903). Although he not openly supported socialism as a political system, his work nevertheless evinces a socialist mentality and influenced socialist-progressive writers, such asUpton Beall Sinclair. Philosophical defense ofThomas Henry Huxleyof the advent of Darwinism profoundly influenced him like many of his contemporaries. Norris studied underJoseph LeConte, who at the University of California, Berkeley, taught an optimistic strand of Darwinist philosophy that particularly influenced him. Through many of his novels, notablyMcTeague, runs a preoccupation with the notion of the civilized man overcoming the inner "brute," his animalistic tendencies. His peculiar and often confused brand of social Darwinism also bears the influence of the early criminologistCesare Lombrosoand the French naturalistÉmile Zola.

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