Well, I have started at last.
I find the introduction(Penguin edition) by Harold Augenbraum very enlightening, but a good foreword is as far/as much as I want to know about any book before I read it. I will save the excellent links of Bookworm_girl (thanks!) for later, when I've finished the book.


edit: the book reminds me of some of the naturalist writers I read; perhaps it is the style or the description of the protagonists.....I don't know, as I'm only at chapter 3.