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The U.S.A. Trilogy
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money
In the novels that make up the U.S.A.ٰDz�The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—Dos Passos creates an unforgettable collective portrait of America, shot through with sardonic comedy and brilliant social observation. He interweaves the careers of his characters and the events of their time with a narrative verve and breathtaking technical skill that make U.S.A. among the most compulsively readable of modern classics.
A startling range of experimental devices captures the textures and background noises of 20th-century life: "Newsreels" with blaring headlines; autobiographical "Camera Eye" sections with poetic stream-of-consciousness; "biographies" evoking emblematic historical figures like J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, John Reed, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thorstein Veblen, and the Unknown Soldier. Holding everything together is sheer storytelling power, tracing dozens of characters from the Spanish-American War to the onset of the Depression.
The U.S.A. trilogy is filled with American speech: labor radicals and advertising executives, sailors and stenographers, interior decorators and movie stars. Their crisscrossing destinies take in wars and revolutions, desperate love affairs and harrowing family crises, corrupt public triumphs and private catastrophes, in settings that include the trenches of World War I, insurgent Mexico, Hollywood studios in the silent era, Wall Street boardrooms, and the tumultuous streets of Boston just before the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
A startling range of experimental devices captures the textures and background noises of 20th-century life: "Newsreels" with blaring headlines; autobiographical "Camera Eye" sections with poetic stream-of-consciousness; "biographies" evoking emblematic historical figures like J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, John Reed, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thorstein Veblen, and the Unknown Soldier. Holding everything together is sheer storytelling power, tracing dozens of characters from the Spanish-American War to the onset of the Depression.
The U.S.A. trilogy is filled with American speech: labor radicals and advertising executives, sailors and stenographers, interior decorators and movie stars. Their crisscrossing destinies take in wars and revolutions, desperate love affairs and harrowing family crises, corrupt public triumphs and private catastrophes, in settings that include the trenches of World War I, insurgent Mexico, Hollywood studios in the silent era, Wall Street boardrooms, and the tumultuous streets of Boston just before the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
1288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1930
257 people are currently reading
10.3k people want to read
About the author
John Dos Passos
166books558followersJohn Roderigo Dos Passos, son of John Randolph Dos Passos, was an American novelist and artist.
He received a first-class education at The Choate School, in Connecticut, in 1907, under the name John Roderigo Madison. Later, he traveled with his tutor on a tour through France, England, Italy, Greece and the Middle East to study classical art, architecture and literature.
In 1912 he attended Harvard University and, after graduating in 1916, he traveled to Spain to continue his studies. In 1917 he volunteered for the Sanitary Squad Unit 60 of the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, along with Edward Estlin Cummings and Robert Hillyer.
By the late summer of 1918, he had completed a draft of his first novel and, at the same time, he had to report for duty in the United States Army Medical Corps, in Pennsylvania.
When the war was over, he stayed in Paris, where the United States Army Overseas Education Commission allowed him to study anthropology at the Sorbonne.
Considered one of the Lost Generation writers, Dos Passos published his first novel in 1920, titled One Man's Initiation: 1917, followed by an antiwar story, Three Soldiers, which brought him considerable recognition. His 1925 novel about life in New York City, titled Manhattan Transfer was a success.
In 1937 he returned to Spain with Hemingway, but the views he had on the Communist movement had already begun to change, which sentenced the end of his friendship with Hemingway and Herbert Matthews.
In 1930 he published the first book of the U.S.A. trilogy, considered one of the most important of his works.
Only thirty years later would John Dos Passos be recognized for his significant contribution in the literary field when, in 1967, he was invited to Rome to accept the prestigious Antonio Feltrinelli Prize.
Between 1942 and 1945, Dos Passos worked as a journalist covering World War II and, in 1947, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Tragedy struck when an automobile accident killed his wife, Katharine Smith, and cost him the sight in one eye. He remarried to Elizabeth Hamlyn Holdridge in 1949, with whom he had an only daughter, Lucy Dos Passos, born in 1950.
Over his long and successful carreer, Dos Passos wrote forty-two novels, as well as poems, essays and plays, and created more than four hundred pieces of art.
The John Dos Passos Prize is a literary award given annually by the Department of English and Modern Languages at Longwood University. The prize seeks to recognize "American creative writers who have produced a substantial body of significant publication that displays characteristics of John Dos Passos' writing: an intense and original exploration of specifically American themes, an experimental approach to form, and an interest in a wide range of human experiences."
As an artist, Dos Passos created his own cover art for his books, influenced by modernism in 1920s Paris. He died in Baltimore, Maryland. Spence's Point, his Virginia estate, was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
He received a first-class education at The Choate School, in Connecticut, in 1907, under the name John Roderigo Madison. Later, he traveled with his tutor on a tour through France, England, Italy, Greece and the Middle East to study classical art, architecture and literature.
In 1912 he attended Harvard University and, after graduating in 1916, he traveled to Spain to continue his studies. In 1917 he volunteered for the Sanitary Squad Unit 60 of the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps, along with Edward Estlin Cummings and Robert Hillyer.
By the late summer of 1918, he had completed a draft of his first novel and, at the same time, he had to report for duty in the United States Army Medical Corps, in Pennsylvania.
When the war was over, he stayed in Paris, where the United States Army Overseas Education Commission allowed him to study anthropology at the Sorbonne.
Considered one of the Lost Generation writers, Dos Passos published his first novel in 1920, titled One Man's Initiation: 1917, followed by an antiwar story, Three Soldiers, which brought him considerable recognition. His 1925 novel about life in New York City, titled Manhattan Transfer was a success.
In 1937 he returned to Spain with Hemingway, but the views he had on the Communist movement had already begun to change, which sentenced the end of his friendship with Hemingway and Herbert Matthews.
In 1930 he published the first book of the U.S.A. trilogy, considered one of the most important of his works.
Only thirty years later would John Dos Passos be recognized for his significant contribution in the literary field when, in 1967, he was invited to Rome to accept the prestigious Antonio Feltrinelli Prize.
Between 1942 and 1945, Dos Passos worked as a journalist covering World War II and, in 1947, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Tragedy struck when an automobile accident killed his wife, Katharine Smith, and cost him the sight in one eye. He remarried to Elizabeth Hamlyn Holdridge in 1949, with whom he had an only daughter, Lucy Dos Passos, born in 1950.
Over his long and successful carreer, Dos Passos wrote forty-two novels, as well as poems, essays and plays, and created more than four hundred pieces of art.
The John Dos Passos Prize is a literary award given annually by the Department of English and Modern Languages at Longwood University. The prize seeks to recognize "American creative writers who have produced a substantial body of significant publication that displays characteristics of John Dos Passos' writing: an intense and original exploration of specifically American themes, an experimental approach to form, and an interest in a wide range of human experiences."
As an artist, Dos Passos created his own cover art for his books, influenced by modernism in 1920s Paris. He died in Baltimore, Maryland. Spence's Point, his Virginia estate, was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
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September 22, 2021
U.S.A. trilogy is a panorama of the nation. John Dos Passos knows every nook and cranny of the country. John Dos Passos knows all ins and outs of human soul so the book is a real gallery of human types.
John Dos Passos hates movers and shakers but he has a great sympathy for the weak and the dispossessed.
Some are being killed by their avarice, some are being destroyed by their ambitions, some are being done in by their ideals but they all willy-nilly serve the progress.
Public relations and advertizing are two licit methods to deceive people.
“But the working people, the common people, they won’t allow it.� “It’s the common people who get most fun out of the torture and execution of great men� If it’s not going too far back I’d like to know who it was demanded the execution of our friend Jesus H. Christ?�
John Dos Passos hates movers and shakers but he has a great sympathy for the weak and the dispossessed.
Some are being killed by their avarice, some are being destroyed by their ambitions, some are being done in by their ideals but they all willy-nilly serve the progress.
Whether you like it or not the molding of the public mind is one of the most important things that goes on in this country.
Public relations and advertizing are two licit methods to deceive people.
December 29, 2019
Present at the Birth of Corporate Man
The modern de Tocqueville in fictional format. There is no better observer of the 20th century American character than Dos Passos. He chronicles that unique mixture of frenetic American activity coupled with an equally energetic despair.
Striving in America isn't based on hope but serves to avoid reflection on the need for hope or its source. It isn't possible to understand the attraction of a man like Donald Trump to a huge swathe of the American population without an appreciation of the characters Dos Passos constructs to populate his inter-war novels.
It is during this period that the cultural and political mould of the United States solidified to produce not the revolutionary, or the pioneer, or the successful immigrant, but the corporate man and woman who have to get on in a world that they little understand and don't much like. Trump is the son of one of these people and would continue the tradition.
Postscript: Dos Passos continued a focus on corporate life that I think was started by Theodore Dreiser and continued by authors like Louis Auchincloss and William Gaddis. They each in their own way record what might be called the corporate aesthetic as it emerged in America. See: /review/show...
Although of an entirely different genre, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime might be considered as a sort of fictional birth notice of corporate America. See /review/show...
Postscript 29Dec19:
The modern de Tocqueville in fictional format. There is no better observer of the 20th century American character than Dos Passos. He chronicles that unique mixture of frenetic American activity coupled with an equally energetic despair.
Striving in America isn't based on hope but serves to avoid reflection on the need for hope or its source. It isn't possible to understand the attraction of a man like Donald Trump to a huge swathe of the American population without an appreciation of the characters Dos Passos constructs to populate his inter-war novels.
It is during this period that the cultural and political mould of the United States solidified to produce not the revolutionary, or the pioneer, or the successful immigrant, but the corporate man and woman who have to get on in a world that they little understand and don't much like. Trump is the son of one of these people and would continue the tradition.
Postscript: Dos Passos continued a focus on corporate life that I think was started by Theodore Dreiser and continued by authors like Louis Auchincloss and William Gaddis. They each in their own way record what might be called the corporate aesthetic as it emerged in America. See: /review/show...
Although of an entirely different genre, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime might be considered as a sort of fictional birth notice of corporate America. See /review/show...
Postscript 29Dec19:
March 23, 2021
141st book of 2020.
The U.S.A. Trilogy is comprised of three novels: (1930), (1932) and (1936); Passos wanted the novels to be sold and read as one, so in honour of that, I found a beautiful old copy (from 1937) of the trilogy as one from Everyman Library and began—its total was 1449 pages.
Narrative Mass
Its construction is originally what interested me the most on starting. There are four narrative modes throughout all three books and the chapters shift between them.
Fiction: There are 12 “main� characters throughout the three novels and each have their own chapters, which begin from their childhood and through their lives chronologically. In the first book for example, Eleanor Stoddard has her own chapters appearing, but in the second book, her chapters are gone in the place of Eveline Hutchins, who was a friend and side-character of Stoddard’s. In this way, Stoddard remains in the story, but Passos starts us from Hutchins� childhood before returning to the present and meeting Stoddard again. Almost all of the characters appear in more than one novel, apart from, I believe, Mac, whose chapters take up the first 100 pages of the first novel, but then he does not appear in subsequent books. All the fiction is written in true free indirect speech style.
“The Camera Eye�: These are usually small intermittent chapters that break up the large fiction parts (along with the later explained “Newsreels� and more rarely, the Biographies). Compared to the style of the Fiction mode, “The Camera Eye� is written in stream of consciousness and sometimes the prose breaks onto new lines for no immediate reason, giving the chapters the look of prose-poetry. These chapters are autobiographical (to be technical, they are a Künstlerroman—a narrative about the growth of an artist); they track Passos life from a child to a writer. The stream of consciousness makes them sometimes unclear, but they are an interesting change of style.
The “Newsreels�: These are perhaps the most strikingly interesting and different chapters of the novel that set it apart: the chapters consist of snippets from newspapers, headlines, song lyrics and other fragments, all from papers of the time, gathered by Passos. The main two papers he sourced them from were the Chicago Tribune and The New York World. The “Newsreels� are one of the main reasons for the Polaroid of the time that Passos creates and one of the features that lends the novel, I believe, into being the great American classic of the 20th century.
Biographies: The least occurring chapters are the short (short for covering a whole life, but considerably longer than the previous two modes) biographies. They appear only several times per novel and cover figures such as Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan, Henry Ford and Thorstein Veblen.
This rather sporadic, manic experimental style drives the novel (U.S.A. is called a “novel�, despite being three novels). It influenced many writers, most notably, .
The Pilot Fish
To sum the feel of the novel up I would combine Hemingway’s lost generation in with the style and feel of Kerouac novels. U.S.A. is, in a way, plotless, for all of its 1449 pages. Characters drift, fall in and out of love, try to get work, travel, fall into doomed love again, get injured, go to War, and come home again. They are the lost generation that Hemingway was also writing about. And Passos and Hemingway were friends, often they are credited as “The Boxer and The Professor”—they met in WWI, both driving ambulances. (Though their friendship eventually declined and Passos was named “the pilot fish� in Hemingway’s memoir —which is apparently derogatory.) Though they met briefly in Italy in 1918, they solidified that friendship in Paris, in 1923. Both writers were born in Chicago and both writers would end up being two of the greatest names in American fiction. Passos even married Hemingway’s old “high school crush�. They left one another at a train platform in 1937, no longer friends, after differing opinions, mostly from the Spanish Civil War: Passos, by that time, was being disillusioned with communism and the left-wing side.
Left: Hemingway, Right: Passos.
Huckleberry Finn to Fainy McCreary?
But where does U.S.A. stand in American fiction now? I would say that is the American classic of the 19th century, possibly with fairly close behind. I have a Huckleberry Finn review (here), so don’t need to delve into why I believe that; the question is, why is U.S.A. the staple for the 20th century? is a brilliant American novel, and that aside, it’s almost a perfect novel; but where Gatsby captures America in the 20s, it is also only a Polaroid. Passos� trilogy is more like a film reel. Of course, the trilogy is a doorstop compared to the size of The Great Gatsby, but Passos� words and reflections, to me, echo further than Fitzgerald’s. I have already likened Passos to Kerouac. Thirty years later Kerouac was writing in the way Passos had before him; his characters (I use that term loosely, as Kerouac’s “characters� were all real people) tackled the same problems as Passos�: they drifted, they travelled, they had doomed love affairs. America was torn by war, money, disillusionment. Passos� lost characters captures it all as The Sun Also Rises does, but with less bullfighting.
Autobiographical Interlude
I am English, and have been to America just once, in 2014, with my family; I was 17. We toured California for two-weeks, staying in nine (or so) different hotels and motels throughout the state: Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Yosemite, San Francisco, Monterey, and more. I remember a fair amount of the journey but what I remember most is being tired. My brother and I fell asleep frequently in the car and woke up to rolling palm trees, hills, mountains, cities. Every few days we were sleeping in a different bed, sightseeing more, walking miles and miles per week. I remember the giant stuffed heads in our motel in Yosemite in the mountains and the giant layered trees around the hotel, the whales off Route 1 booming out to sea, their tails throwing mountains of seawater into the air, and the raccoons we watched by the restaurants in Monterey, the seals, the waterfalls, the food and the sun.
Yosemite, 2014, Photo by Me.
So, when I read U.S.A. and there was this constant, ever-growing sense of movement, it only reminded me of my own experiences of America (because that’s all I really have): the tired feet, the heat, the motels and the haggardness. And like Kerouac’s prose, Passos� rolls with such energy: in a single page a character can be married and divorced, years can flash past, the whole war can flash past, they can travel to Mexico and back, they can lose the love of their life, a family member can die, they can change their whole perception of the universe: in a single page one has to remain with full attention so not to miss it, in the same way my parents would call to the back of our car, “Don’t fall asleep, boys, you’ll miss it”—so we opened our eyes again, to gulp down more of America, before inevitably falling asleep again.
The U.S.A. Trilogy is comprised of three novels: (1930), (1932) and (1936); Passos wanted the novels to be sold and read as one, so in honour of that, I found a beautiful old copy (from 1937) of the trilogy as one from Everyman Library and began—its total was 1449 pages.
Narrative Mass
Its construction is originally what interested me the most on starting. There are four narrative modes throughout all three books and the chapters shift between them.
Fiction: There are 12 “main� characters throughout the three novels and each have their own chapters, which begin from their childhood and through their lives chronologically. In the first book for example, Eleanor Stoddard has her own chapters appearing, but in the second book, her chapters are gone in the place of Eveline Hutchins, who was a friend and side-character of Stoddard’s. In this way, Stoddard remains in the story, but Passos starts us from Hutchins� childhood before returning to the present and meeting Stoddard again. Almost all of the characters appear in more than one novel, apart from, I believe, Mac, whose chapters take up the first 100 pages of the first novel, but then he does not appear in subsequent books. All the fiction is written in true free indirect speech style.
“The Camera Eye�: These are usually small intermittent chapters that break up the large fiction parts (along with the later explained “Newsreels� and more rarely, the Biographies). Compared to the style of the Fiction mode, “The Camera Eye� is written in stream of consciousness and sometimes the prose breaks onto new lines for no immediate reason, giving the chapters the look of prose-poetry. These chapters are autobiographical (to be technical, they are a Künstlerroman—a narrative about the growth of an artist); they track Passos life from a child to a writer. The stream of consciousness makes them sometimes unclear, but they are an interesting change of style.
The “Newsreels�: These are perhaps the most strikingly interesting and different chapters of the novel that set it apart: the chapters consist of snippets from newspapers, headlines, song lyrics and other fragments, all from papers of the time, gathered by Passos. The main two papers he sourced them from were the Chicago Tribune and The New York World. The “Newsreels� are one of the main reasons for the Polaroid of the time that Passos creates and one of the features that lends the novel, I believe, into being the great American classic of the 20th century.
Biographies: The least occurring chapters are the short (short for covering a whole life, but considerably longer than the previous two modes) biographies. They appear only several times per novel and cover figures such as Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan, Henry Ford and Thorstein Veblen.
This rather sporadic, manic experimental style drives the novel (U.S.A. is called a “novel�, despite being three novels). It influenced many writers, most notably, .
The Pilot Fish
To sum the feel of the novel up I would combine Hemingway’s lost generation in with the style and feel of Kerouac novels. U.S.A. is, in a way, plotless, for all of its 1449 pages. Characters drift, fall in and out of love, try to get work, travel, fall into doomed love again, get injured, go to War, and come home again. They are the lost generation that Hemingway was also writing about. And Passos and Hemingway were friends, often they are credited as “The Boxer and The Professor”—they met in WWI, both driving ambulances. (Though their friendship eventually declined and Passos was named “the pilot fish� in Hemingway’s memoir —which is apparently derogatory.) Though they met briefly in Italy in 1918, they solidified that friendship in Paris, in 1923. Both writers were born in Chicago and both writers would end up being two of the greatest names in American fiction. Passos even married Hemingway’s old “high school crush�. They left one another at a train platform in 1937, no longer friends, after differing opinions, mostly from the Spanish Civil War: Passos, by that time, was being disillusioned with communism and the left-wing side.
Left: Hemingway, Right: Passos.
Huckleberry Finn to Fainy McCreary?
But where does U.S.A. stand in American fiction now? I would say that is the American classic of the 19th century, possibly with fairly close behind. I have a Huckleberry Finn review (here), so don’t need to delve into why I believe that; the question is, why is U.S.A. the staple for the 20th century? is a brilliant American novel, and that aside, it’s almost a perfect novel; but where Gatsby captures America in the 20s, it is also only a Polaroid. Passos� trilogy is more like a film reel. Of course, the trilogy is a doorstop compared to the size of The Great Gatsby, but Passos� words and reflections, to me, echo further than Fitzgerald’s. I have already likened Passos to Kerouac. Thirty years later Kerouac was writing in the way Passos had before him; his characters (I use that term loosely, as Kerouac’s “characters� were all real people) tackled the same problems as Passos�: they drifted, they travelled, they had doomed love affairs. America was torn by war, money, disillusionment. Passos� lost characters captures it all as The Sun Also Rises does, but with less bullfighting.
Autobiographical Interlude
I am English, and have been to America just once, in 2014, with my family; I was 17. We toured California for two-weeks, staying in nine (or so) different hotels and motels throughout the state: Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Yosemite, San Francisco, Monterey, and more. I remember a fair amount of the journey but what I remember most is being tired. My brother and I fell asleep frequently in the car and woke up to rolling palm trees, hills, mountains, cities. Every few days we were sleeping in a different bed, sightseeing more, walking miles and miles per week. I remember the giant stuffed heads in our motel in Yosemite in the mountains and the giant layered trees around the hotel, the whales off Route 1 booming out to sea, their tails throwing mountains of seawater into the air, and the raccoons we watched by the restaurants in Monterey, the seals, the waterfalls, the food and the sun.
Yosemite, 2014, Photo by Me.
So, when I read U.S.A. and there was this constant, ever-growing sense of movement, it only reminded me of my own experiences of America (because that’s all I really have): the tired feet, the heat, the motels and the haggardness. And like Kerouac’s prose, Passos� rolls with such energy: in a single page a character can be married and divorced, years can flash past, the whole war can flash past, they can travel to Mexico and back, they can lose the love of their life, a family member can die, they can change their whole perception of the universe: in a single page one has to remain with full attention so not to miss it, in the same way my parents would call to the back of our car, “Don’t fall asleep, boys, you’ll miss it”—so we opened our eyes again, to gulp down more of America, before inevitably falling asleep again.
April 19, 2020
An Affair to Remember, one of the most romantic films of all time (particularly, I have in mind the 1957 American romance film starring Cary Grant (Nickie Ferrante) and Deborah Kerr (Terry McKay), has been like the steady tick-tock of a clock on my brains, not having ceased once since I have started my read of The USA Trilogy some weeks ago. Now that I have finished this fabulous book I feel the sound is still there, and I strongly hope it’s not going to get permanent. Saying that I don’t mean to imply this is a romantic book, oh far from it, but it has some spicy ingredients and episodes that refer to this theme too. As of this present moment I clearly remember couple of quotes from the movie, which are somehow matching my overall impression on what I feel is now the conclusion upon reading this book:
Terry McKay: What makes life so difficult?
Nickie Ferrante: People?
Interviewer: I'm sure you had some wonderful experiences in Europe.
Nickie Ferrante: Yes.
Interviewer: Would you care to expand on that statement?
Nickie Ferrante: No.
Funny enough this mega-lengthy book has been a great companion to me during the bygone recent weeks. I knew it’s an exquisite gem, and I have felt like I have read a much over-extended version of Dos Passos earlier work ‘Manhattan Transfer�, about the Strenuous Life � of those days that lash you full of energy and hope, but with just too many characters that populated dynamically this kaleidoscopic universe of the American life within the first quarter of the twentieth century. It is an interesting mix of both fictional and historical stories and facts, and despite its lengthy-ness, that gave in certain moments a feel of repetition, yet I have felt it very enjoyable and highly documentary. I quite liked that the author decided to split each life story, and not have it finished in one go, by inserting in-between some interesting parts � as are all those sections comprised under the generic name of “Camera Eye� � which to be honest caught my mind in a web like a spider as in most parts I could hardly get an idea of what that is talking about in that always peculiar heated stream of consciousness , and “Newsreel� � that capture some of the most famous headlines in the newspapers of the period, mostly presented as collages of news clippings intermixed with lyrics, which were so sentimental and lovely. But most of all, I found it very lively, pertinent and quite ironic the way he managed to shortlist individual biographies of some of the most prominent figures in those years: Gene Debs (Lover of Mankind), Luther Burbank (The Plant Wizard), Big Bill Haywood (a workingclass leader from coast to coast), Minor C. Keith (Emperor of the Caribbean), Andrew Carnegie (Prince of Peace), Thomas A. Edison (The Electrical Wizard), Steinmetz (Proteus), La Follette (Fighting Bob), Jack Reed (Playboy), Randolph Bourne, Theodore Roosevelt (The Happy Warrior), Paxton Hibben (A Hoosier Quixote), Thomas Woodrow Wilson (Meester Veelson), J. P. Morgan (The House of Morgan), Wesley Everest (Paul Bunyan) , John Doe (The Body of an American), Frederick Winslow Taylor (The American Plan), Henry Ford (Tin Lizzie), Veblen (The Bitter Drink), Art and Isadora, Rudolph Valentino (Adagio Dancer), The Campers at Kitty Hawk, Frank Lloyd Wright (Architect), William Randolph Hearst (Poor Little Rich Boy), Samuel Insull (Power Superpower). Reading about these people, was like going to Wikipedia and getting a flavoured summary of their life in some of their key points, but Dos Passos made it richly throbbing with sarcasm, vitality and irony, while trying to make a point of the “great American dream� that was the spirit and soul of most of them, something like a purpose of life, a strong sense of making good in life. Most of them, even for a short while, managed to fulfill their purpose, although in the public eyes, namely in other’s characters� eyes, it was necessarily the best of happiness in life.
The book gave me a feel of a fragmented moving picture. Out of the three volumes, I found “The 42nd Parallel� most amusing, “Nineteen Nineteen� most moral-philosophy oriented, especially on war and social aspects, while “The Big Money� was the most entertaining from all the aspects, I could even say it’s a remake of “The Great Gatsby� under the fine experimental but mostly realism-filled brush of Dos Passos, wanting to get as rich in details and images of that transitory blooming period after WWI was over.
Well, I wish I could remember some loving or happy stories from those related in, but there is not even one as such. Which again, hits me on something I read in the memoirs collection “There is Simply Too Much to Think About� by Saul Bellow, where at some point he is having a kind of monologue on the purpose of the artist as writer in the human life, and he is thinking about a discussion he has read about in “Anti-Memoirs� by André Malraux, between the author himself and a priest, saying as follows:
� How long have you been listening to confessions?
About fifteen years�
And what did you learn from these confessions, about people?
First and foremost, that people are much more unhappy than ought anyone imagine, then ... the fundamental fact that there is no truly mature grown-up. �
USA has almost always been, in literature and popular consciousness, the metaphor for the land of opportunity, the portal for the immigrant to the New World, the stage of the American dream of success, the machine of the body economic. The USA Trilogy feels like a passionate critique of American capitalism in the early 20th century, a denunciation of a society that crushes the individual. The rapid-transit, discontinuous narrative brilliantly captures the pace of the cities� life, the sense of brief, promiscuous contact with other lives. The metallically impersonal narrative voices carries the hard-edged tumult of the life in the USA cities, at the same time that it keeps us at a distance from the residents. Dos Passos seeks to record the history of his times, and even, perhaps, to affect it. The USA Trilogy, as a standalone masterpiece, is an excellent introduction to his work, an intriguing narrative experiment, and a fascinating portrait of the great American “land of promises� in the early years of the 20th century.
Well…I told my sister, I have no more pages of Dos Passos left to read, she replied, then you need to find a Tres Passos to continue with. Well, how about that? I am not sure of my next jump…waiting to play some tarot cards maybe 😉
Terry McKay: What makes life so difficult?
Nickie Ferrante: People?
Interviewer: I'm sure you had some wonderful experiences in Europe.
Nickie Ferrante: Yes.
Interviewer: Would you care to expand on that statement?
Nickie Ferrante: No.
Funny enough this mega-lengthy book has been a great companion to me during the bygone recent weeks. I knew it’s an exquisite gem, and I have felt like I have read a much over-extended version of Dos Passos earlier work ‘Manhattan Transfer�, about the Strenuous Life � of those days that lash you full of energy and hope, but with just too many characters that populated dynamically this kaleidoscopic universe of the American life within the first quarter of the twentieth century. It is an interesting mix of both fictional and historical stories and facts, and despite its lengthy-ness, that gave in certain moments a feel of repetition, yet I have felt it very enjoyable and highly documentary. I quite liked that the author decided to split each life story, and not have it finished in one go, by inserting in-between some interesting parts � as are all those sections comprised under the generic name of “Camera Eye� � which to be honest caught my mind in a web like a spider as in most parts I could hardly get an idea of what that is talking about in that always peculiar heated stream of consciousness , and “Newsreel� � that capture some of the most famous headlines in the newspapers of the period, mostly presented as collages of news clippings intermixed with lyrics, which were so sentimental and lovely. But most of all, I found it very lively, pertinent and quite ironic the way he managed to shortlist individual biographies of some of the most prominent figures in those years: Gene Debs (Lover of Mankind), Luther Burbank (The Plant Wizard), Big Bill Haywood (a workingclass leader from coast to coast), Minor C. Keith (Emperor of the Caribbean), Andrew Carnegie (Prince of Peace), Thomas A. Edison (The Electrical Wizard), Steinmetz (Proteus), La Follette (Fighting Bob), Jack Reed (Playboy), Randolph Bourne, Theodore Roosevelt (The Happy Warrior), Paxton Hibben (A Hoosier Quixote), Thomas Woodrow Wilson (Meester Veelson), J. P. Morgan (The House of Morgan), Wesley Everest (Paul Bunyan) , John Doe (The Body of an American), Frederick Winslow Taylor (The American Plan), Henry Ford (Tin Lizzie), Veblen (The Bitter Drink), Art and Isadora, Rudolph Valentino (Adagio Dancer), The Campers at Kitty Hawk, Frank Lloyd Wright (Architect), William Randolph Hearst (Poor Little Rich Boy), Samuel Insull (Power Superpower). Reading about these people, was like going to Wikipedia and getting a flavoured summary of their life in some of their key points, but Dos Passos made it richly throbbing with sarcasm, vitality and irony, while trying to make a point of the “great American dream� that was the spirit and soul of most of them, something like a purpose of life, a strong sense of making good in life. Most of them, even for a short while, managed to fulfill their purpose, although in the public eyes, namely in other’s characters� eyes, it was necessarily the best of happiness in life.
The book gave me a feel of a fragmented moving picture. Out of the three volumes, I found “The 42nd Parallel� most amusing, “Nineteen Nineteen� most moral-philosophy oriented, especially on war and social aspects, while “The Big Money� was the most entertaining from all the aspects, I could even say it’s a remake of “The Great Gatsby� under the fine experimental but mostly realism-filled brush of Dos Passos, wanting to get as rich in details and images of that transitory blooming period after WWI was over.
Well, I wish I could remember some loving or happy stories from those related in, but there is not even one as such. Which again, hits me on something I read in the memoirs collection “There is Simply Too Much to Think About� by Saul Bellow, where at some point he is having a kind of monologue on the purpose of the artist as writer in the human life, and he is thinking about a discussion he has read about in “Anti-Memoirs� by André Malraux, between the author himself and a priest, saying as follows:
� How long have you been listening to confessions?
About fifteen years�
And what did you learn from these confessions, about people?
First and foremost, that people are much more unhappy than ought anyone imagine, then ... the fundamental fact that there is no truly mature grown-up. �
USA has almost always been, in literature and popular consciousness, the metaphor for the land of opportunity, the portal for the immigrant to the New World, the stage of the American dream of success, the machine of the body economic. The USA Trilogy feels like a passionate critique of American capitalism in the early 20th century, a denunciation of a society that crushes the individual. The rapid-transit, discontinuous narrative brilliantly captures the pace of the cities� life, the sense of brief, promiscuous contact with other lives. The metallically impersonal narrative voices carries the hard-edged tumult of the life in the USA cities, at the same time that it keeps us at a distance from the residents. Dos Passos seeks to record the history of his times, and even, perhaps, to affect it. The USA Trilogy, as a standalone masterpiece, is an excellent introduction to his work, an intriguing narrative experiment, and a fascinating portrait of the great American “land of promises� in the early years of the 20th century.
Well…I told my sister, I have no more pages of Dos Passos left to read, she replied, then you need to find a Tres Passos to continue with. Well, how about that? I am not sure of my next jump…waiting to play some tarot cards maybe 😉
March 31, 2013
USA is a trilogy, but should really be viewed as a grand novel in three parts. The first section, “The 42nd parallel,� takes place in the decade prior to WWI, in the United States. It is an optimistic, coming of age story � the characters are primarily young, idealistic. Many of the characters are working class people and become involved in radical politics. Throughout �42nd parallel,� you get the feeling of rising class consciousness and working class power � strikes are being won, the workers are revolting in Mexico. In �1919� America enters WWI, and a surge of nationalism wipes out all of the gains made previously by the working class. The government and industry become much more heavy-handed in their repression of activism. Other characters, previously radical, become swept up in the nationalist fervor, or are corrupted by a dionessyian lifestyle as officers with ambulance corps and the red cross in France during and immediately after the war. Suddenly, people care less about their fellow man, and more about themselves. The final scene of 1919 is exceptionally powerful: a returning veteran joins a protest against lumber barons in Oregon, and is brutally murdered. The final book, “The Big Money,� takes place in the 1920s, and follows a number of people as they try to ascend into wealth and success, primarily in NYC. Some succeed, some are crushed � all end up lonely and bitter. The final part of “The Big Money� returns to a number of the radicals introduced in the previous books, whom are fighting hopelessly against the government (Sacco and Vanzetti) and industry, while becoming increasingly radicalized. Overall, USA has a very interesting style � it jumps from sections about particular characters, to excerpts from newsreels, to short stream of consciousness sections, to brief narratives detailing the entire lives of important figures (Henry Ford, President Wilson, Thomas Edison etc). As historical fiction, I liked it, because it felt very real � it was chaotic and unpredictable, with characters subject to fits of irrationality, depression, and bad luck � nothing felt inevitable. This book is a great commentary on what changed in America over the period of 1900-1930, as we became the economic superpower of the world. It is also a commentary on the shift towards conservatism and selfishness that comes with age. USA’s scope and overall end � painting a picture of a whole country during a tumultuous period of time � remind me very much of War and Peace. However, USA is told through the prism of the working class, where War and Peace is told through the prism of the Russian nobility.
April 17, 2023
”It was speech that clung to the ears, the link that tingled in the blood � USA.
USA is the slice of a continent. USA is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theaters, a column of stock quotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of old newspapers and dog-eared history books with protests sprawled on the margins in pencil. USA is the world’s greatest river valley, fringed with mountains and hills. USA is a set of big-mouthed officials with too many bank accounts. USA is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. USA is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly, USA is the speech of the people.�
The most ambitious of the Lost Generation writers � John Dos Passos made his famous contemporaries appear as pigmies next to his massive, experimental masterpiece. While Hemingway and Fitzgerald were exploring personal tales of machismo and crack-up, Dos Passos tackled the story of an entire nation and era, and did it with a brilliant, never before seen, experimental style.
USA presents a birds-eye view of America during the first three decades of the 20th century. It is the novel as massive mural, the novel as collage. It has no more plot than does your life or mine, yet remains constantly engaging. Dos Passos alternated his narrative between several different devices. He follows, in turn, many flawed, Everyman protagonist from their youth onward, allowing him to explore the development of American business, labor, arts, and entertainment, giving the perspective of the common man. This is broken up by many mini biographies of giants of the era who, unlike the protagonists, made history and were remembered by it. Interspersed with these are Newsreel segments, that give quick snippets of period headlines and popular song. Dos Passos injected his own, autobiographical voice as well in stream of consciousness interludes labeled The Cameras Eye.
USA’s ever shifting focus creates an ultra modern feel that belies the fact that it was written over nine decades ago. The constant cutting in and out between protagonist and the variously styled interludes feels remarkably similar to channel-surfing or scrolling through an internet feed. Its experimental style lends itself perfectly to audiobook, which I consider the optimum way to experience it.
The fragmented collage that is USA’s story is as bleak as it is fascinating. Dos Passos chronicles the beginning decades of the American century as a time of great promise, huge ambition, and constant striving, all consummating in hollowness, disappointment, and despair. In this, his work is similar to his Lost Generation buddies � just far more ambitious, fascinating, and on a far grander scale.
USA is the slice of a continent. USA is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theaters, a column of stock quotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public library full of old newspapers and dog-eared history books with protests sprawled on the margins in pencil. USA is the world’s greatest river valley, fringed with mountains and hills. USA is a set of big-mouthed officials with too many bank accounts. USA is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. USA is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly, USA is the speech of the people.�
The most ambitious of the Lost Generation writers � John Dos Passos made his famous contemporaries appear as pigmies next to his massive, experimental masterpiece. While Hemingway and Fitzgerald were exploring personal tales of machismo and crack-up, Dos Passos tackled the story of an entire nation and era, and did it with a brilliant, never before seen, experimental style.
USA presents a birds-eye view of America during the first three decades of the 20th century. It is the novel as massive mural, the novel as collage. It has no more plot than does your life or mine, yet remains constantly engaging. Dos Passos alternated his narrative between several different devices. He follows, in turn, many flawed, Everyman protagonist from their youth onward, allowing him to explore the development of American business, labor, arts, and entertainment, giving the perspective of the common man. This is broken up by many mini biographies of giants of the era who, unlike the protagonists, made history and were remembered by it. Interspersed with these are Newsreel segments, that give quick snippets of period headlines and popular song. Dos Passos injected his own, autobiographical voice as well in stream of consciousness interludes labeled The Cameras Eye.
USA’s ever shifting focus creates an ultra modern feel that belies the fact that it was written over nine decades ago. The constant cutting in and out between protagonist and the variously styled interludes feels remarkably similar to channel-surfing or scrolling through an internet feed. Its experimental style lends itself perfectly to audiobook, which I consider the optimum way to experience it.
The fragmented collage that is USA’s story is as bleak as it is fascinating. Dos Passos chronicles the beginning decades of the American century as a time of great promise, huge ambition, and constant striving, all consummating in hollowness, disappointment, and despair. In this, his work is similar to his Lost Generation buddies � just far more ambitious, fascinating, and on a far grander scale.
December 2, 2010
Attempting to tackle Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy in one week, Thanksgiving week, nonetheless, was quite a challenge and has put my "book a week" schedule a tad behind, however, this phenomenal masterpiece (yes, I am singing its praises) was worth the eyestrain and resulting bloodshot eyes.
I wrestled with the idea of giving the 1200+ page tome three weeks reading time since U.S.A. consists of three novels; The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, however, since Modern Library listed it singly and it was highly recommended to read as one, I held myself to task.
U.S.A. takes the reader from the east to the west with stops in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and on to Fargo, North Dakota and out to Hollywood, California. Contrary to its title, there are also tales set in Paris, France, Italy and Cuba.
Dos Passos manages to cover an array of subjects including social inequality, sexual promiscuity, abortion, suicide, prohibition, the stock market and more without haranguing the reader.
There are twelve central characters in U.S.A., all introduced as children and we see them leave home and attempt to find their way in the U.S.A. as they deal with love and betrayal, birth and death, purpose and loneliness. While some of the characters and stories are interwoven, there are not always neat and happy endings. In fact, some characters are hinted to be in failing health, yet we don't get the answers to our speculations.
I was not so crazy about some of the little extras in the book; Newsreel listed actual headlines from the time period, Camera Eye was stream of consciousness (not my cup of tea) said to be autobiographical, and Bios of actual figures from the time. Although relevant, the sheer volume of the trilogy made it difficult to appreciate the additional text.
Charley Anderson is a mechanic who makes it big, yet struggles with fitting in and turns to alcohol which eventually has devastating consequences.
Margo Dowling is a tenacious gal who faces obstacles from the very start, when her mother dies in childbirth and her father turns to booze. Her stepmother remarries a cad who rapes her and she flees with a Cuban who is an drug addicted homosexual, but she eventually makes it to Hollywood and becomes a star, albeit, short-lived once the silent movies are given "voice".
Someone should make this into a mini-series! I'm sure people would get hooked on the story lines and lovable and loathsome characters and hopefully be compelled to read the book.
I would love, love, love to spend some time with Mr. Dos Passos. He most certainly could tell some wonderful tales and I'd love to hear about his travels throughout the world. If he were to share his expertise with crafting both dialogue and descriptives, I would be in heaven.
My rating for U.S.A. is a 10 out of 10.
I wrestled with the idea of giving the 1200+ page tome three weeks reading time since U.S.A. consists of three novels; The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, however, since Modern Library listed it singly and it was highly recommended to read as one, I held myself to task.
U.S.A. takes the reader from the east to the west with stops in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and on to Fargo, North Dakota and out to Hollywood, California. Contrary to its title, there are also tales set in Paris, France, Italy and Cuba.
Dos Passos manages to cover an array of subjects including social inequality, sexual promiscuity, abortion, suicide, prohibition, the stock market and more without haranguing the reader.
There are twelve central characters in U.S.A., all introduced as children and we see them leave home and attempt to find their way in the U.S.A. as they deal with love and betrayal, birth and death, purpose and loneliness. While some of the characters and stories are interwoven, there are not always neat and happy endings. In fact, some characters are hinted to be in failing health, yet we don't get the answers to our speculations.
I was not so crazy about some of the little extras in the book; Newsreel listed actual headlines from the time period, Camera Eye was stream of consciousness (not my cup of tea) said to be autobiographical, and Bios of actual figures from the time. Although relevant, the sheer volume of the trilogy made it difficult to appreciate the additional text.
Charley Anderson is a mechanic who makes it big, yet struggles with fitting in and turns to alcohol which eventually has devastating consequences.
Margo Dowling is a tenacious gal who faces obstacles from the very start, when her mother dies in childbirth and her father turns to booze. Her stepmother remarries a cad who rapes her and she flees with a Cuban who is an drug addicted homosexual, but she eventually makes it to Hollywood and becomes a star, albeit, short-lived once the silent movies are given "voice".
Someone should make this into a mini-series! I'm sure people would get hooked on the story lines and lovable and loathsome characters and hopefully be compelled to read the book.
I would love, love, love to spend some time with Mr. Dos Passos. He most certainly could tell some wonderful tales and I'd love to hear about his travels throughout the world. If he were to share his expertise with crafting both dialogue and descriptives, I would be in heaven.
My rating for U.S.A. is a 10 out of 10.
May 24, 2014
Indeed, this is "the great American novel"--so far. It is certainly far and away the best I have ever encountered and, yes, I suffered through Melville's opus about fishing. Very few times have I finished a novel of well over a thousand pages and strongly regretted that there was no more. The only other instance that comes to mind is Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers.
As a course in American history, U.S.A. is strongly recommended to anyone who has done the basic, high school level coursework but wants to actually get the feel of the nation from about 1900 to the Depression--and not just the feel of one character, one region or one class, but a panoramic picture of the messy, struggling whole.
It is to be noted that Dos Passos went on to write a number of history texts, informed, one presumes, by the research that went into this trilogy.
As a course in American history, U.S.A. is strongly recommended to anyone who has done the basic, high school level coursework but wants to actually get the feel of the nation from about 1900 to the Depression--and not just the feel of one character, one region or one class, but a panoramic picture of the messy, struggling whole.
It is to be noted that Dos Passos went on to write a number of history texts, informed, one presumes, by the research that went into this trilogy.
September 22, 2022
Last night I chanced upon a book-related podcast during which one of the discussants mentioned that he had just started reading this and was impressed with how well written it was and how much he enjoyed it.
And I suddenly remembered how much I had enjoyed it, back in the early 1970’s when I first read (and re-read) it. I suppose it’s a sign of age that the idea of re-reading a trilogy this long does not now appeal to me. Too many books, too little time. But at the time I loved the sense of grounding in American history that flowed from the book.
Highly recommended (even if I’ve lost my copy over the years.).
Correction: I just realized I have a Library of America copy. Not that I have time to read those books, carefully accumulated over the years.
And I suddenly remembered how much I had enjoyed it, back in the early 1970’s when I first read (and re-read) it. I suppose it’s a sign of age that the idea of re-reading a trilogy this long does not now appeal to me. Too many books, too little time. But at the time I loved the sense of grounding in American history that flowed from the book.
Highly recommended (even if I’ve lost my copy over the years.).
Correction: I just realized I have a Library of America copy. Not that I have time to read those books, carefully accumulated over the years.
May 3, 2020
The 42nd Parallel (4-star)
I really enjoyed this part of the trilogy. It's well written and shows the life, struggles & times in the USA at the turn of the century to WWI.
These characters stem from the working class. They all struggle for comfort, stability, security. The struggles are real. Jobs are lost, bosses take liberties, landlords ask high rents for squalid conditions. It's a hand to mouth existence that all the characters want to leave behind.
Very socialist. I hadn't realized the USA was so socialist at this time. The people can see that their labours and hardships bring wealth to their bosses and their companies. Change is coming....now the war has come to the USA. Will that change the coming change?
Looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.
1919 (3-star)
Much different in tone than the first book. There's a somberness throughout of futility, boredom and an unfocussed look at one's future. The World is at war. That would make one's future unfocussed and uncertain and perhaps one would try to find superficial "joys" wherever one can. But it doesn't make for an interesting story.
I enjoyed some parts of this part of the trilogy but, all in all, this is a dull story that really doesn't go anywhere. Like the characters in this story, we readers are also waiting for the end of the war and this wait is full of dullness. We also take our pleasure in the few short sections of interesting story-line.
Onwards to the third part of the trilogy.
The Big Money (2 star)
Well times have changed. The USA is rolling in money. Fortunes are to be had.
But our characters fail to grab on to any of it for any length of time. How distressing! Thing is......while this trilogy is supposedly a segment of American Life & History and shows changing, revolutionary, economically secure times, these people make their own problems and lose every brass ring being hung before them. These people make their own problems and never seem to learn, hence only repeating the same problems again and again.
The Trilogy (3 star)
As a whole, this is an interesting read.
There are three sections to most chapters:
1. News clips taken from actual newspapers. These give an idea of the changes happening in the country surrounding the characters. Some of these news clips can cause one to go down rabbit holes to search out the original story (ie: the Pig Lady)
2. Camera Eye: a stream of consciousness method of writing telling a life of what is supposedly based on the author's life. Mostly not necessary to the novel but interesting for itself.
3. The story of a character. Reading about these people is like watching a train wreck happening.
Popped in between a few of the chapters is a history of a famous person. These were interesting; a lifetime in a few pages. A life boiled down to basics. Some persons included are: Henry Ford, Rudolf Valentino, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan.
I really enjoyed this part of the trilogy. It's well written and shows the life, struggles & times in the USA at the turn of the century to WWI.
These characters stem from the working class. They all struggle for comfort, stability, security. The struggles are real. Jobs are lost, bosses take liberties, landlords ask high rents for squalid conditions. It's a hand to mouth existence that all the characters want to leave behind.
Very socialist. I hadn't realized the USA was so socialist at this time. The people can see that their labours and hardships bring wealth to their bosses and their companies. Change is coming....now the war has come to the USA. Will that change the coming change?
Looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.
1919 (3-star)
Much different in tone than the first book. There's a somberness throughout of futility, boredom and an unfocussed look at one's future. The World is at war. That would make one's future unfocussed and uncertain and perhaps one would try to find superficial "joys" wherever one can. But it doesn't make for an interesting story.
I enjoyed some parts of this part of the trilogy but, all in all, this is a dull story that really doesn't go anywhere. Like the characters in this story, we readers are also waiting for the end of the war and this wait is full of dullness. We also take our pleasure in the few short sections of interesting story-line.
Onwards to the third part of the trilogy.
The Big Money (2 star)
Well times have changed. The USA is rolling in money. Fortunes are to be had.
But our characters fail to grab on to any of it for any length of time. How distressing! Thing is......while this trilogy is supposedly a segment of American Life & History and shows changing, revolutionary, economically secure times, these people make their own problems and lose every brass ring being hung before them. These people make their own problems and never seem to learn, hence only repeating the same problems again and again.
The Trilogy (3 star)
As a whole, this is an interesting read.
There are three sections to most chapters:
1. News clips taken from actual newspapers. These give an idea of the changes happening in the country surrounding the characters. Some of these news clips can cause one to go down rabbit holes to search out the original story (ie: the Pig Lady)
2. Camera Eye: a stream of consciousness method of writing telling a life of what is supposedly based on the author's life. Mostly not necessary to the novel but interesting for itself.
3. The story of a character. Reading about these people is like watching a train wreck happening.
Popped in between a few of the chapters is a history of a famous person. These were interesting; a lifetime in a few pages. A life boiled down to basics. Some persons included are: Henry Ford, Rudolf Valentino, Thomas Edison, Isadora Duncan.
January 28, 2012
As far as opuses go, U.S.A. is probably about as good as they come. The problem is, I'm not sure how much demand there is for an opus these days. Contemporary readers love quantity, form, repetition (see: Harry Potter, Twilight, Game of Thrones, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) - when duly monetized and adaptable for film. But we, as a people, may be turning our back on the Tolstoys and Joyces and Dos Passoses of yesteryear.
I think the reason is pretty simple. The opus, grand as it is, contains a lot of cellulose that we don't make active metabolic use of. Thankfully, U.S.A. isn't as undigestible as Ulysses. But it still spends plenty of time on gibberish that, frankly, I don't see how to extract anything nutritive from. Maybe I've got a low patience threshhold for gibberish, but I found it expedient to bypass all of the "Camera Eye" segments altogether. The "Newsreel" segments were a little better, but that's probably due to my history degree (meaning I have a slight advantage contextualizing the collage). I can imagine other readers throwing their hands up in exasperation. We've forgotten the turn of the century popular verse, the yellow news slang is now arcane, and not everyone properly contextualizes Wilson's New Freedom.
So, U.S.A. suffers from the limitations of its modern audience. The format is arguably dying and the (then revolutionary) experimentation comes across as pretentious. The copious use of make-believe, justplainsilly compound adjectives is tiresome. But one thing works unusually well in a convention that our generation understands, but Dos Passos couldn't have imagined. Since the story arc is told in vignettes, with distinct voices, the books can read almost like anthologies. The really effective vignettes (like "The Body of an American" which ends 1919 and "Vag" which ends the whole work) are like exceptional songs in a really big box set. Likewise, periods in certain characters' lives can be dissected from their lives as a whole - and the intersection of those lives with the lives of others - and enjoyed á la carte. I wouldn't go as far as to say one can just pick up U.S.A., turn to a random selection, and blow a quarter of an hour the way one does, say, a poetry anthology. It still needs to be read cover-to-cover. But moving beyond fixation on continuity and reducing the focus to the individual piece makes more enjoyable work of digesting the 1200 or so pages of this baby.
I confess, my underlying reason for reading U.S.A. was to be able to say I had (isn't that the same reason we read Ulysses or War and Peace outside of school?). But unlike other things I read for the same disingenuous reason, U.S.A. was pretty goddamn enjoyable. Despite the gripes I have with it, there are so many slick licks peppered throughout that you find your head sort of bobbing along in time when Dos Passos really gets rocking. Putting William Jennings Bryan poolside and throwing in a cameo by Houdini might be as gimmicky as harmonized guitars in a Boston song, but damn if it doesn't tickle our guilty pleasure.
I think the reason is pretty simple. The opus, grand as it is, contains a lot of cellulose that we don't make active metabolic use of. Thankfully, U.S.A. isn't as undigestible as Ulysses. But it still spends plenty of time on gibberish that, frankly, I don't see how to extract anything nutritive from. Maybe I've got a low patience threshhold for gibberish, but I found it expedient to bypass all of the "Camera Eye" segments altogether. The "Newsreel" segments were a little better, but that's probably due to my history degree (meaning I have a slight advantage contextualizing the collage). I can imagine other readers throwing their hands up in exasperation. We've forgotten the turn of the century popular verse, the yellow news slang is now arcane, and not everyone properly contextualizes Wilson's New Freedom.
So, U.S.A. suffers from the limitations of its modern audience. The format is arguably dying and the (then revolutionary) experimentation comes across as pretentious. The copious use of make-believe, justplainsilly compound adjectives is tiresome. But one thing works unusually well in a convention that our generation understands, but Dos Passos couldn't have imagined. Since the story arc is told in vignettes, with distinct voices, the books can read almost like anthologies. The really effective vignettes (like "The Body of an American" which ends 1919 and "Vag" which ends the whole work) are like exceptional songs in a really big box set. Likewise, periods in certain characters' lives can be dissected from their lives as a whole - and the intersection of those lives with the lives of others - and enjoyed á la carte. I wouldn't go as far as to say one can just pick up U.S.A., turn to a random selection, and blow a quarter of an hour the way one does, say, a poetry anthology. It still needs to be read cover-to-cover. But moving beyond fixation on continuity and reducing the focus to the individual piece makes more enjoyable work of digesting the 1200 or so pages of this baby.
I confess, my underlying reason for reading U.S.A. was to be able to say I had (isn't that the same reason we read Ulysses or War and Peace outside of school?). But unlike other things I read for the same disingenuous reason, U.S.A. was pretty goddamn enjoyable. Despite the gripes I have with it, there are so many slick licks peppered throughout that you find your head sort of bobbing along in time when Dos Passos really gets rocking. Putting William Jennings Bryan poolside and throwing in a cameo by Houdini might be as gimmicky as harmonized guitars in a Boston song, but damn if it doesn't tickle our guilty pleasure.
October 8, 2022
به نام او
«منظور از وارد شدن در اینگون� «معقولات» روشن کردن این نکته است که اگر پارها� از ذهنیتری� و تاریکتری� جریانها� ادبی قرن بیستم نسب خود را به جویس میرسانند� در عین حال پاره ای از زندهتری� و روشنتری� جریانه� نیز –ب� ویژه در امریکا- باز از جویس سرچشمه میگیرن�. فاکنر و همینگوی و دوسپاسو� و تورنتون وایلدر همه شاگرد جویس محسوب میشوند� و پیروان انها نیز به سنت جویس تعلق دارند. اما از این میان دوسپاسو� از لحاظ گرفتن و منتقل کردن شیوهها� جویس، و به ویژه از لحاظ دنبال کردن روحیهی� آزمایشگری او، بیش از دیگران شایان توجه است.
دوسپاسو� در دوران مترقی خود، یعنی پیش از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا (زیرا پس از این جنگ مرتجع شد)، آزمایشگرترین نویسنده امریکا بود. در رمانها� بزرگ او، «یو اس ای» و «منطقه کلمبیا» و «منهتن ترانسفر»، قهرمان داستان فرد معینی نیست، بلکه خود جامعه امریکاست. نویسنده در توصیف و زنده ساختن صحنهها� اجتماعی همان قدر تلاش میکن� که رمان نویسان دیگر به پروراندن سیرت قهرمانی خود میپردازن�. آدمها، در برابر جامعه، در مرتبه دوم قرار میگیرن�. نویسنده میخواه� تاثیر محیط اجتماعی، و به ویژه محیط اقتصادی، را بر افراد نشان دهد. بنابراین باید محیط را زنده و در حال حرکت ترسیم کند. تکه ای از ترانهها� روز، نطقها� سیاسی، تیترهای روزنامهها� بیوگرافی اشخاص واقعی و «تاریخی» - که زندگیشا� با زندگی ادمهای داستان در آمیخته است � لای داستان بُر میخور�. دید «دوربینی» و «امپرسیونیستی»، و حتی «فیلم خبری»، همه مواد کار دوسپاسو� را تشکیل میدهن�. این وارستگی از قید و بندهای متداول رماننویسی� این خطر کردن، این آمادگی � یا دست کم این داوطلب شدن- برای طبع آزمایی در انواع شیوهها� در یک کلام این «مدرنیسم»، درسی است که دوسپاسو� از جویس آموخته است. و جوهر این درس عبارت است از پاسخ دادن به مقتضیات موضوع کار.
چنان که خواهیم دید نویسنده� «رگتایم» همه صناعتها� دوسپاسو� را گیرم به شکلی بسیار فشردهت� و پالودهتر� در رمان خود به کار برده است. بنابراین باید گفت که دکتروف به واسطه دوسپاسو� از جویس متاثر است.»
اول بار که با نام جان دوسپاسوس مواجه شدم در مقدمه کتاب «رگتایم» ای. ال. دکتروف به قلم نجف دریابندری بزرگ بود. بعد از اینکه جلد اول «ینگه دنیا» یا همان یو اس ای را خواندم خواستم چیزکی در مورد کتاب بنویسم، دوباره مقدمه رگتایم را خواندم و دیدم که بخشی از مقدمه کاملا برای معرفی سبک دوس پاسوس کفایت میکند، ضمن اینکه باید بگویم متاسفانه به دلایل عدیده ای که بخشیش به انزوای دوس پاسوس در ادبیات انگلیسی زبان بر میگردد و بخش دیگرش به ترجمه و نشر نامنظم آثارش در ایران. او چندان برای مخاطب فارسی زبان شناخته شده نیست. البته خوشبختانه پس از سالها جلد سوم این کتاب با عنوان پول کلان با ترجمه سعید باستانی در حال انتشار است و در عین حال متاسفانه چاپ جلد اول آن با عنوان مدار 42 به اتمام رسیده است. حال اگر در کتابفروشیهای حاشیه ای مدار 42 درجه را پیدا کردید مفت چنگتان! از رمان بی نظیر این امریکایی لذت ببرید
در آخر اینکه من ترجمه های سعید باستانی را بسیار دوست میدارم و به نظرم مترجم مهمی است که سهم زیادی در معرفی ادبیات آمریکا داشته است که متاسفانه او هم به دلایلی چندان دیده نشده است معروفترین کارش «پرواز بر فراز آشیانه فاخته» کِن کِیسی است که ـآن هم توسط انتشارات هاشمی به زیورطبع آراسته شده
:)
«منظور از وارد شدن در اینگون� «معقولات» روشن کردن این نکته است که اگر پارها� از ذهنیتری� و تاریکتری� جریانها� ادبی قرن بیستم نسب خود را به جویس میرسانند� در عین حال پاره ای از زندهتری� و روشنتری� جریانه� نیز –ب� ویژه در امریکا- باز از جویس سرچشمه میگیرن�. فاکنر و همینگوی و دوسپاسو� و تورنتون وایلدر همه شاگرد جویس محسوب میشوند� و پیروان انها نیز به سنت جویس تعلق دارند. اما از این میان دوسپاسو� از لحاظ گرفتن و منتقل کردن شیوهها� جویس، و به ویژه از لحاظ دنبال کردن روحیهی� آزمایشگری او، بیش از دیگران شایان توجه است.
دوسپاسو� در دوران مترقی خود، یعنی پیش از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا (زیرا پس از این جنگ مرتجع شد)، آزمایشگرترین نویسنده امریکا بود. در رمانها� بزرگ او، «یو اس ای» و «منطقه کلمبیا» و «منهتن ترانسفر»، قهرمان داستان فرد معینی نیست، بلکه خود جامعه امریکاست. نویسنده در توصیف و زنده ساختن صحنهها� اجتماعی همان قدر تلاش میکن� که رمان نویسان دیگر به پروراندن سیرت قهرمانی خود میپردازن�. آدمها، در برابر جامعه، در مرتبه دوم قرار میگیرن�. نویسنده میخواه� تاثیر محیط اجتماعی، و به ویژه محیط اقتصادی، را بر افراد نشان دهد. بنابراین باید محیط را زنده و در حال حرکت ترسیم کند. تکه ای از ترانهها� روز، نطقها� سیاسی، تیترهای روزنامهها� بیوگرافی اشخاص واقعی و «تاریخی» - که زندگیشا� با زندگی ادمهای داستان در آمیخته است � لای داستان بُر میخور�. دید «دوربینی» و «امپرسیونیستی»، و حتی «فیلم خبری»، همه مواد کار دوسپاسو� را تشکیل میدهن�. این وارستگی از قید و بندهای متداول رماننویسی� این خطر کردن، این آمادگی � یا دست کم این داوطلب شدن- برای طبع آزمایی در انواع شیوهها� در یک کلام این «مدرنیسم»، درسی است که دوسپاسو� از جویس آموخته است. و جوهر این درس عبارت است از پاسخ دادن به مقتضیات موضوع کار.
چنان که خواهیم دید نویسنده� «رگتایم» همه صناعتها� دوسپاسو� را گیرم به شکلی بسیار فشردهت� و پالودهتر� در رمان خود به کار برده است. بنابراین باید گفت که دکتروف به واسطه دوسپاسو� از جویس متاثر است.»
اول بار که با نام جان دوسپاسوس مواجه شدم در مقدمه کتاب «رگتایم» ای. ال. دکتروف به قلم نجف دریابندری بزرگ بود. بعد از اینکه جلد اول «ینگه دنیا» یا همان یو اس ای را خواندم خواستم چیزکی در مورد کتاب بنویسم، دوباره مقدمه رگتایم را خواندم و دیدم که بخشی از مقدمه کاملا برای معرفی سبک دوس پاسوس کفایت میکند، ضمن اینکه باید بگویم متاسفانه به دلایل عدیده ای که بخشیش به انزوای دوس پاسوس در ادبیات انگلیسی زبان بر میگردد و بخش دیگرش به ترجمه و نشر نامنظم آثارش در ایران. او چندان برای مخاطب فارسی زبان شناخته شده نیست. البته خوشبختانه پس از سالها جلد سوم این کتاب با عنوان پول کلان با ترجمه سعید باستانی در حال انتشار است و در عین حال متاسفانه چاپ جلد اول آن با عنوان مدار 42 به اتمام رسیده است. حال اگر در کتابفروشیهای حاشیه ای مدار 42 درجه را پیدا کردید مفت چنگتان! از رمان بی نظیر این امریکایی لذت ببرید
در آخر اینکه من ترجمه های سعید باستانی را بسیار دوست میدارم و به نظرم مترجم مهمی است که سهم زیادی در معرفی ادبیات آمریکا داشته است که متاسفانه او هم به دلایلی چندان دیده نشده است معروفترین کارش «پرواز بر فراز آشیانه فاخته» کِن کِیسی است که ـآن هم توسط انتشارات هاشمی به زیورطبع آراسته شده
:)
October 29, 2011
I had a habit of writing English papers about economics in literature, so the U.S.A. trilogy is like a dream come true. A student could spend years writing about class and money in this book. What really made it sing for me was my own sadness about the America that could have been and the America that happened instead. Add to that Dos Passos's fantastic voices and it's well worth a read.
April 10, 2023
antesignano il padre dei romanzi mondo... Il primo romanzo al quale è stata data la definizione di grande romanzo americano... In Italia e soprattutto in America non ha avuto vita facile a causa di idee alquanto pericolose per l'epoca
leggetelo
leggetelo
Read
May 4, 2009Christ, took me long enough, but I finally finished the whole trilogy. And damned if it wasn't totally rewarding. The 42nd Parallel was the most enjoyable of the three to read, with its long, almost proto-beat travel passages and its sense of boundless optimism for the working class in America. As the characters become more and more complex and their actions become more and more intertwined over the course of the trilogy, you find yourself totally sucked into their world. Highlight moment: the end of the second novel, 1919... that shit's amazing.
June 29, 2009
I don't understand why everyone is still looking for the Great American Novel. It was written by John Dos Passos back in the '30s. Ok, its actually three novels bound together as a trilogy, but more's the luck. It you have ever wanted to go back in time and stand in the middle of America during the first part of the 20th century while everything happened around you, now's your chance. And be sure to have music by George Gershwin playing in the background. I like this book so much I own two copies; one that I've worn out and one that I haven't.
September 8, 2013
U.S.A. is the slice of a continent. U.S.A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out and written in by a Western Union boy on a blackboard, a public-library full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U.S.A. is the world's greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U.S.A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U.S.A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U.S.A. is the letters at the end of an address when you are away from home. But mostly U.S.A. is the speech of the people.You won't find a single straight story here, although there are some threads that run through the whole work. If you're looking for a simple "Once upon a time..." that speeds without swerving all the way through to "...happily ever after," then look elsewhere. All is chaos and rumble in —voices leaking through from a spinning radio dial; newsreels whose very nouns are dust from our perspective a century along... but brings them all to sweaty, frenetic life in this amazing and enduring book.
—p.3
is actually a ٰDz—its individual volumes are , and —but it has been available as a single edition since the 1930s, and its components really do blend into a nearly seamless whole which is well served by the Library of America edition I read. I will be referring to it in the singular throughout this review.
*
I first became aware of through its imitators... in particular, through 's landmark sf novel , which absorbed, altered and re-emitted its structure in order to portray a dystopian future, and more recently via 's reference to it in his novel . But this is the original, the pure quill; it carries the freshness of discovery and the weight of history.
There are plenty of history-makers, in fact, whose brief biographies grace these pages... take for example this poetic epitaph for Andrew Carnegie:
Andrew Carnegie gave millions for peaceBut like a fictionalized version of 's , focuses mostly on working-class protagonists: ordinary people in modest roles. Dos Passos' camera eye roams like a literary 's, over mechanics and dressmakers, labor activists and drunken aviators, ambitious men and women and those just trying to get by. They have their own voices, these poetically-minded publicity consultants and demure personal assistants. It feels like time travel—You Are There. And much of the power of his prose comes directly from Dos Passos' ear for vernacular—that "speech of the people."
and libraries and scientific institutes and endowments and thrift
whenever he made a billion dollars he endowed an institution to promote universal peace
always
except in time of war.
—p.231
There's a downside to that accurate ear, though. Dos Passos was, to the extent that it's possible to divine his own views from his fiction (always a mug's game), only interested in describing, not condemning, any particular race, religion, gender or orientation—but in so doing, he reproduces not just the cadences of ordinary speech but also its evils. Dos Passos' diversity of voices does not extend to those of African-Americans, Asians and Native Americans, for example, who are rarely if ever heard from directly, and the vilest of pejoratives aimed at these groups and others fall all too easily from the lips of his all-white protagonists. Nevertheless, Dos Passos' own sympathies always seem to lie with the persecuted, not their persecutors.
The role—or perhaps a better word would be "plight"—of women in is similarly problematic, but again that seems to be more a matter of description than prescription. Dos Passos does in fact devote many chapters to strong and memorable women like stenographer Janey Williams, decorator Eveline Hutchins and social activist Mary French... but even so they are largely defined by their relationships to men—sexual, romantic and occasionally even otherwise. Dos Passos writes unflinchingly of seductions ("making love" meant, at the time, not just intercourse but the flirting, persuasion and caresses that lead up to the act) and their aftermath—from pregnancies to gonorrhea. Men and women were as sex-mad in the early 1900s as in any era, of course—but the near-total absence of reliable contraception and of safe ways to terminate an unplanned pregnancy (abortions don't stop being needed just because they're illegal or stigmatized; they just get harder to obtain) made for a huge disparity in the power relationships between sexes.
Dos Passos is also unafraid to explore the underside of American politics, the way groupthink and the pressure of public opinion work to suppress dissent even in a society that supposedly reveres its Bill of Rights. He relays with great sympathy the pacifist and isolationist views of the people who tried to keep the United States out of World War I, and the punishments they received for expressing their unpopular views in the face of the unstoppable drums of war. It's instructive to read this work after experiencing George W. Bush's presidency... despite the manifold and very real inroads on freedom made during the Dubya years, the crackdown on anti-war speech during WWI was even more brutal and draconian.
Dos Passos held a dim view of Adolf Hitler, too—his passing reference to "Handsome Adolf" in The Big Money is clearly sarcastic—long before der Führer's impact on history was clear to most others.
The American Plan; automotive prosperity seeping down from above; it turned out there were strings to it.In economics, too, Dos Passos shows his analytic skills as well as his regard for the underdog. It's hard to imagine now just how incredibly brutal American working-class life was before World War I, but Dos Passos observes and reports with clinical precision on how union activism was suppressed without mercy. Despite repeating clever slurs like "I. Won't. Work," for the most part his perspective remains liberal, even socialist—the Industrial Workers of the World, to give them their proper name, come across as valiant victims fighting a doomed rear-guard action against the owners and managers of the great industrial concerns—steel, oil, coal, rail—who became so wealthy while their workers bled and starved. It's no wonder that talk of a socialist revolution was so serious here before, and after, the distraction of the Great War. does mention, but underplays, the role that concessions from corporate owners, however grudging, and the general rise in prosperity of the U.S., had in defusing the tensions that had seemed so likely to lead to bloody revolution in this country.
—p.809
And, actually, the I.W.W. are .
*
A side note on a possible soundtrack for reading this book: I found that goes down well when mixed with the warm, intimate Americana of Athens, Georgia, band 's 25-year, 5-disc retrospective One Long Hustle. (Why, yes, I do have a personal connection to the band—I used to play bass with a couple of 'em, back in the day, and my name appears within the booklet that's part of this box set.)
Sometimes Dos Passos himself waxes lyrical:
[...]the sky is lined with greenbacksor
the riveters are quiet the trucks of the producers are shoved off onto the marginal avenues
winnings sing from every streetcorner
�"The Camera Eye (46)", p.894
The funeral train arrived in Hollywood on page 23 of the New York Times.
—p.930
*
[...]To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.I think I remember picking up this book once before, long ago, and bouncing off of it without even coming close to finishing. It may be that you need to have a certain perspective, a weight of years or experience, before makes sense. It can be a daunting endeavor at times. It took me a long time to read this volume (and a longer time than usual for me to write this review)—but there's no doubt in my mind that this is a master work, well worth the effort.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "Ulysses"
November 18, 2016
Yow! Too much to say about this - random observations - the depictions of post-WWI US and European strategy around control of oil-producing parts of the globe seems startlingly up-to-date, as does the wrangling of various business tycoons with the recently birthed FDA.
By contrast, the tribulations of anyone who catches a venereal disease in the era before antibiotics, the passing reference to an "icebox" that actually required blocks of ice to keep things cold and so on are interesting period detail. The actual prose style is so 20th century that the narrative often feels much further forward in time than any number of books with which it is contemporaneous.
By contrast, the tribulations of anyone who catches a venereal disease in the era before antibiotics, the passing reference to an "icebox" that actually required blocks of ice to keep things cold and so on are interesting period detail. The actual prose style is so 20th century that the narrative often feels much further forward in time than any number of books with which it is contemporaneous.
September 28, 2011
Astounding! Among the finest books ever written. From this point on I propose that in cartoons, when a character is shown sleepless and reading a characteristically lengthy book, that that book be U.S.A instead of War and Peace.
January 12, 2020
I used to hate studying history. I get it now.
June 7, 2013
The USA Trilogy John Dos Passos (1930-1936) #23
The 42nd Parallel
March 22, 2013
Whoever picked these books for the Modern Library list had a GIANT boner for Marx, communism and the worker’s struggle. I have learned more about the IWW and the Marxist movement and brotherhood than I have ever cared to know. The interesting thing about these books is that they open my eyes to see the history of unified labor (i.e. modern political communism), and understand that the “system� that people bitch about. It seems then, as now, the people that are pro-communism and “united labor� talk and wring their hands about problems of “free speech� and “worker’s rights�, then make poor life decisions that doom them to the “working class�. That, or they are hypothetical academics. Either way, I’m sick of hearing about their ideas that don’t work. You know what gets you ahead in life more than anything else? Personal responsibility, that’s what. The main characters in this book (for the most part) end up bumming around, stealing shit, dropping out of school, knocking up girls, then leaving because they feel trapped by the system. They trap themselves. You can’t have individual freedom without accountability.
1919
April 6, 2013
I found this particular book to be more disjointed than the first. I have read three books during the reading of this and fell asleep reading it (and not even in bed) on four occasions. 1919 focused a bit more on the capitalist aspect (sort of) of one of the main characters, but still relied heavily on the “world revolution� theme so prevalent in the first novel. Another continued theme in this book is that most of the male characters knock up their girlfriends and then either a) force them to get abortions, or b) leave them. Take this particular example from a character that I liked at first, but ends up being just as despicable as almost every other character encountered so far in this book. He is named Richard Savage (all parentheses are mine):
“He thought of Anne Elizabeth (the girl he knocked up) going home alone in a taxicab through the wet streets. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might have spent one of them with Anne Elizabeth. Might write a poem about that and send it to her. And the smell of the little cyclamens. In the café opposite the waiters were turning the chairs upside down and setting them on tables. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might be a waiter in a café turning the chairs upside down.�
What an asshole. What a savage dick. I just ruined your life � maybe I’ll write you a poem about my ambiguous notions that if there were multiple “me’s�, I might do the right things, but if there were multiple “me’s�, I might also be a waiter. By the way, nice fucking flowers.
Just a bit earlier in the book he tells her:
“…it’s no more my fault than it is yours…if you’d taken proper precautions…�
All the protagonists in this book suck.
The Big Money
June 6, 2013
You know what � it has taken me so long to get through this book that it is almost impossible to put it all together in a review. I don’t know if it would have come together anyway. The story line was so weak that this just felt like random essays and Dos Passos trying to tie up loose ends (poorly).
The only interesting part of this whole trilogy happened in this particular installment, and that was the wrapping up of the Charley Anderson story. With a bit more creativity, that might have even redeemed this last book, but it seemed to me that in the end it still somehow managed to fall a bit flat. Then the story jumps right in to a minor character and proceeds to get boring again.
I honestly had to power my way through this book and it was quite a test of patience for me. While the writing style was easy to understand, it seemed like in the Camera Eye and Newsreel snippets that punctured this story Dos Passos tried too hard to be an experimental writer. Instead of adding the intended color to the series, most of the time it bogged down a story that was already mired in literary muck. Yuck, Meh, and further indifference.
3.5
The 42nd Parallel
March 22, 2013
Whoever picked these books for the Modern Library list had a GIANT boner for Marx, communism and the worker’s struggle. I have learned more about the IWW and the Marxist movement and brotherhood than I have ever cared to know. The interesting thing about these books is that they open my eyes to see the history of unified labor (i.e. modern political communism), and understand that the “system� that people bitch about. It seems then, as now, the people that are pro-communism and “united labor� talk and wring their hands about problems of “free speech� and “worker’s rights�, then make poor life decisions that doom them to the “working class�. That, or they are hypothetical academics. Either way, I’m sick of hearing about their ideas that don’t work. You know what gets you ahead in life more than anything else? Personal responsibility, that’s what. The main characters in this book (for the most part) end up bumming around, stealing shit, dropping out of school, knocking up girls, then leaving because they feel trapped by the system. They trap themselves. You can’t have individual freedom without accountability.
1919
April 6, 2013
I found this particular book to be more disjointed than the first. I have read three books during the reading of this and fell asleep reading it (and not even in bed) on four occasions. 1919 focused a bit more on the capitalist aspect (sort of) of one of the main characters, but still relied heavily on the “world revolution� theme so prevalent in the first novel. Another continued theme in this book is that most of the male characters knock up their girlfriends and then either a) force them to get abortions, or b) leave them. Take this particular example from a character that I liked at first, but ends up being just as despicable as almost every other character encountered so far in this book. He is named Richard Savage (all parentheses are mine):
“He thought of Anne Elizabeth (the girl he knocked up) going home alone in a taxicab through the wet streets. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might have spent one of them with Anne Elizabeth. Might write a poem about that and send it to her. And the smell of the little cyclamens. In the café opposite the waiters were turning the chairs upside down and setting them on tables. He wished he had a great many lives so that he might be a waiter in a café turning the chairs upside down.�
What an asshole. What a savage dick. I just ruined your life � maybe I’ll write you a poem about my ambiguous notions that if there were multiple “me’s�, I might do the right things, but if there were multiple “me’s�, I might also be a waiter. By the way, nice fucking flowers.
Just a bit earlier in the book he tells her:
“…it’s no more my fault than it is yours…if you’d taken proper precautions…�
All the protagonists in this book suck.
The Big Money
June 6, 2013
You know what � it has taken me so long to get through this book that it is almost impossible to put it all together in a review. I don’t know if it would have come together anyway. The story line was so weak that this just felt like random essays and Dos Passos trying to tie up loose ends (poorly).
The only interesting part of this whole trilogy happened in this particular installment, and that was the wrapping up of the Charley Anderson story. With a bit more creativity, that might have even redeemed this last book, but it seemed to me that in the end it still somehow managed to fall a bit flat. Then the story jumps right in to a minor character and proceeds to get boring again.
I honestly had to power my way through this book and it was quite a test of patience for me. While the writing style was easy to understand, it seemed like in the Camera Eye and Newsreel snippets that punctured this story Dos Passos tried too hard to be an experimental writer. Instead of adding the intended color to the series, most of the time it bogged down a story that was already mired in literary muck. Yuck, Meh, and further indifference.
3.5
March 24, 2019
This work is a trilogy, written in the 1930's. Three novels originally published separately but essentially follow the intertwined lives of 12 characters from their childhoods in the late 1890's into the early 20th century. Dos Passos gives us a panoramic view of American life from the 1890's through the end of the 1920's. Interspersed between the narrative episodes of his characters there are "Newsreels" (consisting of headlines of contemporary events), "The Camera Eye" (stream of consciousness relaying of impressions of things going on), and little biographical sketches of prominent people of the times - Theodore Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, J.P. Morgan and many others, all of which give flavor and historical context to his characters and their lives. We see them lived out against the background of industrial capitalism, the early labor movements (The IWW - Industrial Workers of the World) with their union organizers and socialist ideology, the entrance of America into World War I, and the Roaring Twenties and the ups and downs of investing in the Stock Market. A lot of time Dos Passos has his characters at lunch or dinner where things happen or are planned. And there is a lot of boozing throughout - the 18th Amendment which brought alcohol prohibition is never explicitly mentioned, but a lot of time is spent in the speakeasies of the 1920's. In the character of Margo Dowling we see the transition from Vaudeville to Hollywood.
All in all, a serious contender for being the Great American Novel.
All in all, a serious contender for being the Great American Novel.
March 11, 2015
This is the Great American Novel Trilogy. Innovative structure even for today (storytelling through vignettes as well as straight narration). Just an incredible, involving, sweeping epic depiction of the U.S. in the 20's (wobblies, Fighting Bob Lafollette, unions, everything and everyone, no joke). From the snapshots and the fragments from various characters' POV emerges a portrait of our country that is unforgettable. This, for me, is a desert island book. I could read it hundreds of times and find fresh delights. Why oh why do we have to read Ethan Frome and Old Man and the Sea in high school for God's sake but not this?! SOOOOOO good.
April 28, 2020
I wavered between 2 and 3 stars for this one. *edit* Initially I decided upon 2 stars but after rethinking I’m adding another. I’ve always known what I liked about the trilogy so I’m not revising my “on the plus side.� It’s been harder for me to grasp what I disliked so I’m altering that final paragraph.
On the plus side- Dos Passos uses some pretty innovative writing techniques. I especially liked the Newsreel segments of the novels which gave fragments of headlines, newspaper stories, and popular songs from the 19 teens and 20s. These really gave a flavor of the National mindset during this time.
However, on the negative side is a crushing cynicism about the American dream and efforts to improve life for the have nots. 1500 pages of cynicism over the course of the trilogy is a LOT of cynicism. *edit* The narrative sections of the novels follow characters who live in the moment, show a slice of American society, leave a taste of extravagance and wastefulness. Rather than feeling the massive sweep that other readers seem to feel, I came to feel that we were offered the same moment, same slice, same drunken wastefulness repetitively. I never felt the successive books of the trilogy were building upon each other or building toward a deeper understanding. Possibly, I’m just not able to enjoy a story where I can’t conceive a trajectory. Mary French was the only character who felt different, felt more relatable, and it is in one of her narratives, late in the third book that I found one quote which hinted at the tissue holding all this together.
It’ll all end in blindness and sudden death. But who cares? Who in hell cares....? Who on the bloody louseinfested globe gives one small microscopic vestigial hoot?
On the plus side- Dos Passos uses some pretty innovative writing techniques. I especially liked the Newsreel segments of the novels which gave fragments of headlines, newspaper stories, and popular songs from the 19 teens and 20s. These really gave a flavor of the National mindset during this time.
However, on the negative side is a crushing cynicism about the American dream and efforts to improve life for the have nots. 1500 pages of cynicism over the course of the trilogy is a LOT of cynicism. *edit* The narrative sections of the novels follow characters who live in the moment, show a slice of American society, leave a taste of extravagance and wastefulness. Rather than feeling the massive sweep that other readers seem to feel, I came to feel that we were offered the same moment, same slice, same drunken wastefulness repetitively. I never felt the successive books of the trilogy were building upon each other or building toward a deeper understanding. Possibly, I’m just not able to enjoy a story where I can’t conceive a trajectory. Mary French was the only character who felt different, felt more relatable, and it is in one of her narratives, late in the third book that I found one quote which hinted at the tissue holding all this together.
It’ll all end in blindness and sudden death. But who cares? Who in hell cares....? Who on the bloody louseinfested globe gives one small microscopic vestigial hoot?
February 19, 2010
I want to appreciate stream of consciousness writing, but I cannot find any artistic merit in it. Thankfully, John Dos Passos restricts that style to certain short sections of The 42nd Parallel, 27 mini-chapters intended to give a broader perspective than those of the expository characters. Perhaps for other readers it serves that purpose. The narrative is also interspersed with 19 “newsreels�, in which he cuts short phrases from the headlines of various contemporary news stories. Unfortunately, for a reader far removed from the time in which these events took place there is rarely enough detail to have more than guess at what is actually happening. I do enjoy the stories of Mac, Janey, J.Ward, Eleanor, and Charley, but even here Dos Passos manages to annoy by being cute with language, inventing his own compound words with no discernible rhyme or reason for their selection. Each of the narratives are interesting in their own right, but while a few of the main characters do have chance encounters there is no overarching plot holding them together. This is almost more like a collection of short stories written to together paint a picture of American life at the beginning of the 20th century than a traditional novel. I cannot say that this is among my favorite reads, but it has shown enough to convince me to give 1919 a try.
...
It was with some trepidation that I followed The 42nd Parallel with the remaining two books in the series. To make the task a bit less onerous, I stopped reading the “Camera Eye� sections entirely and only skimmed through the “Newsreel� chapters. Dos Passos took up a new frustrating habit of inserting paragraph breaks seemingly arbitrarily in the middle of sentences. I am sure there was some poetic purpose behind this, but its effect was to remove any interest I may have had in reading something else “artistic� in the near future. The cast of disparate characters fractured enough over the rest of the series that by the time I reached a chapter about some particular character I had forgotten entirely which of the stories thus far applied to them. As I expected, there was nothing to eventually tie the stories together. Both books end around momentous events � the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, but these cannot be seen as real resolution since most of the characters are involved peripherally or not at all.
I can say a few good things about the books. They have indeed painted a broad picture of life in the United States in the first 30 years of the 20th Century. I learned more about the socialist movements during those times than in any study of history, and have seen more clearly how the transfer from government by/for/of the people to government by/for/of the corporations was already well underway before even my grandparents were born. In the one Camera Eye that I did read carefully after the fact, Dos Passos wonderfully turns around the anti-immigrant sentiment that fueled the Red Scare to note that it was the men who sailed from distant shores to find a land where all men were created equal who were Americans in spirit:
America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul
their hired men sit on the judge’s bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the powerplants
they have built the electricchair and hired the executioner to throw the switch
all right we are two nations
America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out of our people and when they want to they hire the executioner to throw the switch
�
we stand defeated America
(Lack of punctuation, capitalization, and sensible structure preserved in case you somehow find it meaningful.) Now, time to pick up a book from someone who knows how to tell a story.
...
It was with some trepidation that I followed The 42nd Parallel with the remaining two books in the series. To make the task a bit less onerous, I stopped reading the “Camera Eye� sections entirely and only skimmed through the “Newsreel� chapters. Dos Passos took up a new frustrating habit of inserting paragraph breaks seemingly arbitrarily in the middle of sentences. I am sure there was some poetic purpose behind this, but its effect was to remove any interest I may have had in reading something else “artistic� in the near future. The cast of disparate characters fractured enough over the rest of the series that by the time I reached a chapter about some particular character I had forgotten entirely which of the stories thus far applied to them. As I expected, there was nothing to eventually tie the stories together. Both books end around momentous events � the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, but these cannot be seen as real resolution since most of the characters are involved peripherally or not at all.
I can say a few good things about the books. They have indeed painted a broad picture of life in the United States in the first 30 years of the 20th Century. I learned more about the socialist movements during those times than in any study of history, and have seen more clearly how the transfer from government by/for/of the people to government by/for/of the corporations was already well underway before even my grandparents were born. In the one Camera Eye that I did read carefully after the fact, Dos Passos wonderfully turns around the anti-immigrant sentiment that fueled the Red Scare to note that it was the men who sailed from distant shores to find a land where all men were created equal who were Americans in spirit:
America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul
their hired men sit on the judge’s bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the powerplants
they have built the electricchair and hired the executioner to throw the switch
all right we are two nations
America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out of our people and when they want to they hire the executioner to throw the switch
�
we stand defeated America
(Lack of punctuation, capitalization, and sensible structure preserved in case you somehow find it meaningful.) Now, time to pick up a book from someone who knows how to tell a story.
October 3, 2012
Do I contradict myself?was talking about himself, but that quote could be the U.S.A. talking in Dos Passos overwhelming series of books that make up the U.S.A. trilogy. The trilogy is an outstanding document of how life was lived in the early part of the twentieth century up to the Depression. And I mean really how life was lived. Dos Passos attention to period details of how people dress, eat, room, travel, work, love, play and drink, drink and drink is shown in bringing his multitude of characters to life.
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
But it's the contradictions and oppositions that Dos Passos is concerned about. How the new way of modern life is embraced and resisted - sometimes by the same character! How the opposition of labor and capital tears apart the society while nobody sees the big picture (except, perhaps, and, of course, the author). And it's the contradiction that all the main characters are madly on the make, shooting to the next big thing, whether it's money, "revolution", the movies, etc. while yearning for the stability they can't ever seem to get. Physically the perpetual motion machine is impossible, but figuratively, the people in the U.S.A. embody it.
In terms of technique, Dos Passos reminds me of Orson Welles. In fact, the book contains biographies of two of the role models of Citizen Kane - William Randolph Hearst and Samuel Insull. The bravura technique involves four basic types - 1. Following the lives of characters 2. Biographies of eminent or notorious Americans 3. Newsreel snippets of headlines and text of news events and 4. Impressionistic renderings of the memory of the author at various times and places. Together these techniques situate the reader into a front row seat of the 1900's through the 1920's. As I was finishing, I found I wanted more of these books for the times afterwards! But I think I'd find, that while the characters and events have changed, Americans are still restless and still unclear how organized labor and uncompassionate capital need each other.
October 21, 2017
Its portrayal of morally decadent and heartless socialites in some ways out-Hemingway's Hemingway (see "The Sun Also Rises"). But the trilogy is remarkable for the way it synthesizes the major historical themes of the 1920s shortly after the decade ended. Dos Passos is sharply critical of capitalism, but recognizes the power of the economic system, which is now larger than (and feeds upon) individuals. His sympathies lie with the leftist critics, who repeatedly fail to propose a viable alternative to capitalism.
The book is a product of its time regarding race and LGBT issues, although it's worth noting that Dos Passos criticizes characters who end friendships because of racial or religious prejudice. Some of the "Camera Eye" passages, in which Dos Passos employs stream-of-consciousness prose, come across as weak imitations of James Joyce. The reader struggles to keep the many bankers, lawyers, and bureaucrats straight, but I suspect that is Dos Passos's intention, showing how people become faceless agents of capitalism. Despite these reservations, I think "U.S.A." is clearly a masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction, and on a historiographic level it provides genuine insight into the lives of working-class white Americans between 1895 and 1929.
The book is a product of its time regarding race and LGBT issues, although it's worth noting that Dos Passos criticizes characters who end friendships because of racial or religious prejudice. Some of the "Camera Eye" passages, in which Dos Passos employs stream-of-consciousness prose, come across as weak imitations of James Joyce. The reader struggles to keep the many bankers, lawyers, and bureaucrats straight, but I suspect that is Dos Passos's intention, showing how people become faceless agents of capitalism. Despite these reservations, I think "U.S.A." is clearly a masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction, and on a historiographic level it provides genuine insight into the lives of working-class white Americans between 1895 and 1929.
July 19, 2012
I don't generally write reviews for the classics, since I figure that many other people have already done a better job than I could do, and this isn't any exception. However, there has been some discussion of these books' connections with some Rush songs, and I do feel qualified to discuss that shortly.
Most Rush fans will make the connection with the song "The Big Money", but there two other songs whose titles also bear similarities with these books: "The Camera Eye" and "Middletown Dreams". The former is the name of many subsections in all three books, and Middletown is the name of the hometown of Mac, the first character we follow in the trilogy.
However, none of the songs' lyrics really have anything to do with anything in the books, and since all three can easily be common phrases without any relation to the books at all, I would hesitate to call them direct references at all. Neil Peart has said that he's a fan of Dos Passos' writing (this is unsurprising since Peart is a genius and surely recognizes it when he reads it), he has also said that there is no relationship intended.
So, that's pretty boring, but that's how it goes sometimes.
Most Rush fans will make the connection with the song "The Big Money", but there two other songs whose titles also bear similarities with these books: "The Camera Eye" and "Middletown Dreams". The former is the name of many subsections in all three books, and Middletown is the name of the hometown of Mac, the first character we follow in the trilogy.
However, none of the songs' lyrics really have anything to do with anything in the books, and since all three can easily be common phrases without any relation to the books at all, I would hesitate to call them direct references at all. Neil Peart has said that he's a fan of Dos Passos' writing (this is unsurprising since Peart is a genius and surely recognizes it when he reads it), he has also said that there is no relationship intended.
So, that's pretty boring, but that's how it goes sometimes.
November 8, 2015
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Upon finishing the third of the three novels, I could not help but draw parallels between the time in which the books were set (and written,) the early 20th century, and now, the early 21st century. As my 11th grade English teacher noted, "humanity's circumstances will always be different, but the human condition never changes."
I can't say the novels that make up this trilogy are an easy read, nor did I find them particularly enjoyable, but I am glad that I read them. The first and last books are noticeably better than the second, but all three are priceless in their observations and as a refresher on early 20th century history.
It was, for me, particularly interesting to note that the passions and idealism of youth tend to be pretty much now what they were then. Also, the Newsreel sections reminded me that, while I often believe our society is going to hell in a hand-basket, so too did anyone reading the headlines in the early 20th century, and for mostly the same reasons.
I can't say the novels that make up this trilogy are an easy read, nor did I find them particularly enjoyable, but I am glad that I read them. The first and last books are noticeably better than the second, but all three are priceless in their observations and as a refresher on early 20th century history.
It was, for me, particularly interesting to note that the passions and idealism of youth tend to be pretty much now what they were then. Also, the Newsreel sections reminded me that, while I often believe our society is going to hell in a hand-basket, so too did anyone reading the headlines in the early 20th century, and for mostly the same reasons.
April 9, 2014
Frantic and tedious, didactic and oversimplified, and always faintly artificial, like the characters are not real people, but instead a creaky bunch of marionettes held by a very old man with arthritis.
In the book there were many characters with different classbackgrounds and various uncontrollable sexualneeds. They dealt with the classtruggle in a way that was at times highlydramatic but also highly predictable. Everyone drank a lot and had sex a lot and the good characters came to realize that capitalism was destructive and evil, while the evil characters became monsters and just died horribly or else got richer and richer while talking about democracyandfreeenterprise.
All the female characters who aren't whores are ice-cold social climbers who live to tease tease tease regular joes who can't get a nickel or a squaredeal from the fat fat fat cigarsmoking bosses who just keep on getting richer richer richer.
In the book there were many characters with different classbackgrounds and various uncontrollable sexualneeds. They dealt with the classtruggle in a way that was at times highlydramatic but also highly predictable. Everyone drank a lot and had sex a lot and the good characters came to realize that capitalism was destructive and evil, while the evil characters became monsters and just died horribly or else got richer and richer while talking about democracyandfreeenterprise.
All the female characters who aren't whores are ice-cold social climbers who live to tease tease tease regular joes who can't get a nickel or a squaredeal from the fat fat fat cigarsmoking bosses who just keep on getting richer richer richer.
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