Hey Rub-a-dub-dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource : multiple file formats

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg,

Summary:

"Hey Rub-a-dub-dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life" by Theodore Dreiser is a collection of reflective essays written in the early 20th century. The book delves into the complexities of human existence, exploring themes of poverty, morality, and societal contradictions as seen through the eyes of a contemplative narrator. The narrative voice grapples with personal inadequacies and observations of those around him, particularly focusing on the dissonance between aspiration and reality in American life. The opening of the book introduces the narrator, who reflects on his life at the age of forty, living in a shabby neighborhood across the river from New York City. He describes his struggles with poverty, his attempts at being a writer, and his natural curiosity about the world, which leads him to question the societal values he observes. As he looks out over the city, he feels a mix of envy and confusion regarding those who thrive materially while he appears stagnant. Through a series of anecdotes about his neighbors and his inner musings, the narrator sets the stage for deeper explorations of life's moral complexities, social injustices, and the pursuit of meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Contents:

Hey rub-a-dub-dub

Change

Some aspects of our national character

The dream

The American financier

The toil of the laborer

Personality

A counsel to perfection

Neurotic America and the sex impulse

Secrecy: its value

Ideals, morals, and the daily newspaper

Equation inevitable

Phantasmagoria

Ashtoreth

The reformer

Marriage and divorce

More democracy or less? An inquiry

The essential tragedy of life

Life, art and America

The court of progress.

Credits:

Emmanuel Ackerman, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

Notes:

Reading ease score: 57.8 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read.

Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Release date is 2021-12-31