Someone would have done Dreiser and US literature a service by telling him that not every thought flitting through the transom of his mind is worthy of commitment to the page. This is 800 pages of tedious, dithering exploration of flat, inconsistent characters and inept wandering through plot cul-de-sacs. It has derailed for good and for all my vague plan of reading my way through any "100 greatest novels" lists, which is how I wound up wasting six weeks of my life on this.