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Carol Storm's Reviews > U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money
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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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Finished Reading
April 9, 2014
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Brilliant reply, Christopher! I'm so glad you were inspired by my review to join Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, it is a truly fantastic site and I have learned so much from fellow authors and reviewers. Now that I think about it, you are absolutely right. Eveline, Janey, Mary French, and Daughter are all inspiring and likeable characters. I only wish I could move readers as powerfully with my stories as Dos Passos has done for generations!
If you'd actually read the book, as opposed to skimming it like a menu, you'd have zero grounds for writing that "All the female characters who aren't whores are ice-cold social climbers" because it simply isn't true. Dos Passos was a great writer of women - far and above his male contemporaries (you could certainly say what you said about Fitzgerald or Hemingway).
With the exception of Eleanor, who IS a cold-hearted and unlikeable social climber, every other key female character (six of them in all, just like the male characters) is fully drawn, three-dimensional, maddening, loveable, fascinating and odd.
Janey, a young, serious, single steno from DC (i.e. not a whore or social climber); Eveline, a thoughtful, sensitive, modern-minded but directionless artist (i.e. not a whore or social climber); Daughter, a lively Southern belle and adventuress (albeit racist) who goes to serve as a WW1 nurse, despite having never left Texas before and aged only 18 (i.e. not a whore or social climber); Mary French, anarchist, socialist, agitator, idealist, labour organiser and journalist (i.e. not a whore or social climber) and Margo Dowling, a gal from nowhere who becomes a streetwise showgirl and silent movie star (i.e. not a whore or social climber).
Sure, there are other female characters who are whores and bores, but there are incidental male characters who fit both descriptions too (look at Margo's husband - a male prostitute, thief and neurotic wreck) It just seems to me like you were latching onto trite criticisms in order to fill out your reasons for not liking the book.