By hello
Passage: “On this particular evening he dined at ‘Rector’s,’ a restaurant of some local fame, which occupied a basement at Clark and Monroe Streets.” (gutenberg.org) Rector’s was a noted Chicago restaurant at Clark and Monroe. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser inserts it at a crucial psychological pitch: Hurstwood is moving through the city’s pleasures, self-regard, and temptations. The phrase “of some local fame” is characteristically Dreiserian—half advertisement, half diagnosis. The restaurant helps him register Chicago as a commercial theater in which desire is always attached to a visible place and price. (rwcn-idwiki-2.restaurantwarecollectors.com)