Chapter 2

Note: Italics are my frivolous thoughts and predictions.

Nothing has exploded yet. I am disappointed. Anyway, we open with an interest into the budding romance of Miss Baker and Old Grannis--two old codgers over sixty. Apparently the lodgers of the Polk Street flat have nothing better to do than gossip over a romance that isn't even PG rated yet.

Miss Baker, while in her dentist appointment, fantasizes romantic stories about Old Grannis about lost titles and evil uncles. She's totally barmy in love despite the fact that they only blush at each other and sit on either side of their walls (since their apartments are side by side) and pretend they are in the same room together.

Secondly, we are fully introduced to Trina Sieppe who has broken and lost some teeth while on a swing during a picnic with Marcus. Remember, Marcus likes his cousin. Everybody say "Ewww." Thank you.
While Marcus and Trina wait for McTeague to finish with Miss Baker, Maria the Spanish-American cleaning lady, comes in to do her duty.
Marcus laughs about how nutty Maria is to Trina. He tries to make Maria speak about the legend of how she wasn't always poor. The story has something to do with her "gold dinner service she says her folks used to own."
The taunting makes Trina very uncomfortable. She seems to be incredibly respectable. Marcus then asks Maria what her full name is.

"Name is Maria---Miranda---Macapa." Then after a pause, she added as though she had but that moment thought of it, "Had a flying squirrel an' let him go."

Such a strange response. I predict she'll become a major part of the plot or this is really a waste a space. 
After Maria finishes her work, she tries to sell the two illegal lottery tickets very persistently. Trina buys one just to get rid of her.

McTeague finally finishes with old Miss Baker and addresses Trina. (click on the picture for a description of Trina)

He is uncomfortable around women and has never done dentistry on any girl. He feels the distrust of an overgrown 10-year-old for the feminine mystery yet he recognizes her beauty. He is stirred for the first time and his admiration for her is so strong that although a difficult procedure maybe harmful to his reputation if he bungles it, as long as it will save her pretty little mouth from anymore disfigurement he proceeds. Over the days of the long complex operation, the two get to know each other quite well. Her presence was intoxicating.

By degrees the operation progresses but Trina suffers from pain. Anything that causes sweet Trina Sieppe pain causes strife to McTeague. He gives her ether, an anesthetic, no matter how he hates doing so. Now she is unconscious and without defense.

He gazes at her....oh shitake mushrooms.

I thought we aren't allowed to read X-rated stuff in school. Never mind all the anime pornography evryone keeps bringing in. 

Chapter 1

McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899)

McTeague (who seems to have no first name) is a bachelor, indulging in his Sunday custom of dinner at 2 p.m. in the coffee-joint frequented by the car conductors. After finishing his meal, McTeague heads to the local pub and picks up a pitcher of beer, which he then takes back to his dental office, or "Parlours," where he enjoys his drink and the music of his concertina. The music reminds him of when he worked at the Big Dipper Mine in Placer County and of his mother. 

McTeague remembered his mother, too, who, with the help of the Chinaman, cooked for forty miners. She was an overworked drudge, fiery and energetic for all that, filled with the one idea of having her son rise in life and enter a profession. The chance had come at last when the father died, corroded with alcohol, collapsing in a few hours.

 Mac learns the trade of a dentist through books and the help of a traveling dentist who was more of a quack than anything else. When his mother dies, she leaves him enough money to set up shop on Polk Street in San Francisco where he becomes a sort of legend because of his huge size and muscular bulk--quite in contrast to the stereotypical structure of a learned man.

Two or three years later a travelling dentist visited the mine and put up his tent near the bunk-house. He was more or less of a charlatan, but he fired Mrs. McTeague's ambition, and young McTeague went away with him to learn his profession. He had learnt it after a fashion, mostly by watching the charlatan operate. He had read many of the necessary books, but he was too hopelessly stupid to get much benefit from them.

Then one day at San Francisco had come the news of his mother's death; she had left him some money--not much, but enough to set him up in business; so he had cut loose from the charlatan and had opened his "Dental Parlors" on Polk Street, an "accommodation street" of small shops in the residence quarter of the town. Here he had slowly collected a clientele of butcher boys, shop girls, drug clerks, and car conductors.

Frank Norris, the author, is a very vivid writer. Observe this passage:

 Polk Street called him the "Doctor" and spoke of his enormous strength. For McTeague was a young giant, carrying his huge shock of blond hair six feet three inches from the ground; moving his immense limbs, heavy with ropes of muscle, slowly, ponderously. His hands were enormous, red, and covered with a fell of stiff yellow hair; they were hard as wooden mallets, strong as vises, the hands of the old-time car-boy. Often he dispensed with forceps and extracted a refractory tooth with his thumb and finger. His head was square-cut, angular; the jaw salient, like that of the carnivora. (my bolding)

Here we see one of the first mentions of animal characteristics.

McTeague's level of professionalism in his craft is repeated with his only intimate friend, Marcus Schouler, who is Old Grannis's assistant in a little dog hospital in an alley off Polk Street.
Marcus is much too talkative and greets McTeague with a barrage of words about a picnic he just returned from with his cousin Trina who hurt herself and who he seems to like....I know, right.

When he and Marcus go to pick up a dog from a "huge masionlike place, set in an enormous garden that occupied a whole third of the block." McTeague remains on the sidewalk dazed and confused by the immense luxury.

So far nothing has happened of note except the comparison of McTeague to a carnivore and his discomfort with obvious wealth. He is portrayed as what I imagine a Hufflepuff is. A big slow (before you attack me please remember how long it took Cedric to figure out the egg--with the mermaid there) but determined and unwanting of any self-glory. 

McTeague: a story of San Francisco by Frank Norris

Welcome, to my adventure through the thrilling world of AP Literature's required reading list. I shall be blogging my way through McTeague and please be aware that I am not trying to destroy a classic or insult someone. These are simply my opinions and summaries of the book. Thank you very much and don't blatantly copy me. Thank you.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/mcteague.html