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This book is really one of the best American novels. Its style is unique. You will not "read" this book, but you are going to smell New York, hear New York, see New York, walk around Manhattan on your own sore feet. It is also a fascinating work because different stories run in parallel in it. It may take you a while to find your way through the book, but then, it will give you a panoramic impression about NY at Dos Passos' time. This book is also a somewhat sceptical, even resigned or pessimistic book. Certainly, it reflects some of Dos Passos' own experiences, and life is not always happy-ended. Don't blame that on the book. This book is inimitable. Even Dos Passos himself did not succeed to create another work which is as uniform in style, compelling, impressive and impressionistic as this one. The USA trilogy is far more diconnected, harder to read, and the unique stlye of Manhattan Transfer turns into mere mannerism in the later trilogy. However, in "Manhattan Transfer", everything is perfectly at balance, the style fits the objective perfectly, and there is no arbitrariness. Be patient when reading this book. It does not "tell a story" in straightforward way, so the fun of reading this book is not following a well-knit plot, but the fun lies rather in the process of reading itself, enjoying the style, cherishing every single line. A must read.
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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Within the first few pages, it becomes apparent quickly that Manhattan Transfer is not a traditional novel. Dos Passos presents a collage of New York City in the 1920's that even 75 years later describes well the modern city. His technique of jumping from character to character as they interact with each other within the city as some succeed and others fail provides a bleak, yet at the same time oddly wonderful reading. His injection of newspaper ads, songs, and advertisements captures so well the bustle of large cities. I can only wonder why he is often left out of the "canon" of American Modernists. It does take adjustment to read Manhattan Transfer, but you will be more than rewarded for your efforts.
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Manhattan Transfer is a subway ride through New York - both across its geographic landscape - a burgeoning metropolis, the heart of the American economy; but also, slums, dark alleys and industrial wasteland. Likewise it is a ride across the ethnic and social landscape - self-made men, fatcats, bored bourgeois bohemians and anarchists, destitute immigrants, ambitious chorus girls, and washed up stock brokers. Dos Passsos's book is like a running paragraph that only briefly stops to take us from one sub-scape to another - his voyeuristic way of relating the social current of WWI and 1920's New York to the everyday lives of people, many of whom are caught up in that current. Dos Passos does not quite uncover any new ground or dig deep into any one point - he covers a lot of ground - there is a sense of equilibrium one gets from reading his prose. Just a few just-below the surface issues he tackles are the budding concerns of untested feminism, the moral puritanism of the Prohibition; less oblique are the issues of unfettered capitalism. Indisputably, Dos Passos's ability to weave in and out of lives while weaving the tapestry of an exciting period in NY and America is admirable. Still, there is an aloofness in a book whose characters are less important to the story than the social forces that encompass them. With no one to anchor the story (despite some possible tenable arguments for the recurring characters), the story just keeps floating along. It doesn't have to end after 400 pages, it can run on ad infinitum.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
The prose style presented in Manhattan Transfer is fresh and unorthodox, two characteristics that all great literature must contain. The narrator of the novel is an eavesdropper who chooses his subjects at will. You are able to spend three pages with a subject, then not hear from the subject until scores of pages later, if at all. Manhattan Transfer serves as a history book, but not the standard type. You actually get to feel, hear, taste and smell what it was like to be in NYC during the early half of the 20th century. Most history books cite landmark events, but Manhattan Transfer records the life of the people living rather than the events the people were involved in. John Dos Passos is one of the most overlooked, underappreciated American writers of the 20th century. I highly recommend this book to everyone. You must visit NYC to fully appreciate the book, though.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Manhattan Transfer presents the good, the bad and the ugly side of life in New York. Money seems to be the driving force behind everybody's lives and love is hard to come by. However, even the failure to realise one's goals does not deter one from hanging on in New York, as Bud does. It is, after all, the 'center of things.' It is in the end Jimmy, who emerges as the man who dares to rebel aganst the 'getting and spending' life that the city promises. The various vignettes that Dos Passos offers somehow tie up, as they all have common concerns, concerns that centre around the great American Dream. What Dos Passos really wants to reveal is the hollowness of this dream.
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