It’s been awhile since I’ve read the book (which is one of the most awesome books of all time), but my boyfriend and I were talking about it and getting in a rather heated debate about much time passes from the beginning to the end ('cause we’re geeks who argue about literature after sex). He says that twenty years or so passes, but I’m thinking it’s more like seven. Especially considering that the entire point of the second half of the books is that youth=rising in life, old age=falling, so Carrie can’t be old. Plus, she’s still a damn chorus girl!
So has anyone read the book recently? How old is everyone at the end?
I honestly don’t think it could have been much more than ten years. I can’t think that the part of the book that takes place in New York is all that long, maybe five years at most. Carrie doesn’t seem to be the type of girl who would stand living in the kind of apartment they ended up in all that long.
On a tangent, is this not one of the most depressing books ever? “Manipulative user ruins a good man, throws him over for a not-so-good one, then strings that one along and turns him into a pathetic beggar.” Yay…
jayjay
It’s not all that long – certainly not over ten years. The Norton Critical Edition has a timeline, but I don’t have it with me.
jayjay – by “good man” you mean Drouet? How does she ruin him? He’s a) a smarmbucket and b) fine at the end, indeed much the same as at the beginning…
I’m pretty sure he means Hurstword–he’s a rich married man at the beginning of the book, and at the end, he’s homeless and killing himself in a filthy hotel room.
But, yes, it is depressing.
Thanks for the timeline, guys–I’m pretty sure that I’m right now.
Oh wait, never mind–I misread the description. . . I dunno. I always liked Drouet.
Damned depressing book. I can’t answer the question because I blocked the whole story out of my mind. But I have 3 copies of it for some reason.