s, men who "have tended to keep their characters on the animal plane." . . . Dreiser, [Adams] tells us, "scanted, as all naturalists do, the element of moral conflict without which no great fiction can be written, for he fobbed the whole wretched business off on that scapegoat of our time, society." And Dreiser, according to Adams, was not only clumsy writer, he was "ignorant," and "befuddled."
Those critics who are ruthless in their assault against Dreiser and this novel invariably attack him with equal vigor for both his message and his style. Critics such as Donald Adams have nothing favorable whatsoever to say about Dreiser, which calls into question the biases of the critics more than the worth of Dreiser's artistic abilities or the novel itself. It is difficult to imagine that Adams and his ilk could find nothing to praise in an 874-page novel which has made such a mark on the history of American literature.
On the other hand, those critics who are more sympathetic to Dreiser are usually more even-handed, doling out more equal doses of praise and criticism. For example, Irving Howe, who calls the novel a "masterpiece" and is sympathetic to the social and political thrust of the novel, fairly includes criticism of Dreiser's style and novelistic talent:
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