`OCTOPUS' REACHES THROUGH A CENTURY.

Byline: Bernadette Murphy Special to the Daily News

The saga of the corporate giant - the impersonal, faceless business that sends you to voice-mail purgatory when you want a simple question answered, or the small, seemingly local company that is in fact owned by a massive multinational concern - would seem to be a phenomenon of this time, particular to this decade as to none previous.

With Frank Norris' epic California novel ``The Octopus,'' however, it becomes clear that history is indeed repeating itself; we see that the archetypal David-vs.-Goliath story was being acted out at the turn of the last century between wheat farmers and the railroad. This tale, in which the individual is pitted against the corporation, raises issues similar to those being faced today. The novel and what it says about this era of corporate mergers will be examined this evening on ``StoryLines California'' public radio program.

In the story of ``The Octopus,'' the overpowering greed of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its power, comes up against the hard-working wheat farmers who turn to deceit in an effort to maintain some authority over their lives. As the railroad's influence grows, it usurps control of the local paper, the land and the legislature. When the farmers organize to protect themselves, the tentacles of the octopus even control the farmers' representative.

According to program co-host Lynell George, when the vehicle of devastation is a faceless corporation, as it is in this novel, ``there's no one person who can be reached for assistance.'' Before the corporation assumed total control, the farmers were able to deal person-to-person, but ``when this huge monolithic machine swoops in and pretty much takes over, there is no one person the farmers can go to in order to stop it.'' George explained that the actual people responsible for the destruction don't see themselves as villains because they can put the blame on the bank, or in this case, the railroad.

``We'll see some of these issues again in next week's book, `The Grapes of Wrath,' when outside entities are blamed in order to avoid personal responsibility,'' she said.

The story is told in ``vignettes of various people,'' George said. ``The farmers themselves, who head up the resistance; a poet who is living on one of the farms; and a mystic who is also a farmer and sheepherder. Vanamee, the mystic character, is `the moral center of the book, a strange and weird spiritual guide' '' that author Norris uses to weave in the morality he's trying to express.

``The novel was written to make a point, as opposed to just tell a story,'' said David L. Ulin, StoryLines co-host. ``Norris was writing with a specific social agenda in mind.'' In this way, Ulin says ``The Octopus'' is a social novel, along the lines of Theodore Dreiser's ``Sister Carrie,'' a turn-of-the-century work that examined the limited opportunities for women in late 19th-century America.

This evening's discussion will focus on how the novel speaks to current-day issues, as well as what it says about our state's history. George and Ulin will be joined by Dr. Kevin Starr, the California State Librarian, and Paul Hammond from the Museum of Railroad History in Sacramento to consider these points. Listeners are encouraged to call in at [phone] with comments and questions.